直捣黄龙

Pronunciation: zhí dǎo huáng lóng Literal meaning: Drive straight to Huanglong

Origin & Usage

The History of Song records Yue Fei telling his officers 直抵黄龙府，与诸君痛饮尔 — we will reach Huanglong Prefecture (黄龙) and drink together there. The modern form swaps 抵, to arrive at, for 捣, to smash into, and comes from the later Yue Fei fiction rather than from the history. Huanglong lay far to the northeast, deep in Jurchen Jin territory, and not at Kaifeng, which had been the Song's own capital before its loss — so naming it meant carrying the war into the enemy's heartland rather than merely recovering what had been taken. Yue Fei was recalled and executed before he could try. Striking at the source of a problem rather than at its symptoms.

Examples

English: "The military campaign bypassed smaller targets to strike directly at the enemy's capital"

Chinese: 军事行动绕过较小的目标，直接打击敌人的首都