The related story is as follows:

At the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, Wu was defeated by Yue. Gou Jian, the king of Yue, was also captured by Fu Cha, the king of Wu. Although he saved his life, Gou Jian will never forget his humiliation in Wu.

In order to avenge myself, I slept on straw from now on, suffered a little from time to time, and finally tried to restore the country.

Source of service:

"Taste the gall" originated from Historical Records of Goujian Family, the King of Yue, edited by Sima Qian in the Western Han Dynasty, but there is no such thing as "lying on the salary" in the book. The combination of "lying on the salary" and "tasting courage" was first seen in Su Shi's article "Imitating Sun Quan to Answer Cao Cao" in the Northern Song Dynasty. Although its content has nothing to do with Gou Jian's incident, the idiom "serving a salary and tasting courage" has been passed down to this day.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Liang Chenyu wrote a legendary drama "The Story of Huansha", which greatly exaggerated the story of Gou Jian, the king of Yue. In the early years of the Qing Dynasty, Wu Chengquan wrote in the easy-to-understand historical book Zhi Yi Lu lue: "Gou Jian is anti-China, suffering from anxiety and worrying about it."

Soon after, the historical novel "History of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty" written by Feng Menglong, a writer in the late Ming Dynasty, was published, and it was repeatedly mentioned in the book that Gou Jian had been lying on his salary and tasting courage. In this way, the story that Gou Jian wanted to eat his bread and drink his courage spread more and more widely.