Rising Up with the First Drum

Characters:

Pronunciation: yi (1) gu(3) zuo(4) qi(4)

Explanation: This means you get the most energy at the beginning of doing something.

Tone: Positive

The Story: In the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476B.C), Kingdom Qi attacked Kingdom Lu. The king of Lu, Zhuanggong, and his general, Cao Gui, went to the front to view the battle.

When the two Armies met, Qi's army beat the war drums first for attack, but at the moment Zhuanggong was about to drum his own beat to meet the enemy, he was stopped by General Cao. Cao suggested Zhuanggong to drum only after hearing Qi's third drum. At the third drum, Zhuanggong beat his war drum and his army swooped own upon the enemy, defeating them easily.

After the victory, Zhuanggong asked General Cao the reason for waiting for the third beat from the enemy. Cao said: "Courage is the most important thing for war. At the first drum, warriors' courage is at the highest stage; at the second drum, their courage is lowered; and when they drummed thrice, nearly no courage remained. While we gave our first drum to meet their third drum, thus our warriors' courage was at the peak to meet the enemies' poorest stage. That's why we won the battle.'

This is a very good lesson to remember!

Usage Example (Pinyin): Wo(3) men(2) yi(1) gu(3) zuo(4) qi(4), pa(2) guo(4) le shan(1).

Usage Example (English translation): We rose up with the first drum and climbed over the mountain.

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.