{"id":12096,"date":"2019-11-18T09:56:08","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T09:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/chinese-words-phrases\/get-an-inch-and-take-a-mile-de-long-wang-shu\/"},"modified":"2019-11-18T09:56:08","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T09:56:08","slug":"get-an-inch-and-take-a-mile-de-long-wang-shu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/my\/get-an-inch-and-take-a-mile-de-long-wang-shu\/","title":{"rendered":"Get an Inch and Take a Mile \u5f97\u9647\u671b\u8700"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The Chinese idiom \u5f97\u9647\u671b\u8700 (de2 long3 wang4 shu3) literally means covet Sichuan after capturing Gansu. Sichuan and Gansu are two neighbouring provinces in China. The idiom comes from a story a<em><\/em>bout a war decree issued by Emperor Guangwu during the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 25-220).<\/p>\n<p>  Emperor Guangwu perso<em><\/em>nally led a large army to attach eastern Gansu (then called Longxi) which was under the co<em><\/em>ntrol of opposition forces. The royal army surrounded two strategic towns, but failed to capture them because they were reinforced with troops from Sichuan. After several mo<em><\/em>nths of stand-off, the emperor became impatient and decided to return to the capital, leaving his general in charge. Before departing, Emperor Guangwu issued a war decree calling on the royal troops to invade Sichuan after siezing the two towns. The emperor said in the decree:<\/p>\n<p>  A man&#8217;s desire is very hard to satisfy. Hence, after capturing Gansu it is logical that one would wish to take Sichuan.<\/p>\n<p>  The two strategic towns proved to be hard nuts to crack. The battle over the two towns ebbed and flowed for the next four years. Then opposition forces then surrendered. The emperor&#8217;s general siezed the opportunity to capture the two troublesome towns and then he proceeded to co<em><\/em>nquer Sichuan.<\/p>\n<p>  Today, the Chinese idiom \u5f97\u9647\u671b\u8700 (de2 long3 wang4 shu3) has derogatory co<em><\/em>nnotations and is often used to describe people who are greedy and have insatiable ambitions. English speakers might describe these people as getting an inch and then taking a mile.<br type=\"_moz\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"chine-tie-zi-nei-rong-zhi-hou\" id=\"chine-3255671432\"><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 \u5f97\u9647\u671b\u8700 (de2 long3 wang4 shu3) literally means covet Sichuan after capturing Gansu. Sichuan and Gansu are two<\/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-12096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chinese-words-phrases","tag-chinese-idiom"],"views":173,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12096\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}