Having Secret Evil Intentions

Characters:

Pronunciation: Bao(1) Cang(2) Huo(4) Xin(1)

Explanation: Meaning one does something with evil intent.

The Story: In the Spring and Autumn Period, the state of Zheng was a small and weak country. So the country wanted to establish friendly relations with the state of Chu through the marriage between the daughter of Gongsun Duan (a high official of Zheng) and the Chu prince Wei.

In the year 541 B.C., Prince Wei intended to take the opportunity of wedding in the state of Zheng to launch a surprise attack on Zheng. When Zi Chan, the official in charge of political affairs in Zheng, saw that the Chu people did not have good intentions, he sent Zi Yu to them and told them, "The capital city of Zheng is too small to hold so many of your people. The wedding will be held outside the city." When the Chu people insisted on marching into the city, Zi Yu said to them, "We thought with a marriage between Zheng and Chu we could obtain the protection of a big country to keep our country secure. We now find that you have secret evil intentions and want to launch a secret attack on us."

When Prince Wei saw that the state of Zheng was on his guard, he abandoned his plan for a surprise attack and promised to go into the Zheng capital without carrying arms.

Usage Example (Pinyin): Ta(1) shi(4) ge bao(1) cang(2) huo(4) xin(1) de jia(1) huo(4).

Usage Example (English translation): He is a guy having secret evil intentions.

Note: The spoken Chinese Mandarin language has 4 spoken tones. We have attempted to re-create those above where after each syllable we tell you (1), (2), (3), or (4) as they correspond to each of the 4 tones. We encourage you to complement your Xianzai.com Chinese Idioms newsletter with a good offline study program.