📖 Meaning
It describes mountain ranges piled one upon another in unbroken layers. The idiom is used to portray rugged, continuously stretching mountainous terrain. It often conveys the difficulty or grand scale of a journey across such landscape.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase comes from the preface to "Jin Zhou Fu" (《进舟赋》序) by the Ming dynasty writer He Jingming (何景明), a leading figure among the Later Seven Masters. In the preface he recounts being sent as an envoy to distant Yunnan, a journey of nearly ten thousand li. Along the way he crossed nothing but layered mountains and overlapping ridges, traveling by cart and on horseback, jolted and jostled until he could no longer endure the fatigue. The phrase has since been used to describe endlessly overlapping mountain terrain.
💡 Example Usage
车队穿过重山复岭，终于在黄昏时抵达了山下的村庄。
The convoy wound through range after range of overlapping mountains, finally reaching the village at the foot of the hills as dusk fell.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 重山复岭
- Pinyin: chóng shān fù lǐng
- Literal Translation: layered mountains, overlapping ridges
- Category: Condition
- Characters: 4