Cao Zhi, styled Zijian, was the fourth son of Cao Cao, a renowned statesman and military strategist in Chinese history. Gifted from childhood, he loved poetry, prose, songs, and rhapsodies; by his teens, he could recite hundreds of famous works and was also highly skilled at writing essays. Thus, many called him a "prodigy."
Cao Cao greatly admired his son Cao Zhi's literary talent, but he also found it puzzling. One day, after reading one of Cao Zhi's essays, Cao Cao was impressed yet suspicious that someone else might have written it. He summoned Cao Zhi and asked seriously, "I've read your essay—it's excellent. Did you have someone write it for you?"
Cao Zhi quickly knelt before his father and reported, "No, I can form arguments as I speak and write essays as I set pen to paper. If you do not believe me, you may test me on the spot. How can you say I asked someone else to write them for me?"
Cao Cao could not help but burst into laughter and said, "No? That's good, then!"
Soon after, Cao Cao's Bronze Sparrow Tower in Ye City was completed. He summoned his sons to ascend it and ordered each to compose a rhapsody to test their literary talent. Cao Zhi picked up his brush and wrote, finishing the piece in no time. This feat fully proved his own claim: "Words flow as discourse, brush strokes become chapters."
Thanks to his natural talent, his father's strict demands, and his own diligent efforts, Cao Zhi produced over two hundred poems, rhapsodies, and essays during his 41 years of life. His masterpieces, including "The Goddess of the Luo River" and "To the White-Horse King Biao," remain celebrated classics passed down through the ages.
Later, the idiom "Writing an Article at the Drop of a Hat" came to describe quick literary inspiration and fast writing.
Source: *Records of the Three Kingdoms*, Biography of Cao Zhi
Meaning of the Idiom: Later, the Chinese idiom "下笔成章" came to describe quick literary inspiration and fast writing.