What did Zheng people tell us when they bought shoes?

Zheng Ren's "Buying Shoes" satirizes dogmatists who stick to the rules and shows that if they stick to the rules and don't think about flexibility, they will achieve nothing in the end.

Buying shoes by Zheng people is a fable in the pre-Qin era, which comes from "Han Feizi's foreign reserves say left"; It is not only an idiom, but also an allusion and a fable. It mainly tells the story that men in A Zheng can't buy shoes because they believe in "yardstick" too much. It reveals Zheng people's habit of sticking to dogma and relying on data.

Extended data

Once upon a time, there was a Zheng man who wanted to buy a new pair of shoes. He measured his feet in advance and put the measured size on the seat. When I arrived at the market, I forgot to bring my size. I picked out my shoes and found, "I forgot my size." Just go home and get the measurements. When he returned to the market, the market had already dispersed, and he didn't buy shoes at last.

Someone asked, "Why don't you try on your shoes with your own feet?"

He replied, "I would rather trust the measured size than my own feet."