During the Eastern Han Dynasty, General Peng Chong, who followed Liu Xiu to conquer the empire, did not receive the important positions he expected. Resentful of the deployment orders from Zhu Fu, the governor of Youzhou, he planned to rebel.

Zhu Fu wrote a letter to him, recounting a story:

A farmer by the Liao River once had a pig with a white head and thought it was an auspicious rarity, intending to present it to the emperor. However, when he traveled to the Liaodong region, he found that all the pigs there had white heads, so he had no choice but to turn back home.

Zhu Fu then implied that Peng Chong was just like that farmer, making a fuss over something commonplace due to his limited perspective.