To Bring Disaster Upon The Fish

During the Spring and Autumn Period, there lived a man named Huan Sz-ma who had a very big, very precious jewel. When the king found out about this, he wanted very much to obtain this treasure for himself, and sent someone to ask Huan Sz-ma just where he kept his jewel hidden. Huan Sz-ma replied, "I threw it into the moat outside the city wall."

And so the greedy king ordered that all of the water be emptied from the moat, and that the mud be searched until this jewel was found. The moat was so big and the jewel so small that although the people searched for a long time, they never found it. But because the moat had been drained dry, and there were so many people walking through the mud, all of the fish that lived in the moat died.

Today, this idiom can be used to describe a situation in which an innocent person becomes involved in a harmful situation.

殃及池魚

春秋時代，有一個名叫桓司馬，他有一顆又大又圓的寶珠。後來，國王知道了，一心一意要得到這顆天下少有的寶貝。有一天，國王派人去問桓司馬：「你那顆寶珠到底藏在甚麼地方？」桓司馬回答：「我把它扔到城牆外的護城河裡去了。」

貪心的國王為了得到這顆寶珠，就命令很多人，把護城河的水淘乾，在污泥裡翻來翻去地找。河那麼大，珠子那麼小，找了很久也沒有找到。可是因為人多，在河裡踩來踩去，河水乾了，河裡的魚也都死了。