prick one 's own thigh with a needle to keep himself awake

prick one 's own thigh with a needle to keep himself awake

Yinzhucigu, a Chinese idiom, Pinyin is y ǐ nzhu ī C ì g ǔ, which means that if you want to sleep at night when you are reading, you should stab yourself in the thigh with an awl to keep awake. He is diligent in his studies. It comes from Qin CE Yi.

Idiom usage

It is not difficult to know when a man knows his regret.

The origin of Idioms

"Qin CE I of the Warring States strategy": "(Su Qin) was sleepy when he was reading, leading the cone to stab his own shares."

Idioms and allusions

The story is about Su Qin, a native of Luoyang, who learned the strategy of combining vertical and horizontal, persuaded the king of Qin and wrote more than ten proposals, but they were useless. Finally, all his money was used up and he returned miserably. At home, his wife doesn't care if he continues to sew, his sister-in-law doesn't cook for him, and his parents don't recognize his son. Su Qin sighed and said, "it's all the king's fault!" He vowed to study hard and said, "what can't be done?" When I was about to fall asleep, I stabbed myself in the thigh with an awl, and the blood flowed to my feet. Later, he United Qi, Chu, Yan, Zhao, Wei and South Korea to resist Qin, and then became the Prime Minister of the six countries.