qī​qín​qī​zòng

to win someone over with clever strategy

七擒七纵 七擒七縱 qī​qín​qī​zòng
to win someone over with clever strategy
Literally "seven captures and seven releases"; based on the legend of 诸葛亮 zhū​gě​liàng capturing and releasing the rebel leader 孟获 mèng​huò seven times to win his true loyalty; used to describe using clever tactics or psychological skill to make an opponent yield from their heart.

Frequency

Written text
0.017 per million

Sources

Frequency data
BCC Corpus (BLCU)