with twisted roots and gnarled branches(pán gēn cuò jié)

with twisted roots and gnarled branches

Chinese idioms, Pinyin is p á ng ē NCU ò Ji é. Disk: circled; wrong: staggered. It means that the roots are coiled and the branches are crisscrossed. It means that things are complicated and tangled. It comes from the biography of Yu Xu in the later Han Dynasty.

Idiom usage

It refers to complicated things

Idiom story

In the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was a man named Yu Xu. He was an orphan since childhood and was raised by his grandmother. In order to repay his grandmother's upbringing, he served her until she died at the age of 90, and then he was hired by Li Xiu to serve in his mansion. At this time, the Western Qiang and Xiongnu suddenly invaded, and Bingzhou in the north and Liangzhou in the West were seriously threatened at the same time. Deng Fu, the great general, thought that it was better to concentrate on defending Bingzhou and abandon Liangzhou than to garrison in two places and disperse strength. Many ministers in the imperial court echoed Deng's opinion. Only Yu Xu excluded the public opinion, and he put forward his own opinion to Li Xiu: "the people of Liangzhou are not only familiar with military affairs, but also brave and good at fighting. The reason why the Western Qiang people dare not invade Guanzhong is because they are afraid of the people of Liangzhou. The people of Liangzhou always think that they are part of the Great Han Dynasty, so they sacrifice everything to defend the country. If we abandon Liangzhou according to general Deng's opinion today, I'm afraid it will only do harm to the whole situation but not good. " After hearing Yu Xu's opinion, Deng believes that Yu Xu is deliberately against himself and holds a grudge against him. He always wants to find a chance to retaliate. Not long after that, there was a popular uprising in Chaoge, and the common people were armed to fight against the landlord government. Often, local officials were killed. Although the imperial court sent troops to suppress it again and again, it was still unable to calm down. Deng saw that this was a good opportunity for revenge, so he found a reason to transfer Yu Xu to be the county magistrate of Chaoge. When Yu Yu's relatives and friends knew about it, they were very worried about him. They thought that this trip must be more or less bad, and none of them didn't feel aggrieved for him. However, Yu Yu said with a confident smile: "a person with ambition and ambition will never avoid the difficult things and find the easy things to do. It's just like when we cut down trees, if we don't encounter hard and firm tangles, we can't show the sharpness of the axe. What's so terrible about me going to be the magistrate of Chaoge county? " Later, Yu Yu went to Chaoge and soon showed his outstanding political ability, calming down the disputes and turmoil between the local officials and the people. The imperial court thought that he had the talent of a general and promoted him to the prefect of Wudu. Soon after, he led his troops to defeat the Qiang people and made a lot of contributions to the country.

The origin of Idioms

Yu Xuzhuan in the book of the later Han Dynasty: "if you don't seek easy ambition, if you don't seek refuge, then you will be a minister. If you don't encounter deep-rooted mistakes, how can you use other sharp tools?"

Chinese PinYin : pán gēn cuò jié