草船借箭 To Borrow Arrows with Thatched Boats

This is an interesting story from the Three Kingdoms period (220-280) in ancient China, when the Wei and Wu kingdoms joined together to fight against the Wei Kingdom. Zhou Yu, the chief military commander of the Wu Kingdom, ordered Zhu Ge Liang (the chief minister of the Shu Kingdom and generally regarded as the kingdom's top master-mind) to produce 100,000 arrows within 10 days.
"Three days is enough, " said Zhu. He also aGREed to be punished if he failed to complete the order.

Zhou mocked that Zhu was looking for self-destruction. On the one hand, Zhou ordered his troops not to provide Zhu with materials to make the arrows. He also sent Lu Su to see how Zhu was dealing the problem.

In fact, Zhu had already realized that this was a plot. He asked Lu (who was kind-hearted) to lend him 20 boats, each lined with straw scarecrows and manned by 30 soldiers. He also requested that Lu not tell Zhou what was happening.

When Lu came again to see Zhu, he did not find anything unusual. Nothing happened on the second day either. In the early morning of the third day, Zhu invited Lu for a boat ride. The 20 boats were tied together with strong ropes. Zhu's fleet sailed toward the camp of Cao Cao (who was the king of the Wei Kingdom).

A thick mist had spread over the surface of the river. People could hardly see each other on the river. When Zhu's fleet got close to the Cao camp before dawn, Zhu ordered his soldiers to shout and beat drums to fake an attack. Zhu and Lu simply sat inside one of the boats and drank wine to enjoy themselves.

As soon as the Cao camp heard the shouting and drum beating, they mistook it for a surprise attack by the Zhou camp. Since they could see nobody on the river, they gathered 3,000 bowmen and ordered them to shoot arrows. The front of the scarecrows was quickly shot full of arrows.

After a while, Zhu had his fleet turn around to expose the other side of the scarecrows. When this side was also shot full of arrows, the day broke. Zhu ordered his soldiers to return to their base port. The soldiers shouted, "Thank you, Cao, for your arrows." After they got back to their camp, they collected more than 100,000 arrows from the scarecrows.


草船借箭

東吳與劉備聯合抗曹，東吳大都督周瑜命諸葛亮十日內製作十萬支箭。諸葛亮說："只擊需三日。"並立下軍令狀。周瑜笑諸葛亮是自取滅亡。周瑜吩咐士兵不給諸葛亮準備製作箭的材料.諸葛亮讓謀士魯肅偷偷借給他二十條船，每船三十個軍士，兩邊紮上稻草人，聽候調用。又叮囑魯肅千萬別告訴周瑜。魯肅又來見諸葛亮，第一天不見動靜，第二天也不動。第三天四更時分，諸葛亮密請魯肅到船上。同時，把二十條船用繩索連好，向曹營進發。此時，江上大霧迷漫，對面看不見人。五更時分，船隻接近曹營。諸葛亮讓軍士們在船上擂鼓吶喊，裝作周瑜來偷襲。無奈江上霧大看不清楚，曹操只好調三千弓箭手向船上射箭。待草人身上密密地插滿了箭，天已放亮，諸葛亮下令收船。軍士們高喊着："謝謝曹丞相的箭。"高高興興地往回走了。回營後，把箭取下，十萬有餘。