with some drawing in the front and others pushing in the rear , one could not but advance

with some drawing in the front and others pushing in the rear , one could not but advance

It's a Chinese idiom. It's used to describe that people help before and after. From Zuo Zhuan, the fourteenth year of Xianggong.

explain

There was help before and after.

allusion

[source] in Zuo Zhuan, the fourteenth year of Xianggong: "Wei Jun will enter. If his husband and his two sons want to join him, they will either pull him or push him, but they don't want to enter?"

[example] Empress Dowager Cixi was curious that she had once sat on the train. However, for fear of an accident, she was not allowed to use a locomotive to tow her. She just found some eunuchs and stopped walking ten or ten feet away. Gao Yang's the complete biography of Cixi

usage

To act as an object or attributive