嗚呼！盛衰之理，雖曰天命，豈非人事哉！原莊宗之所以得天下，與其所以失之者，可以知之矣。

Alas!  The waxes and wanes of dysnasties are predestined, yet human plays a crucial factor in there!  I could testify this rule from the story that how Emperor Zhuang of Tang(the name borrowed from former Tang Dynasty) took the throne, and how did he finally lose it.   

世言晉王之將終也，以三矢賜莊宗而告之曰：“梁，吾仇也；燕王，吾所立；契丹與吾約為兄弟；而皆背晉以歸梁。此三者，吾遺恨也。與爾三矢，爾其無忘乃父之志！”莊宗受而藏之于廟。其后用兵，則遣從事以一少牢告廟，請其矢，盛以錦囊，負而前驅，及凱旋而納之。

Reputedly, when King of Jin was on his deathbed, he gave three arrows to Zhuang and exhorted him not to forget three things, "Liang has been our long-time feud; King of Yan was set up by me, and Qidan used to my blood brother, but those two all had betrayed me to seek help from Liang.  The trio of these guys are my griefs.  Now I give you three arrows, and I hope you will never forget your fathers last wishes!"  Zhuang accepted the arrows and squirreled them away in the ancestral temple.  Henceforth whenever he waged a war, he would order the officials in charge to kill a hog and a goat apiece as the tribute to his ancestors, then took the arrows out of the temple reverently, putting them into a brocade bag.  He commanded a vanguard carrying the bag to pave the way for the army until he won the war and returned the arrows to the temple.   

方其系燕父子以組，函梁君臣之首，入于太廟，還矢先王，而告以成功，其意氣之盛，可謂壯哉！及仇讎已滅，天下已定，一夫夜呼，亂者四應，倉皇東出，未及見賊而士卒離散，君臣相顧，不知所歸。至于誓天斷發，泣下沾襟，何其衰也！豈得之難而失之易歟？抑本其成敗之跡，而皆自于人歟？

When tying King of Yan and his son with lopes, bringing back the skulls of beheaded Liang and his men in wood cases, entering into the temple, returning the arrows to his father and claiming the task had been successfully done, Zhuang then gloated himself proudly over his great triumph.  What a pomp it was!  Now his sworn enemies had been annihilated, the whole country under his control, but an uprising incited by only one man at night ended up to a widespread riot.  In a hurry-scurry, Zhuang led his armies to march eastwards, but not until he beheld any insurgents the armies were rapidly disintegrated.  In forlorn hope, Zhuang and his subjects looked at each other, being totally at a loss where and how to launch forward their next steps.  At last, Zhuang had to condescended himself by cutting off his hair, taking an oath to Heaven, holding his head and cried.  What a pathetic trap he was in!  Is it harder to gain the world while easier to lose it, or just the sign of success and failure is all attributable to the acts out of human nature?       

《書》曰：“滿招損，謙得益。”憂勞可以興國，逸豫可以亡身，自然之理也。故方其盛也，舉天下之豪杰，莫能與之爭；及其衰也，數十伶人困之，而身死國滅，為天下笑。夫禍患常積于忽微，而智勇多困于所溺，豈獨伶人也哉！作《伶官傳》。

Book of Shang said, "Being self-complacent attracts harm; being self-effacing attracts benefit."  Anxiety and hardship make prosperity wheras leisure and comfort bring destruction, and that is an axiom.  When in his heyday, no heros all over the country could compete with him; when in decline, he was surrounded by several scores of court jesters and couldnt get out of it until he died and his empire perished, and he then became a worldwide laughing stock.  Calamities are often found in the accumulation of trivial details, whereas the intelligent and the brave are often trapped in a life of indulgence.  Court jesters are not the only ones to blame!  Hereby, I am writing this "Biographies of the jesters".