{"id":12105,"date":"2019-11-18T18:39:31","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T18:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/chinese-words-phrases\/lips-and-teeth-chun-wang-chi-han\/"},"modified":"2019-11-18T18:39:31","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T18:39:31","slug":"lips-and-teeth-chun-wang-chi-han","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/my\/lips-and-teeth-chun-wang-chi-han\/","title":{"rendered":"Lips and Teeth \u5507\u4ea1\u9f7f\u5bd2"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The Chinese idiom \u5507\u4ea1\u9f7f\u5bd2 (chun2 wang2 chi3 han2) literally means if there are no lips the teeth feel cold and comes from a story a<em><\/em>bout a bloody battle during the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC).<\/p>\n<p>  Duke Jinxian of the State of Jin wanted to annex the neighbouring State of Guo. One of the Duke&#8217;s advisers suggested that the most likely way to succeed was to launch a surprise attack from the State Yu, also a neighbour of Guo. In fact, the adviser suggested that this approach would kill two birds with one stone because the Jin troops could not o<em><\/em>nly crush the State of Guo, but they could also seize the State of Yu on the way back.<\/p>\n<p>  The Duke liked this plan. He sent a special envoy laiden with gifts to the State of Yu to persuade the ruler to allow the Jin troops to pass. However, a sharp-witted official in the Yu immediately smelt a rat and implored the ruler to reject the Duke&#8217;s request. The official tried to explain that the relatio<em><\/em>nship between the State of Yu and the State of Guo was just like that between lips and teeth. o<em><\/em>nce the lips are gone, the teeth lose their protection and are exposed to the chill of the air.<\/p>\n<p>  The ruler of Yu paid no heed to this advice as he was too obsessed with the Duke&#8217;s gifts. The sharp-witted official warned his close friends that the ruler&#8217;s decision to allow the Jin troops to pass was sowing dragon&#8217;s teeth and that he and his family planned to head for the hills.<\/p>\n<p>  And so it came to pass, the Jin troops co<em><\/em>nquered the State of Guo in just a few days and on their way back home captured the ruler of Yu.<\/p>\n<p>  I have not been able to think of an equivalent English idiom for \u5507\u4ea1\u9f7f\u5bd2. If you think you know one, please let me know.<br type=\"_moz\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"chine-tie-zi-nei-rong-zhi-hou\" id=\"chine-4169073301\"><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 \u5507\u4ea1\u9f7f\u5bd2 (chun2 wang2 chi3 han2) literally means if there are no lips the teeth feel cold and<\/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-12105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chinese-words-phrases","tag-chinese-idiom"],"views":258,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12105","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=12105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/my\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}