Tasting gall and gathering strength
Back home, Goujian hung a gall bladder above his seat and tasted it before eating, resting, or rising. State policy reached down to childbirth: a woman unmarried at seventeen or a man unmarried at twenty made their parents guilty; the birth of a boy was rewarded with a jar of wine and a dog, of a girl with a jar of wine and a pig. Twenty years later, this nearly ruined little state had amassed the people and the army to destroy Wu — he had turned revenge into a systematic undertaking.
When the birds are gone, the good bow is stored away
After Wu fell, the strategist Fan Li at once resigned and sailed off across the Five Lakes, leaving a letter for Wen Zhong: "When the birds are gone, the good bow is stored away; when the cunning hare is dead, the hound is cooked. The King of Yue has a long neck and a beak like a bird’s — one may share hardship with him but not ease. Why do you not leave?" Wen Zhong did not believe it and stayed away from court on pretext of illness; Goujian sent him a sword: "You taught me seven arts to attack Wu; I used three and defeated it. The other four are with you — go try them on the former king for me." Wen Zhong cut his own throat.