02．艸【艹】部 grass
草straw船boat借borrow箭arrows
草船借箭is from a story from the Chinese novel The Three Kingdoms. Cao Cao曹操—Prime minister of the Wei State魏, commanded his army to conquer the rival state of Wu吴. At that time, General Zhou Yu周瑜, Military Councilor Zhuge Liang诸葛亮, and State Chancellor Lu Su鲁肃 all worked for Sun Quan孙权, the King of Wu吴. They needed to work together to defeat Cao Cao’s army.
Zhou Yu envied Zhuge Liang’s outstanding abilities and wisdom. So he decided to set Zhuge Liang up to fail. He ordered Zhuge to prepare 100 thousand arrows within three days for his army. Zhou Yu knew it was impossible to produce that many arrows in just three days. If Zhuge could not get the arrows ready, then Zhou Yu could blame him for ruining their chances of winning the battle. In order to ensure Zhuge would fail, he also informed the military carpenters not to provide enough materials for making arrows. To witness Zhuge’s failure, Zhou Yu sent Lu Su to help Zhuge. Zhuge was happy to accept Lu Su’s help. Together they prepared twenty big boats, and outfitted each with two rows of scarecrows.
Early in the morning of the third day, Zhuge invited Lu to join him in collecting 100 thousand arrows. Lu was very puzzled but accompanied Zhuge to the riverside. It was very foggy that morning. Zhuge asked his soldiers to sail the twenty boats toward the north bank of the river where Cao Cao’s army was encamped. When the boats were close to Cao’s military fort, Zhuge ordered his soldiers to shout loudly and beat their drums as if they were going to attack Cao’s army. Due to the fog, Cao Cao could not tell these scarecrows were not real soldiers. Deceived, he ordered his archers to shoot at the enemy boats. After a while, the fog began to fade, so Zhuge ordered his men to sail the boats back to the south bank.
When the boats returned they found more than 100 thousand arrows in the scarecrows. When Lu Su reported the whole story to Zhou Yu, Zhou Yu recognized that Zhuge was a brilliant strategist and accepted that he could never compete with him.
【注音】cǎo chuán jiè jiàn
【解释】运用智谋，凭借他人的人力或财力来达到自己的目的。
【出处】《草船借箭》是三国赤壁之战里的著名桥段，借箭由周瑜故意提出(限十天造十万支箭)，机智的诸葛亮一眼识破是一条害人之计，却淡定表示“只需要三天”。后来，有大雾天帮忙，诸葛亮再利用曹操多疑的性格，调了几条草船诱敌，终于借足十万支箭，立下奇功。
