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 mocked¹ 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 dealing² 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 fleet³ sailed toward⁴ the camp of Cao Cao (who was the king of the Wei Kingdom).

A thick mist⁵ 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 fake⁶ 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

东吴与刘备联合抗曹，东吴大都督周瑜命诸葛亮十日内制作十万支箭。诸葛亮说："只击需三日。"并立下军令状。周瑜笑诸葛亮是自取灭亡。周瑜吩咐士兵不给诸葛亮准备制作箭的材料.诸葛亮让谋士鲁肃偷偷借给他二十条船，每船三十个军士，两边扎上稻草人，听候调用。又叮嘱鲁肃千万别告诉周瑜。鲁肃又来见诸葛亮，第一天不见动静，第二天也不动。第三天四更时分，诸葛亮密请鲁肃到船上。同时，把二十条船用绳索连好，向曹营进发。此时，江上大雾迷漫，对面看不见人。五更时分，船只接近曹营。诸葛亮让军士们在船上擂鼓呐喊，装作周瑜来偷袭。无奈江上雾大看不清楚，曹操只好调三千弓箭手向船上射箭。待草人身上密密地插满了箭，天已放亮，诸葛亮下令收船。军士们高喊着："谢谢曹丞相的箭。"高高兴兴地往回走了。回营后，把箭取下，十万有余。