虾兵蟹将 — Chinese idiom

Meaning

• shrimp soldiers and crab generals (in mythology or popular fiction, the army of the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea)
• useless troops

Character by character

• 虾xiāshrimp, prawn
• 兵bīngsoldier; troops, an army; warlike
• 蟹xiècrab, brachyura
• 将jiàngthe future, what will be; ready, prepared; a gener

Idioms sharing a character

• 先礼后兵 xiān lǐ hòu bīng
• 全民皆兵 quán mín jiē bīng
• 兵不厌诈 bīng bù yàn zhà
• 兵不血刃 bīng bù xuè rèn
• 兵家常事 bīng jiā cháng shì
• 兵强马壮 bīng qiáng mǎ zhuàng
• 兵戈扰攘 bīng gē rǎo rǎng
• 兵戎相见 bīng róng xiāng jiàn
• 兵精粮足 bīng jīng liáng zú
• 兵临城下 bīng lín chéng xià

Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3). Retrieved 2026-10-22.