12 Chinese Idioms From Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Epic Chinese idioms from the Three Kingdoms era - tales of brotherhood, strategy, and legendary heroes.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms is one of the greatest sources of Chinese idioms. These expressions from the era of Zhuge Liang, Guan Yu, and Cao Cao have shaped Chinese culture for centuries.
百折不挠
bǎi zhé bù náoUnshakeable despite adversity
Literal: Broken a hundred times, never bending
Cai Yong wrote it on Qiao Xuan's memorial stele: his nature was grave, he disliked show and held to the plain, and he had the bearing of a man who could be broken (折) a hundred (百) times and would not (不) bend (挠), who faced a crisis and could not be moved from his ground. 折 is setbacks rather than ...
Example
Despite numerous rejections, she never gave up on her dreams
尽管屡次被拒绝，她从未放弃梦想
破釜沉舟
pò fǔ chén zhōuCommit with no retreat
Literal: Break pots sink boats
In 207 BCE Xiang Yu took his army across the river to relieve Julu, and then had the boats (舟) sunk (沉) and the cooking pots (釜) smashed (破), keeping three days' rations and nothing else. The Records of the Grand Historian is explicit that this was done to show the troops they would die rather than ...
Example
He quit his job to start a business, fully committed to success
他辞去工作创业，全身心投入追求成功
狐假虎威
hú jiǎ hǔ wēiBorrow authority to intimidate
Literal: Fox uses tiger's power
A tiger caught a fox, and the fox said heaven had made it lord of the beasts, so eating it would be defying heaven — walk behind me and see whether anything dares stand its ground. The tiger followed, the animals fled, and the tiger concluded the fox had been telling the truth. The Strategies of the...
Example
The junior manager kept dropping the CEO's name to get his way
这个初级经理总是搬出CEO的名字来达到目的
运筹帷幄
yùn chóu wéi wòPlan strategy carefully
Literal: Work the counting rods in the command tent
Liu Bang, asked why he had won the empire when Xiang Yu was the better soldier, named three men he could not equal. Of Zhang Liang he said: 运筹帷幄之中，决胜千里之外 — turning the counting rods inside the tent curtains (帷幄), he decides victory a thousand li away. The Records of the Grand Historian keeps the spe...
Example
The CEO quietly developed the company's expansion strategy
首席执行官在幕后静静地制定公司的扩张战略
深谋远虑
shēn móu yuǎn lǜPlan far ahead
Literal: Deep plan far thought
Jia Yi uses it in his essay on the faults of Qin, contrasting the rebel Chen She with the men of the earlier age: he had not their deep (深) planning (谋) or their far (远) reckoning (虑), and yet the empire fell to him. The pairing sets two dimensions against each other, depth and distance, and Chinese...
Example
The policy makers considered implications decades into the future
政策制定者考虑了几十年后的影响
三人成虎
sān rén chéng hǔRepeated lie becomes truth
Literal: Three people make tiger real
Pang Cong, about to leave Wei escorting a hostage prince to Handan, asked his king whether he would believe a man who reported a tiger (虎) in the marketplace. No. Two men? He would wonder. Three (三) men (人)? The king said he would believe it. There is no tiger in the marketplace, Pang Cong said, and...
Example
The untrue rumor about a product defect spread on social media until customers started believing it without evidence
关于产品缺陷的不实传言在社交媒体上传播，直到顾客开始在没有证据的情况下相信它
步步为营
bù bù wéi yíngAdvance methodically with caution
Literal: Each step make camp
At every step (步步) making (为) a camp (营). The phrase belongs to the vocabulary of vernacular military fiction rather than to any surviving manual, and it describes a specific and slow method: advance a short distance, fortify, secure the supply line behind you, and only then advance again. Its point...
Example
The company expanded cautiously, securing each market before moving to the next
公司谨慎扩张，在进军下一个市场前先稳固每一个市场
暗度陈仓
àn dù chén cāngAchieve secretly through misdirection
Literal: Secretly cross Chencang
Shut into Hanzhong in 206 BCE, Liu Bang took Han Xin's plan and came back out 从故道, by the old road, to fall on Zhang Han at Chencang. That is all the Records of the Grand Historian says. The decoy everyone knows — men set to conspicuously rebuilding the burnt plank roads while the army went another ...
Example
The company quietly developed the technology while competitors focused elsewhere
当竞争对手将注意力集中在其他地方时，该公司悄悄地开发了这项技术
釜底抽薪
fǔ dǐ chōu xīnEliminate root cause of problem
Literal: Remove firewood under pot
To draw out (抽) the firewood (薪) from under (底) the cauldron (釜). The nineteenth of the Thirty-Six Stratagems states the logic: you cannot meet the boiling water, so remove the fire instead. The distinction it draws is between the symptom and its supply, and the phrase always implies that direct eng...
Example
The new policy addressed the root causes rather than just treating symptoms
新政策解决了根本原因，而不仅仅是治标不治本
鹬蚌相争
yù bàng xiāng zhēngMutual conflict benefits third party
Literal: Snipe clam mutual fight
A snipe stabbed at the flesh of an open clam and the shell closed on its beak. Neither would let go: no rain today or tomorrow, said the bird, and you are a dead clam; no release today or tomorrow, said the clam, and you are a dead bird. A fisherman walking the bank took both. Su Dai told the story ...
Example
While the two companies were locked in legal battles, a third competitor captured their market share
当这两家公司陷入法律战时，第三个竞争对手占领了他们的市场份额
针锋相对
zhēn fēng xiāng duìSharp, direct confrontation in argument
Literal: Needle points facing each other
Needle point (针锋) meeting needle point (相对). The expression comes out of Chan Buddhist dialogue, where the exchange of question and answer was described in exactly these terms — two points meeting precisely, with nothing wasted on either side. That origin explains its flavour. It describes oppositio...
Example
During the debate, each candidate responded with immediate sharp counterarguments
辩论中，每位候选人都以即时尖锐的反驳作为回应
不可思议
bù kě sī yìBeyond comprehension or explanation
Literal: Cannot be thought discussed
Not (不) able to be (可) thought (思) or spoken (议). The phrase is Buddhist and technical in origin, describing what lies beyond the reach of conceptual thought and language — the standard Chinese rendering of the Sanskrit acintya. That is a strong claim, and ordinary use has worn it down considerably:...
Example
The quantum phenomenon defied all conventional understanding of physics
这种量子现象违背了对物理学的所有常规理解
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