an incompetent man clinging to a good position(nú mǎ liàn zhàn)

an incompetent man clinging to a good position

The Chinese idiom, n ú m à Li à nzh à n in pinyin, means that a bad horse only cares about the fodder in the stable. It refers to the incompetent people who only want to be comfortable and have no ambition. From the book of Jin, Xuandi Ji.

Idioms and allusions

origin

Volume 9 of the annals of the Three Kingdoms (Wei Shu, biography of Cao Zhen, he Yan, Deng Yang, Ding MI, Bi Ji, Li Shenghuan fan) to 287 to the Southern Song Dynasty (Song Dynasty), Pei Songzhi quoted Gan Bao's Jin Shu as saying: Huan fan went to Shuang, xuanwang said Jiang Ji said: "think tank is gone. Ji said, "fan Zezhi is a wise man. If a horse loves a bean, you can't use it. From July to July of the first year of Jiaping, the emperor visited Gaoping mausoleum, and Shuang brothers followed. It's the sun and the moon. The emperor then played Yongning empress dowager to abolish Shuang brothers. At that time, Emperor Jing served as the central guard and stationed his troops in simamen. Under the imperial array que, through the shuangmen. Sun Qian said, "I don't know. "Three notes and three stops all lead to the elbow not to hair. The great Si Nong Huan fan went out to Shuang, and Jiang Jiyan said to the emperor, "think tanks are going. "The emperor said:" Shuang and fannei are not as good as wisdom. If a horse loves a bean, it can't be used. 」

Source translation

In the first month of 249 A.D., Sima Yi pretended to be ill and cheated Cao Shuang. Cao Shuang boldly took his party members with him and went to worship Gaoping Mausoleum (at the foot of Baling mountain in the north of Ruyang County, western Henan Province) with Cao Fang, the Wei emperor. As soon as he was out of the city, Sima Yi, who seemed to be dying of illness, jumped out of his bed and issued a series of orders in a lively way, taking control of Luoyang, the capital. Si Nong Huan fan, who is regarded as Cao Shuang's party, is a very resourceful man, but Cao Shuang is friendly to him on the face, but alienated from him on the heart. At this time, he saw that the capital had changed. Thinking that the emperor was still outside, he escaped from the city by the emperor's will. As soon as he got the report, Jiang Ji, the leading general of Sima Yi's party, said to him, "the think tank has gone!" Sima Yi said: "Cao Shuang is alienated from Huan fan in his heart, but his intelligence is not up to Huan fan's level. He will not listen to Huan fan's stratagem if he is a bad horse and loves beans."

The origin of Idioms

"Xuandi Ji in the book of Jin:" Shuang and fannei are not as good as wisdom. If a horse loves beans, it must not be used. "

Idiom usage

Example: Chapter 38 of the popular romance of the Republic of China written by Cai Dongfan and Xu Xun's father: "you can't make corrections, and you can't bear to leave. You have to look down on the Shaochuan generation of Tang Dynasty." Lu You of the Song Dynasty wrote the poem "tishebi": "do you still hate the nag's love for the inn, but are you willing to envy the crane for riding?" "In the 16th year, most of the world's instructors were in a coma, and they fell in love with the inn "I'm going to tell you more about it." The seventh chapter of Lao Can's Travels: "this man has been recommended to gedusi, and his military affairs have gradually leveled off. He has no intention of staying at the inn, so he went back to his hometown and planted a few mu of land to live on." "When it's time to abdicate, I'll never" love the stack. "

Chinese PinYin : nú mǎ liàn zhàn