一字千金One Thousand Golds for Every Word

One Thousand Golds for Every Word（成语 一字千金 英文)


Three years after assuming the rule of the State of Qin, King Zhuangxiang passed away. He was succeded by his heir, Prince Zheng(2) who made Lv Buwei his Prime Minister and entitled him"Zhong Fu", or second father. The Prince of Qin, however was yet young, and his mother was all the time having an affair with Lv, who was rich and powerful, with as many as ten thousand servant boys in his house.

At that time, there were several powerful merchant-princes, such as Xinling of the State of Wei, Chunshen of the State of Chu, Pingyuan of the State of Zhao and Mengchang of the State of Qi. As a matter of prestige, they all vied with each other in making friends with talented men and loved to treat or feed them in their houses with great hospitality. Thinking that Qin was a powerful state, yet could not be compared with these states which were so proud of their merchant princes, Lv Buwei felt ashamed and began to collect scholars, too, giving them very generous treatment. The persons he was feeding numbered three thousand.

One thing more all principalities at that time were interested in recruiting numbers of gifted debaters,like the famous Xun Zi(Xun Kuang), who wrote books, which were widely read. Seeing this, Lv Buwei asked every one of his guests to put down in writing what they had heard or seen, and collected their writings into a book. It ran into more than two hundred thousand words under the headings of Ba Lan(Eight Series of Readings), Lv Lun(Six Categories of Essays) and Shi'er Ji(Twelve Chronicles). He gave this huge book the title of 'Lv Shi Chun Qiu'(Master Lv's Spring and Autumn Annals), claiming that it contained all things under the sky, ancient or contemporary. He also had a notice posted at the gates of Xianyang, the capital, and hung one thousand yi of hard currency above it, inviting all the scholars and guests of the principalities to read the book over. And any one who in reading found it necessary to add or take away one single word would get this monetary reward.

______________remark______________
(1) In the Qin times, one yi equalled to twenty(or twenty-four) ounces,that is ,one jin(catty),which in Chinese is represented by the same character as that for"gold", but at that time, the hard currency was a metal like copper, not gold. This idiomatic expression has thus used to mean that a word, if found to be very appropriate or valuable, is worth a thousand taels of gold.(2) later Qinshihuan(first Emperor of the Qin Dynasty) after he conquered all over principalities and achieved the unification of China.

一字千金(chinese idioms)

庄襄王即位三年之后死去，太子嬴政继立为王，尊奉吕不韦为相国，称他为“仲父”。秦王年纪还小，太后常常和吕不韦私通。吕不韦家有奴仆万人。

在那时，魏国有信陵君，楚国有春申君，赵国有平原君，齐国有孟尝君，他们都礼贤下士，结交宾客。并在这方面要争个高低上下。吕不韦认为秦国如此强大，把不如他们当成一件令人羞愧的事，所以他也招来了文人学士，给他们优厚的待遇，门下食客多达三千人。那时各诸侯国有许多才辩之士，像荀卿那班人，著书立说，流行天下。吕不韦就命他的食客各自将所见所闻记下，综合在一起成为八览、六论、十二纪，共二十多万言。自己认为其中包括了天地万物古往今来的事理，所以号称《吕氏春秋》。并将之刊布在咸阳的城门，上面悬挂着一千金的赏金，遍请诸侯各国的游士宾客，若有人能增删一字，就给予一千金的奖励。

一字千金，形容文辞精妙，不可更改。