Confucius, known as Kong Qiu and styled Zhongni, was born in the late Spring and Autumn period in the state of Lu (present-day Shandong Province). A towering thinker, statesman, and educator of ancient China, his ideas profoundly shaped later generations, and his followers formed the influential Confucian school.
Confucius was remarkably talented and deeply learned, but he insisted his knowledge was "not innate, but earned through hard study." Orphaned at three, his young widowed mother had him work various jobs to support the family—he herded cattle, guarded grain, and even played the flute at funerals. With no formal education as a child, he taught himself everything, proving that mastery comes from relentless effort, not birthright.
At seventeen, Confucius lost his mother. While burying her, he finally located his father's grave and discovered he was descended from nobility. He then worked on noble estates, learning various skills as he labored.
At 30, Confucius founded a private school, opening education to commoners for the first time. By 50, Duke Ding of Lu appointed him governor of Zhongdu (now Wenshang County, Shandong); years later, he became a high minister. After 55, he traveled through many feudal states, not returning to Lu until he was 68.
In his later years, Confucius developed a deep fascination with the *Book of Changes*, also known as the *Zhouyi*, an ancient text attributed to the Zhou people. This complex work, used for divination, consists of the *Jing* (the core, with 64 hexagrams and 384 lines) and the *Zhuan* (ten commentaries explaining the hexagrams and lines). By using the eight trigrams—symbolizing natural phenomena like heaven, earth, thunder, wind, rain, fire, water, and marsh—it sought to predict changes in both nature and society, making it a profoundly broad and intricate study.
The *Book of Changes* was written in ancient script, already rare and incredibly difficult to read, so most people dared not even approach it. Yet Confucius was deeply fascinated and determined to master it.
In ancient China, books were made from bamboo. The bamboo was split into strips called "bamboo slips," dried over fire, and then written on. Each slip could only hold one line of text—a few dozen characters at most. A single book required many slips, which had to be bound together with strong cords to be read. A work like the *Book of Changes* was compiled from countless slips, making it quite heavy.
Confucius devoted immense effort to studying the *Book of Changes*, reading it through once to grasp its content, then a second time to master its key points, and a third to deeply understand its essence. To delve further and teach his disciples, he flipped through the bamboo slips so often that the oxhide bindings wore out and broke several times, forcing him to replace them again and again.
Confucius, having thoroughly studied the *Book of Changes*, wrote prefaces for its commentaries like "Tuan," "Xi," "Xiang," "Shuo Gua," and "Wen Yan," demonstrating his deep mastery of the text. He humbly remarked, "If I could live a few more years, I would fully grasp both the form and substance of the *Changes*."
Confucius was so devoted to studying the *Book of Changes* that he wore out the leather binding straps three times. "Wei" refers to tanned oxhide, and "bian" means the leather cords used to bind bamboo slips. "San" is an approximate number meaning "many times," while "jue" means "broken." This idiom is often used to describe someone who is exceptionally diligent and eager to learn.
Source: *Records of the Grand Historian*, "Hereditary House of Confucius"
Meaning of the Idiom: Later, the Chinese idiom "韦编三绝" came to describe how someone is exceptionally diligent and eager to learn.