Chinese history · 声匠改编 · 3:38
Cao Chong Weighs the Elephant
Sun Quan sends Cao Cao a live elephant, and nobody at court can weigh it. Little Cao Chong needs no giant scale: just a boat and a pile of stones.
Narrator
Cao Cao
Cao Chong
The General
The Adviser
The SoldierOther languages · 2 languages
About this story
Cao Chong Weighs the Elephant comes from the Records of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguozhi), written by the historian Chen Shou in the 3rd century, in the Book of Wei biography of Cao Chong. Sun Quan sent Cao Cao a huge elephant, nobody at court could think how to weigh it, and young Cao Chong suggested using a boat and the waterline. The original record is only a few dozen characters long; this version turns it into a lively scene with a general, an adviser, a soldier and little Cao Chong, and walks through every step of the method.
What it teaches
If something is too big to weigh, swap it for lots of smaller things you can weigh: the idea of equal substitution. The story shows children that hard problems are rarely solved by force, and that looking at them from a new angle often reveals the answer.
Suits
Ages 6–12
Tips for telling it
- Pause after the mark is cut on the boat and let your child guess the next step before Cao Chong explains it.
- Try it at home with a bowl of water, a plastic tub for a boat, a toy for the elephant and coins or blocks for the stones.
- The original only says the boat was loaded with 'things'; stones are how the story is usually told. Anything works, as long as the boat sinks to the same mark.
Questions people ask
- How did Cao Chong weigh the elephant?
- He had the elephant led onto a boat and marked how far the boat sank, then took the elephant off and loaded the boat with stones until it sank to the same mark. The stones could be weighed a few at a time, and their total weight equalled the elephant's.
- Where does the story of Cao Chong and the elephant come from?
- From Chen Shou's Records of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguozhi), written in the 3rd century, in the Book of Wei biography of Cao Chong. It says that when Sun Quan sent a giant elephant, Cao Chong proposed putting it on a big boat, marking the waterline and weighing the goods that brought the boat down to the same mark.
- Is the story of Cao Chong weighing the elephant true?
- It is in the official history, but the 20th-century historian Chen Yinke pointed out an almost identical elephant-weighing tale in a Buddhist scripture, the Za Baozang Jing, and suggested the story may have come from India and been attached to Cao Chong. Historians still disagree, but it has been a favourite thinking story for centuries.
- Who was Cao Chong?
- A son of the warlord Cao Cao, remembered as both clever and kind-hearted. He fell ill and died young, in 208 AD, at about thirteen.
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