This idiom comes from Romance of Three Kingdoms·Chapter 46. It is recorded that in 208 BC， Cao Cao led a army of two hundred thousand soldiers to wipe out Sun Quan's forces. Liu Bei sent his prime minister， Zhuge Liang to Dong Wu to ally with Sun Quan to resist Cao.

The commander-in-chief of Dong Wu， Zhou Yu was a famous commander with superb talent， but he was very jealous of Zhuge Liang's talent and ability. He always wanted to wipe him out when given the chance. For the sake of the overall situation and alliance with Dong Wu against Cao Cao， Zhuge Liang had to work with him.

Once， Zhou Yu asked Zhuge to make ten hundred thousand arrows within three days and asked Zhuge to write a military pledge that if he couldn't get the arrows on time， he would be killed. But Zhuge had a excellent plan in mind. He only asked Lu Su to give him twenty boats and thirty soldiers in each boat and put nearly a thousand scarecrows in the boats.

Two days passed， Zhou Yu found that Zhuge had done nothing about the arrow-making， so he considered that Zhuge was sure to die. Unexpectedly， in the early morning of the third day， it's fog-shrouded， and Zhuge Liang ordered all the boats with scarecrows to row close to Cao's water camp.While drinking with Lu Su in the boat， he ordered the soldiers to beat the drums heavily to pretend to attack the enemy.It made Cao's troops missunderstand that Dong Wu's troops would attempt a sneak attack in fog. Cao Cao ordered all his soldiers to shoot arrows both on land and water. As a result， the scarecrows on the boats were full of arrows shot by the enemy， and the number of arrows were more than a hundred thousand.

After Zhou Yu heard about this from Lu Su， he heaved a deep sigh and said \"I can't compare with Kongming's wonderful foresight.\"

Now we use it to describe that the wonderful foresight has reached the miraculous level.

此語出自《三國演義》四十六回。公元208年，曹操率領(lǐng)二十萬大軍，準備南下消滅孫權(quán)的勢力。劉備派諸葛亮去東吳聯(lián)合孫權(quán)，共同對付曹操。

東吳大都督周瑜是個才華出眾的名帥，但他總嫉妒諸葛亮的才能，總想借機除掉諸葛亮。而諸葛亮為了顧全大局，聯(lián)吳抗曹，只能與其共事。

這一次，周瑜要諸葛亮在三天內(nèi)造出十萬支箭，并讓他立下軍令狀，到時交不出就要斬首。諸葛亮心中自有妙計，他只是向魯肅要了二十只船，每只船上配三十名士兵，船上扎放稻草人上千。

過了兩天，周瑜見諸葛亮沒有造箭的動靜，認為他必死無疑。不料到第三天凌晨，諸葛亮趁江上籠罩大霧，下令將草船駛近曹營水寨。他一面在船中與魯肅飲酒，一面讓士兵在船上擂鼓吶喊，裝作攻打曹營的樣子。曹操以為吳軍趁霧偷襲，命令水陸兩軍萬箭齊發(fā)朝江中射箭，結(jié)果二十只船上的草人都掛滿了箭，遠遠超過十萬支。

周瑜聽魯肅講了諸葛亮草船借箭的經(jīng)過，長嘆一聲：“孔明神機妙算，吾不如也?！?/p>

后用此典形容計謀高明，已達到神奇的程度。