Breaking the kettle and sinking the boat is a Chinese idiom meaning to break the rice pot and sink the ferry, which is a metaphor for not leaving a way back, not to win the war, and resolving to do it to the end regardless of everything. Although Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" says that "burning the boat and breaking the kettle" also means to vow to fight to the death, it has not yet formed a story that is often talked about in later generations.
Expanded Information
Breaking the kettle and sinking the boat of the historical allusion
"The Records of the Grand Historian Xiang Yu Ben Ji": "Xiang Yu is full of troops to cross the river, all sunken boats, broken kettle cauldron, burning huts, holding three days of food, to show that the soldiers will die, no one still heart".
In 209 B.C., China's history broke out in a peasant uprising led by Chen Sheng Wu Guang. After the sacrifice of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, the two armies led by Liu Bang and Xiang Yu gradually grew stronger. In 207 B.C., Xiang Yu's rebel army fought against the main force of the Qin army led by Qin general Zhang Han at Julu (present-day Xingtai City, Hebei Province); Xiang Yu defied the enemy and led his troops to cross the Zhangshui River (a river that flowed from northeast to southeast of Julu). After crossing the river, Xiang Yu ordered his entire army to "all sink their boats, break their kettles and cauldrons, burn their huts, and hold their grain for three days, to show that their soldiers would die, and none of them would return." In the battle of Julu, the Qin army was greatly defeated, and Xiang Yu's soldiers shook the vassals.
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