Bai Juyi, the great Tang Dynasty poet, served as governor of Zhongzhou and Hangzhou with such distinction that the people adored him. In 825 AD, the imperial court appointed him governor of Suzhou.
At the time, Suzhou was the largest prefecture in the southeast, teeming with people and bustling markets, so the administrative affairs requiring attention were far more numerous than in an average prefecture.
In the third month of that year, the poet Bai Juyi departed from the eastern capital Luoyang and arrived in Suzhou. Suzhou was a place where Bai Juyi had lived and traveled in his youth, and revisiting these old haunts stirred deep emotions within him. However, as the governor of the region, he had no time for nostalgia. Upon assuming office, he immediately summoned his subordinates to inquire about official matters, then changed into plain clothes to investigate the people's conditions firsthand, learning about their hardships and sufferings.
After more than ten days of intense work, Bai Juyi had gained a preliminary understanding of all aspects of Suzhou. He then began to reorganize official governance, boldly abolishing some harsh regulations and reducing the unreasonable burdens on the common people, earning their widespread praise.
His desk was piled high with official documents and scrolls, yet he insisted on reviewing every single one himself, often working from dawn until late into the night, and sometimes staying up all night just to resolve one or two difficult matters.
Bai Juyi, who once loved wine and music, now touched neither—he poured all his energy into his official duties.
Not long after, he wrote in a poem to a friend about this period of his life, including the line "There is no remedy for clumsiness like diligence." It meant that he was born dull-witted and could not bear the heavy responsibility of being the Prefect of Suzhou, so he had no choice but to make up for it with hard work.
Later, the idiom "make up for lack of skill with diligence" came to describe compensating for clumsiness with hard work, carrying a sense of self-deprecation.
Source: *Collected Works of Bai Juyi*
Meaning of the Idiom: Later, the Chinese idiom "将勤补拙" came to describe compensating for clumsiness with hard work, carrying a sense of self-deprecation.