Chariots rumble, horses neigh,
Passing conscripts have bows and arrows at their waists.
Parents, wives, children run to see them off,
Dust obscures the Xianyang Bridge.
They clutch clothes, stamp feet, block the road and weep,
Wails soaring straight up to the clouds.
A passerby asks a conscript,
He only says conscription happens too often.
Some went north to guard the river at fifteen,
Only to till army fields in the west at forty.
When they left, the village head wrapped their turbans;
They return white-haired, yet sent back to garrison the frontier.
Frontier outposts bleed into a sea of blood,
Yet the Martial Emperor's desire to expand borders remains unquenched.
Have you not heard of the two hundred prefectures east of the mountains,
Where thousands of villages grow thorns and brambles?
Even if sturdy women wield hoes and plows,
Crops grow wild in the fields, without rows.
Moreover, Qin soldiers endure bitter battles,
Driven forth no differently than dogs or chickens.
Though you, elder, ask,
How dare a conscript voice his hatred?
Take this winter, for instance:
Conscripts from west of the pass are not yet released.
Officials urgently demand taxes,
But from where will the rent and taxes come?
Now I truly know it's bad to bear sons,
Better instead to bear daughters.
A daughter can still marry a neighbor,
A son will be buried and lost among the weeds.
Have you not seen the shores of Kokonor,
Where since ancient times white bones lie uncollected?
New ghosts complain bitterly, old ghosts weep,
Under gloomy sky and wet rain, their voices chirp and moan.