Its best-known story: the magistrate
张咏 had a clerk beheaded for taking one coin from the treasury, ruling
一日一钱，
千日千钱，
绳锯木断，
水滴石穿 'a coin a day is a thousand coins in a thousand days; a rope saws through wood, dripping water wears through stone'. The last two phrases became idioms of persistence.
