Cow

Further to my discussion yesterday, another common tragedy is to ask a horse who excels in the stables to take up the cow's job.

One notable, albeit not very well known, story comes from VW's citation itself. When Wang Anshi (王安石) talked about horses in his essay, he was referring to the story of Mao Sui (毛遂). The original story is this:

平原君曰、夫賢士之處世也、譬若錐之處囊中、其末立見。今先生處勝之門下、三年於此矣。左右未有所稱誦、勝未有所聞、是先生無所有也。先生不能、先生留。
毛遂曰、臣乃今日請處囊中耳。使遂得處囊中、乃穎脱而出。非特其末見而已。平原君竟與毛遂偕。
(史記·平原君虞卿列傳)

And what happened next was the famous story The Self Introduction of Mao Sui (毛遂自薦): Mao went with his master and helped establishing a treaty between Zhao (趙) and Chu (楚) - saving Zhao from the army of Qin (秦).

It sounds great, eh ? Do you know how did Mao die ?

Alas, after the successful campaign against Qin, Mao was quickly promoted to be a senior official, and was ordered to take up the post of an arm general soon - in a battle against Yan (燕).

And Mao cut his throat following the horrible defeat in that battle.