The powerful nation of Chu was sending a large army against Qi. The king of Qi gave Chunyu Kun a hundred catties of gold and ten four-horse carriages, and told him to go to the neighboring state of Zhao to ask for help.

« Chunyu Kun threw back his head and laughed so hard that the cord of his hat snapped. »
The king asked if he thought it was too little, and Chunyu Kun said, « How dare I? »
« Then why are you laughing? »
Chunyu Kun replied, « I saw… a man praying for a good harvest and offering one pig’s trotter and one cup of wine. ‘May the crops from the highland fill whole crates!’ he prayed. ‘May the crops from the lowland fill whole carts! May grain harvested in abundance fill my house!’ He offered so little but expected so much in return. That is why I laughed. »

The king then gave him « one thousand yi of gold, ten pairs of white jade discs and a hundred four-horse carriages. » Chunyu Kun took them and successfully arranged military aid from Zhao, which forced the troops of Chu to return home.^[*]

(*) Sima, Qian (2001). Selections from Records of the Historian. Translated by Yang Xianyi; Gladys Yang. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, p. 486.

Quoted from Wikipedia, Chunyu Kun (10-23-2025)

Baccini, Giulia.  2008. The Forest of Laughs (Xiaolin) – Mapping the offspring of self-aware literature in ancient China. Dottorato di ricerca in Lingue, Culture e Società, Tutori del dottorando, Prof. Tiziana Lippiello. Prof. Olga Lomová.