Cao Chong weighs an elephant

Cao Chong was the son of Cao Cao.

One day, Sun Quan sent Cao Cao a present. It was a huge elephant. Cao Cao wanted to find out the weight of the elephant.

"What a huge animal it is! Can anyone tell me how to weigh it?" he asked the crowd around him.

"Can we get a large scale?" asked a soldier. However, no one could find a scale large enough.

"Can we cut it up?" asked another soldier. "No. I don't want to kill it," said Cao Cao. Just then, young Cao Chong had a wonderful idea. "I can weigh the elephant!" he said. "Let me have a try."

Cao Chong asked some soldiers to lead the elephant onto a boat. As the heavy animal walked onto it, the boat went lower into the water. Cao Chong drew a line on the side of the boat to mark how low it went. The elephant was then taken off the boat and the boat was filled with rocks until it went down again and water reached the line on the boat.

Cao Chong then weighed the rocks. He added up the weight of all the rocks and said, "This is the weight of the elephant."

Cao Cao was very happy with his son. "My son is very clever, isn't he?" he said. Everyone agreed.

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