神僧傳 4.19

4.19

As for Master Tong, his clan and lineage are not known. He had no fixed dwelling, and his words were mad and erratic, yet they never failed to come true. He drank wine, ate meat, and wandered among the people. Hou Jing placed great faith in him. Before Yangzhou fell, Tong collected countless dead fish heads and piled them outside the Ximing Gate, and also uprooted green grass and brambles to plant them in the market wards. When Hou Jing crossed the Yangtze River, he first slaughtered the entire city of the Eastern Headquarters, killing everyone, and placed their heads outside the Ximing Gate to make a skull tower (jingguan); the court and markets collapsed, and wherever one looked was desolation. Master Tong spoke of gains and losses in ways disadvantageous to Jing. Jing resented him, but feared he was no ordinary man and dared not harm him. Secretly he dispatched the minor general Yu Ziyue with four warriors to visit him. Jing told Ziyue, "If he knows of the killing, do not harm him; if he does not know, seize him in secret." Ziyue stationed the four men outside the gate, and entered alone to find Tong stripping off his clothes to roast by the fire. Anticipating him, Tong said to Ziyue, "You come to kill me? What kind of man am I, that you dare rashly kill me?" Ziyue bowed down, saying he dared not. Thereupon he galloped back to report to Jing. Jing bowed and apologized to him, and in the end dared not harm him. Later, Jing summoned Tong on the occasion of a feast. Tong took meat, dipped it in salt, and offered it to Jing, asking, "Is it good?" Jing said, "Too salty." Tong said, "If not salty, then it rots." A few days after Jing died, the multitude placed five shi of salt in his belly and sent his corpse to Jiankang; in the market, the common people fought to butcher, slice, make broth of, and eat it all up. Thereafter, it was never known where Tong went.