军令如山
jūn lìng rú shān
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
Traditional: 軍令如山
A military order is as immovable as a mountain: it must be carried out without question. Also said, seriously or half in jest, about any instruction from above that cannot be refused.
Lệnh trong quân đội nặng như núi: đã ban ra thì phải chấp hành tuyệt đối. Cũng dùng, nghiêm túc hoặc nửa đùa, cho mọi mệnh lệnh của cấp trên mà mình không thể từ chối.
Register: neutral
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 062 (2026-11-13). Headword, Traditional form and pinyin checked against CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0) source ↗ · Hán-Việt reading: Unihan kVietnamese source ↗ · Vietnamese cognate: Idiomer entry “quân lệnh như sơn” (quan-lenh-nhu-son). Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Equivalents & related
Common questions
What does “军令如山” mean?
A military order is as immovable as a mountain: it must be carried out without question. Also said, seriously or half in jest, about any instruction from above that cannot be refused. Literally: military orders are like a mountain
Is “军令如山” formal or informal?
军令如山 is generally neutral.