Lead Him According to His Understanding

Characters:

Pronunciation: yin(1) shi(4) li(4) dao(3)
Explanation: It means to guide someone or something by his or its own way of understanding.

Tone: Positive

The Story: In the Warring States Period, the Wei Kingdom appointed General Pang Juan to attack the Han Kingdom. Han asked the Qi Kingdom for help, then the King sent General Tian Ji and Sun Bin to attack Wei in order to rescue Han.

Before they set off, Sun bin told Tian Ji: "Wei's army are very strong and they despise Qi. We should use this to lead them to our trap." Then they set down a 'Cooking-stove Reduction' strategy.

They began their march. On the first day, they built stoves for 100,000 soldiers. On the second day, they reduced the stoves to 50,000. On the third day, they cut them to 30,000. When Pang Juan heard this, he drew the conclusion that quite a lot of Qi's soldiers were running away as they feared war. He thought he could defeat Qi in a quick battle. So he collected his cavalries to chase Qi's army for an attack. One night, when his cavalries marched to Ma Ling Gorge, he was surrounded by Qi's army. As it was an unexpected fight for him, Pang Juan's soldiers were totally defeated, and he had to commit suicide.

Usage Example (Pinyin): Jiao(4) yu(4) xue(2) sheng(1) ying(1) gai(1) yin(1) shi(4) li(4) dao(3).

Usage Example (English translation): For teaching a student, we should lead him according to his understanding.

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.