During the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Cao led his army to conquer the eastern Wu, Sun Quan and Liu Bei joined forces to resist Cao Cao. Sun Quan has a general named Zhou Yu who is both intelligent and brave, but he has a narrow mind and is very jealous of Zhuge Liang's ability. Because the battlefield is in the middle of the river, and the war needs arrows, Zhou Yu asked Zhuge Liang to be responsible for building 100000 arrows within ten days. However, Zhuge Liang promised that only three days, he would also like to issue a military order, and he would be punished if he could not finish the task. Zhou Yu thought that it was impossible to build 100000 arrows in three days. He took this opportunity to root out Zhugeliang. So on the one hand, he told the army craftsmen not to prepare all the materials for making arrows. On the other hand, he asked Lu Su, the minister, to inquire about Zhuge Liang's reality.

Lu Su met Zhuge Liang. Zhuge Liang said, "please help me with this matter. I hope you can lend me 20 boats, 30 soldiers on each boat. The boats should be covered with green cloth, and more than 1000 scarecrows should be arranged on both sides of the boat. However, it must not tell to Zhou Yu. "

Lu Su agreed and prepared everything according to Zhuge Liang's request. Two days later, there was no movement. At midnight on the third day, Zhuge Liang secretly asked Lu Su to go to the boat with him, saying that they were going to get arrows together. Lu Su was puzzled.

Zhuge Liang ordered the boat to be roped to the other side. On that day, the river was foggy and there was no one to see. When the boat was close to the water stronghold of Cao army, Zhuge Liang ordered the boat to swing away and ask the soldiers to beat drums and shout. Cao Cao thought that the other side came to attack and was afraid of being ambushed in the fog. He sent 6000 archers to shoot at the river. The rain like arrows were shot at the scarecrow one after another. After a while, Zhuge Liang ordered the boat to turn around and let the other side receive the arrow.

When the sun came out and the fog was about to disperse, Zhuge Liang ordered the boat to go back. At this time, the straw handles on both sides of the ship were densely filled with arrows, at least five or six thousand on each ship, a total of more than 100000. When Lu Su told Zhou Yu the story of borrowing an arrow, Zhou Yu sighed, "ZhuGe Liang is clever and clever. I'm not as good as him."