{"id":12101,"date":"2019-11-18T14:45:52","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T14:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/chinese-words-phrases\/let-the-tiger-escape-zong-hu-gui-shan\/"},"modified":"2019-11-18T14:45:52","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T14:45:52","slug":"let-the-tiger-escape-zong-hu-gui-shan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/mm\/let-the-tiger-escape-zong-hu-gui-shan\/","title":{"rendered":"Let the Tiger Escape \u7eb5\u864e\u5f52\u5c71"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The Chinese idiom \u7eb5\u864e\u5f52\u5c71 (zong4 hu3 gui1 shan1) literally means release the tiger to the mountains. The idiom comes from a story a<em><\/em>bout Liu Bei, prior to him becoming a hero during the Three Kingdoms period (AD 220-280).<\/p>\n<p>  During the final years of the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25-220), China was thrust into a civil war. At the time, Liu Bei was one of the fighting warlords. After a humiliating defeat at the hands of another warload, Liu Bei approached Cao Cao &#8211; who later became ruler of the Wei Kingdom &#8211; for protection. One of Cao&#8217;s advisers warned him that Liu was an ambitious man who could become a rival and throw a spanner in the works of Cao&#8217;s plan for unifying the country. The adviser repeatedly tried to persuade Cao to kill Liu. Cao refused to do so. Instead he took Liu into his co<em><\/em>nfidence and showed him generous hospitality and respect.<\/p>\n<p>  One day, Liu offered to lead Cao&#8217;s army to attack the invading enemy. Cao agreed. This incensed Cao&#8217;s suspicious adviser. Again, he warned Cao of the dangers.<\/p>\n<p>  This is like freeing the dragon to the sea and allowing a tiger to return to the mountains. It could lead to serious problems in the future, so you had better order Liu to return with the troops immediately.<\/p>\n<p>  But the horse had already bolted. Liu refused to obey the new order from Cao. He left the territory co<em><\/em>ntrolled by Cao&#8217;s troops and eventually set up his own kingdom. As the adviser had foretold, Liu became one of Cao&#8217;s chief rivals.<\/p>\n<p>  Chinese speakers frequently use this idiom to describe any decision that has potentially disasterous future consequences. English speakers might describe such behaviour as sowing dragon&#8217;s teeth.<br type=\"_moz\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"chine-tie-zi-nei-rong-zhi-hou\" id=\"chine-2215915914\"><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-1889418300638825\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display:block;\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-1889418300638825\" \ndata-ad-slot=\"7273022922\" \ndata-ad-layout-key=\"-gw-3+1f-3d+2z\"\ndata-ad-format=\"fluid\"><\/ins>\n<script> \n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); \n<\/script>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Chinese idiom \u7eb5\u864e\u5f52\u5c71 (zong4 hu3 gui1 shan1) literally means release the tiger to the mountains. The idiom comes from<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[54],"class_list":["post-12101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chinese-words-phrases","tag-chinese-idiom"],"views":237,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/mm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/mm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/mm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/mm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/mm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/mm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/mm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/mm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/mm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}