You Get So Many Carriages Just By Licking The king's Piles

In Chinese Spring and Autumn period, there lived a man called Cao Shang in the state Song.

One year, he was sent by the king of Song on a mission to Qin. On setting off, he was allotted several carriages to go with him.

When he arrived in Qin, the king of Qin liked him very much and thus gave him another hundred carriages.

After he returned to Song, he was so happy that he showed off his experience everywhere.

One day. he met Zhuang Zi and said to him:" To live in a narrow lane of a poor mean hamlet, wearing sandals amid distress of poverty, with a thin neck and yellow ears - that is what I should find it difficult to do. But as soon as I come to an understanding with the Lord of a myriad carriages, to find myself with a retinue of a hundred carriages - that is wherein I excel."

Zhuang Zi replied: "When the king of Qin is ill, the doctor whom he calls to open an ulcer or squeeze a boil receives a carriage; and the one who licks his piles receives five. The lower the service, the more are the carriages given. Sir, You must have licked the king's piles? Otherwise, why did you get so many carriages? Go away!'

Writer Comment:

This story is from Lie Yu Kou, a article of Zhuang Zi. The reason that Zhuang Zi said something so ironic was not that he was jealous of Cao Shang but that he tried to illustrate a point that the more profit someone obtain for himself, the more low tricks he may have to use.