During the Three Kingdoms period, Liu Bei once borrowed Jingzhou from Sun Quan of Eastern Wu as a temporary base. Later, as Liu Bei's power grew, Sun Quan sought to reclaim Jingzhou.
Sun Quan then adopted his Grand Commander Zhou Yu's plan, pretending to betroth his own sister to Liu Bei as a marriage alliance between Sun and Liu to jointly oppose Cao Cao, luring Liu Bei to Eastern Wu as a hostage to force him into returning Jingzhou.
However, Zhuge Liang saw through Zhou Yu's scheme. With a clever trick, he turned Liu Bei's marriage visit to Eastern Wu from a trap into a reality. Sun Quan's mother, Lady Wu, took charge and married her daughter to Liu Bei.
Sun Ce was furious. Following Zhou Yu's plan, he immersed Liu Bei in a life of luxury and pleasure, hoping he would forget his ambitions and never return. But Zhuge Liang had foreseen this. He instructed Zhao Yun to falsely report to Liu Bei that Cao Cao was marching five hundred thousand troops toward Jingzhou. Liu Bei immediately explained the situation to Lady Sun, who without hesitation resolved to leave with him. Together, they slipped away without saying goodbye and hurried back to Jingzhou.
Along the way, they first encountered two of Zhou Yu's generals blocking their path, but Lady Sun shouted them back. Then, Sun Quan sent two more generals in pursuit, only to have Lady Sun fiercely rebuke them. By the time Sun Quan dispatched a messenger with an imperial sword to stop them, Liu Bei and his party had already boarded Zhuge Liang's rescue boats, leaving the pursuers to watch helplessly as they sailed away.
As Liu Bei and his party reached the river's center, Zhou Yu, hearing the news, led his naval forces in pursuit. Zhuge Liang ordered the boats to dock at the northern shore, where they abandoned ship and fled on foot.
Zhou Yu, seeing his chance, led his troops ashore in hot pursuit. But Zhuge Liang had anticipated this move—Guan Yu ambushed them from the front while Huang Zhong and Wei Yan struck from both flanks. Unaccustomed to land combat, the Eastern Wu sailors took heavy losses and were forced to retreat back to their ships.
Zhuge Liang ordered his troops not to pursue, but to shout in unison from the shore: "Zhou Yu's brilliant plan to secure the realm has cost him his bride and his soldiers!"
Zhou Yu, having suffered such humiliation, collapsed unconscious on the boat.
Later, the idiom "Losing both the lady and the soldiers" came to describe gaining nothing but suffering a double loss.
Source: *Romance of the Three Kingdoms*
Meaning of the Idiom: Later, the Chinese idiom "赔了夫人又折兵" came to describe gaining nothing but suffering a double loss.