釋氏稽古略 4.35

4.35

The Emperor ordered Cao Bin along with Pan Mei and Cao Han to campaign against Jiangnan (the Southern Tang). In the eleventh month, they crossed the river with the troops. Bin had once personally received the imperial instruction not to kill people. In the winter of the following year, when the assault was nearly won, Bin claimed illness and did not inspect the troops. Pan Mei led the generals to visit him. Bin said, 'My illness cannot be cured by medicines or stones; it requires you gentlemen to swear a mutual oath: if upon breaching the city there is no killing, I will naturally recover.' The generals agreed, and together they burned incense to swear the oath. On that day they took Jinling (Jiankang). The Li clan surrendered. Order was maintained in the city. Bin attained the rank of Commissioner-Chancellor. Both father and son were granted sacrificial companionship in the imperial ancestral temple, enjoying noble prosperity for successive generations. This was truly the karmic retribution of not killing (Li Tao's Changbian, biography of Cao Bin in the Dongdu [shilüe]).