Idiom Explanation:
Hit on the grass, but startled the snake hidden in the grass, now often used as a metaphor for not doing things closely and startled the other side, so that the other side has a warning, pre-emptive precautions.
Pronunciation:
打草惊蛇
dǎ cǎo jīng shé
Origin:
宋朝·郑文宝《南唐近事》：“王鲁为当涂宰，颇以资产为务，会部民连状诉主簿贪贿于县尹。鲁乃判曰：’汝虽打草，吾已惊蛇。’为好事者口实焉。”
Story:
During the Southern Tang Dynasty, there was a man named Wang Lu. He was a magistrate in Dangtu County, he was greedy and money-obsessed, and he could turn black and white upside down as long as there was money and profit to be made, and he did a lot of bad things.
There is a saying that “the upper beam is not right and the lower beam is crooked”. The officials under Wang Lu, seeing that the leaders are corrupt, they are also blatantly doing bad things, they are trying to extort, embezzle and take bribes, and scrounge the people’s money under different names, so that nine out of ten officials in Dangtu County are corrupt officials. Therefore, the people of Dangtu County are suffering and hate these officials from the bottom of their hearts, and always hope to have a chance to punish them properly to vent their grievances.
Once, when the court sent officials to inspect the situation of local officials, the people of Dangtu County were so happy that they thought the opportunity had finally come. So, we jointly wrote a petition, charging the county magistrate and other people with various illegal and criminal acts of corruption and bribery.
The petition was first delivered to the county magistrate Wang Lu. Wang Lu the writ from beginning to end just a cursory look at once, this look does not matter, but this Wang Lu magistrate scared all over the body shiver. It turns out that, the people in the complaint listed all kinds of criminal facts, all and Wang Lu himself had done bad things similar, and there are many bad things are involved with him. Although the lawsuit is to sue a few people, but Wang Lu felt the same as suing himself. The more he thought about it, the more frightened he was and the cold sweat he broke out, thinking, “If the people continue to sue, they will soon sue me, so if the court knows the truth and finds out what I did in Dangtu County, I will be in trouble!
Wang Lu thought of this, could not help but use a trembling hand to take the pen on the case file to write down his true feelings at this moment: “Although you hit the grass, I have scared the snake.” Meaning that you do this with the purpose of beating the grass on the ground, but I am like a snake hiding inside the grass, but was greatly frightened! After writing these big words, his hand was loose and he sat down paralyzed in his chair, and the pen fell to the ground.
Later, we all derived the idiom of “hitting the grass and scaring the snake” from the eight words written by Wang Lu, “Although you hit the grass, I have scared the snake.
Similar Idioms:
- 敲山震虎
