Cao Chong said:
Once, Sun Quan of Wu gave Cao Cao an elephant, and Cao Cao was very happy. On the day when the elephant was transported to Xuchang, Cao Cao led the civil and military officials and his youngest son, Cao Chong, to see it. Cao Cao's people have never seen an elephant. The elephant is tall and big, and its legs are as thick as the pillars of the hall. When people get closer, they can't reach its stomach.
Cao Cao said to everyone, "This elephant is really big, but how much does it weigh?" Can any of you weigh it? "ah! How can you call such a big guy? Ministers are talking about it. One man said, "Only the biggest scale can weigh. "
The other said, "What a big scale this will be! Besides, elephants are alive and there is no way to weigh them! I think we must kill it, cut it into pieces and weigh it. " Hardly had he finished speaking when everyone burst out laughing. Someone said, "You can't do this. Isn't it a pity to kill an elephant alive in order to weigh it? " "
Ministers tried many methods, but none of them worked. It was really embarrassing at this time. A child came out of the crowd and said to Cao Cao, "Dad, I have a way to call an elephant."
Cao Cao-look, it's his favorite son, Cao Chong. He smiled and said, "What can you do at a young age? Tell it to me and see if it makes sense. " Cao Chong on cao cao's ear, twittering. Cao Cao-after clapping his hands again and again, he ordered the left and right sides to prepare elephants at once, and then said to his ministers, "Go! Let's go to the river to see elephants! "
Ministers followed Cao Cao to the river. There was a big boat parked in the river, and Cao Chong had an elephant brought on board. When the ship was stabilized, a road was carved on the horizontal plane of the ship's side. Then let people take the elephant to the shore, put the stones, big and small, on the boat one by one, and the boat will sink bit by bit. When the hull sank to the same height as the water, Cao Chong told people to stop loading stones.
The ministers opened their eyes wide, but at first they didn't understand what was going on. When they saw this, they couldn't help exclaiming, "Good idea! Good idea! " Now, as we all know, just weigh all the stones on the boat and add up the weights, and you will know how heavy the elephant is. Cao Cao was naturally happier. He squinted at his son and looked at the ministers proudly, as if to himself: "You are not as clever as my little son!" " "
A Brief Introduction to China s Ancient Fables;
China's ancient fables have a long history of thousands of years, and they are an extremely rich literary treasure house. Many famous chapters are household names and become well-known idioms, such as "strong seedlings", "the donkey is poor in skills", "Ye Gong is good at dragons", "One leaf blocks the eyes" and "mantis catches cicadas" and so on.
The development of ancient fables in China has roughly experienced several development climaxes: the Warring States, the Tang and Song Dynasties, the Ming and Qing Dynasties; As far as the development of fable itself is concerned, it can be roughly divided into three stages: philosophical fable, satirical fable and humorous fable; From a unified point of view, fables in the Warring States period are more important than philosophy, fables in the Tang and Song Dynasties are more important than satire, and fables in the Ming and Qing Dynasties are more important than humor.