Carrying Wood to Put Out a Fire

Characters:

Pronunciation: bao(4) xin(1) jiu(4) huo(3)

Explanation: Meaning trying to better a situation with a wrong method and thus making it even worse.

Tone: Neutral

The Story: During the Warring States Period, the bigger states had annexed the smaller ones. Finally there were only 7 states left. They were: Qi, Chu , Yan ,Han, Zhao, Wei and Qin. (If you want to play a cool Warring States game, visit Zhanshen.com!)

Qin was the most powerful one among the 7 states and continuously and fiercely attacked the other six. In 273 BC, the Qin army won a great victory over the army of states Wei, Han and Zhao. The general of Wei, Duan Ganzi, was so scared that he asked prince An Xi of Wei to give up Nanyang City for Qin for the sake of peace. Minister Su Dai didn't agree to any of this nonsense! He said to prince An Xi: "Qin wouldn't be satisfied until all of Wei's land was given to them. To sue for peace with the method of ceding land is like carrying wood to put out a fire. The fire cannot be ceased until the last piece of wood burned out." Prince An xi didn't accept his advice and Qin eventually defeated Wei.

Usage Example (Pinyin): Wo(3) jian(4) yi(4) ni(3) bie(2) guan(3), ni(3) de bang(1) zhu(4) you(3) ru(2) bao(4) xin(1) jiu(4) huo(3).

Usage Example (English translation): I suggest you stand aside, your help is just like carrying wood to put out a fire for her.

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.