千軍易得,一將難求

简 千军易得,一将难求 · 繁 千軍易得,一將難求
Mandarin · pinyin qiān jūn yì dé , yī jiàng nán qiú

Meanings

  1. Easy to raise an army of one thousand, but hard to find a good general. (idiom)
Full entryShow on map

Characters in this entry

千
qiān · thousand; many, numerous; very; (Cant.) a cheater, swindler
軍
Look up this written character
易
yì · change; easy
得
dé · obtain, get, gain, acquire
一
yī · one; a, an; alone
將
Look up this written character
難
Look up this written character
求
qiú · seek; demand, request; beseech
军
jūn · army, military; soldiers, troops
将
jiāng · will, going to, future; general
难
nán · difficult, arduous, hard; unable
Written characters and their own readings; the entry’s pronunciation is shown above.

Explore the spelling

Connected dictionary

8character links
Explore word families ↗Compare pronunciations ↗Open character structure ↗
Counts describe dictionary records, not word frequency or semantic similarity. Source identities stay separate.

Read this spelling in Classical texts

Follow a written form into the eight pinned witnesses: Analects, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, Han Feizi, Sunzi and the Mao Shijing. A match is a place to investigate; it does not prove that a modern dictionary sense fits the passage.

千軍易得,一將難求 · find source passages ↗ · 千军易得,一将难求 · find source passages ↗

Explore Classical grammar ↗

千軍易得,一將難求 · qian1 jun1 yi4 de2 , yi1 jiang4 nan2 qiu2
CC-CEDICT contributors and MDBG · edition 2026-10-13 · source line 16,716
Original dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source & transformation details
Exact source record千軍易得,一將難求 千军易得,一将难求 [qian1 jun1 yi4 de2 , yi1 jiang4 nan2 qiu2] /Easy to raise an army of one thousand, but hard to find a good general. (idiom)/