poor , but never sway(bù shí zhōu sù)

poor , but never sway

Not eating zhousu, a Chinese idiom, Pinyin is B ù sh í zh ō us ù, which means that Boyi and Shuqi died without eating zhousu after the death of Shang Dynasty. It means being loyal and firm and not working for the enemy because of the difficulty of livelihood. It comes from biographies of Boyi in historical records.

Idiom explanation

Millet: millet, generally refers to grain. This refers to Boyi and Shuqi who died after Shang Dynasty. It means being loyal and firm and not working for the enemy because of the difficulty of livelihood.

The origin of Idioms

According to the biography of Boyi in historical records, "King Wu has calmed down the chaos of Yin Dynasty, and the whole world is under the rule of Zhou Dynasty. Boyi and Shuqi are ashamed of it. They are righteous and don't eat millet. They hide in Shouyang mountain and eat it by picking Wei." 　

Idioms and allusions

At the end of the Shang Dynasty, the king of Guzhu Kingdom, located in the east of Hebei Province, had two sons, the elder Boyi and the younger Shuqi. The king of Guzhu liked his youngest son Shuqi. Before he died, he made a will to let Shuqi take over. After his father died, Shuqi did not want to violate the rule of making his eldest son king, and insisted on giving way to his brother. In order to make his younger brother settle down to be king, Boyi secretly ran away from home. After his brother left, Shuqi also left the palace, looking for his brother everywhere. After their reunion, they decided not to return to Guzhu. it was said that Xi BoChang (King Wen of Zhou) was more respectful to the elderly, so the two brothers went to work together and settled down there. After King Wen died, King Wu succeeded to the throne. After succeeding to the throne, King Wu expanded his forces and prepared to attack Shang Zhou. When the army of the Zhou Dynasty marched into today's Mengjin area, Boyi Shuqi saw the opportunity to run up, detained his horse and admonished him, believing that King Wu of the Zhou Dynasty was not filial and benevolent. King Wu's officers and men were very angry after hearing this. They pulled out their swords to kill them. Fortunately, they were stopped by Jiang Taigong. Jiang Taigong said: "these are two moral people." And asked the soldiers not to embarrass them. King Wu succeeded in conquering Zhou and unified the whole world into Zhou. Boyi and Shuqi thought it was a shameful thing. They were determined not to be Zhou officials and eat Zhou millet. The two brothers left the ruling area of the Zhou Dynasty and lived in seclusion in a place called Shouyang mountain. They collected Osmunda from the mountain to satisfy their hunger. A woman saw them and said, "you don't eat the grain of the Zhou Dynasty, but the wild vegetables you are picking are also grown on the land of the Zhou Dynasty." When they heard this, they thought that every plant and tree in the world belonged to the Zhou Dynasty. They decided to go on a hunger strike and wait for death. On their deathbed, they also sang a song, which said, "use tyranny instead of tyranny. I don't know that it's your fault. The heyday of Shennong, Yushun and Xiayu has suddenly disappeared. Where is our destination? "

The meaning of Idioms

Boyi and Shuqi, in order to stick to their position, preferred to starve to death rather than eat the grain of the Zhou Dynasty, and finally starved to death on Shouyang mountain. Boyi and Shuqi's spirit of adhering to principles is worth learning, but in real life, we should not only have integrity, but also appropriately master flexible skills and distinguish priorities.

Idiom usage

With commendatory meaning. It refers to the first section of innocence, generally in verb object form, as predicate and attribute. In Sima Qian's biography of Boyi in historical records, volume 61, the Western Han Dynasty: "King Wu has calmed down the chaos of yin and Zhou Dynasty, but Boyi and Shuqi are ashamed of it, and they do not eat zhousu; they hide in Shouyang mountain, and eat Wei." Lao She's four generations together: "he knows that Peiping, occupied by the Japanese, has no place for him to do things. If he does not have enough to eat, he will not have enough." Lu Xun's new stories: Caiwei: it's a remnant meal from the road, because they once agreed not to eat millet, so they had to implement it after entering Shouyang mountain.

Chinese PinYin : bù shí zhōu sù