Chapter 57 dire straits

Qi State sent troops to attack Yan State.There was chaos on the battlefield, and the families of the common people were destroyed.King Qi Xuan personally supervised the battle and was very proud.Qi State officials, big and small, some praised King Qi Xuan's feats, and some privately criticized the monarch for being unkind and unloving. Mencius was a learned scholar who always advocated benevolence and opposed war. Of course he was very unhappy.King Xuan of Qi came back triumphantly and hosted a banquet for civil and military officials.King Qi Xuan said: "Some people have objections to my attacking Yan. Now I have conquered them in 50 days. Isn't this God's will?" "Mencius, tell me." King Xuan of Qi was a little aggressive.Mencius replied: "If you occupy the country of Yan, the people of the country of Yan will be very happy, so go and occupy it!" King Xuan of Qi was very unhappy.Mencius continued: "Like water getting deeper, like fire getting hotter, will the people of Yan Kingdom come to send water and food, and welcome each other?"

The original meaning of the idiom "water is deep and fire is hot" is to make the water deeper and the fire hotter.It is a metaphor for the extreme pain of people's lives, such as being in deep water and hot fire.