虎踞龙盘今胜昔

虎踞龍盤今勝昔
hǔ jù lóng pán jīn shèng xī
quotation

Meanings

  1. 1 crouching tiger, coiling dragon — today surpasses yesterday
  2. 2 (fig.) (of Nanjing / a strategic city) now more formidable than ever
  3. 3 (lit.) tiger-crouch dragon-coil, today surpass yesterday

Examples

Máozédōng xiě hǔjùlóngpánjīnshèngxī, qìshìpángbó.
Mao Zedong's line 'crouching tiger, coiling dragon — today surpasses yesterday' is grand in momentum.
Nánjīng zhè zuò gǔchéng, zhèngrú shī zhōng hǔjùlóngpánjīnshèngxī.
The ancient city of Nanjing is exactly as the poem says: 'crouching tiger, coiling dragon — now greater than ever.'

Tips

history
From 毛泽东七律·人民解放军占领南京》(Mao Zedong, The PLA Captures Nanjing, April 1949), written the day after PLA troops crossed the Yangtze and took the city: 风雨百万大江天翻地覆 (Storm and rain rise yellow-grey over Zhong Mountain; a million heroic troops cross the great river. Crouching tiger, coiling dragon — today surpasses yesterday; heaven overturned, earth flipped, I sing with passion). is the ancient epithet for Nanjing's terrain, attributed originally to 诸葛亮 (Zhuge Liang, 3rd c.): (Zhongshan is a coiling dragon; Stone City is a crouching tiger).
usage
The four-character is a long-standing set phrase for Nanjing's strategic geography — Mao added ('today surpasses yesterday') to turn the line into a victory boast. Always cited with 天翻地覆 as its couplet partner.

Stroke Order

lóng
pán
jīn
shèng