" Hǎinà-bǎichuān " de shuōfa kěyǐ zhuīsù dào Yuán Hóng de 《 Sānguó míngchén xùzàn 》.
The phrase "the sea takes in a hundred rivers" can be traced back to Yuan Hong's "Eulogies on Famous Ministers of the Three Kingdoms".
Tips
history
袁宏 wrote a preface and rhymed eulogies for twenty ministers of Wei, Shu and Wu, among them 诸葛亮 and 周瑜. The piece was later collected in the anthology 《文选》.
culture
Two idioms trace back to it. 海纳百川 grew from its praise of a mind as wide as the sea, and 泰然处之 "to take something calmly" from its picture of statesmen growing ever calmer in the face of upheaval.