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Literal Meaning: Go to the battlefield without armor
Metaphorical Meaning: It is described that someone takes in the fight without any cover or does something with very high fanaticism.
 
This phrase comes from the famous Chinese classic novel Romance of Three Kingdoms. At the end of East Han Dynasty (204 AD – 219 AD), the central government was very corruptive and had no abilities to control the whole country. The warlords in different places set up their separatist regime by force of arms and attacked each other.
 
In 211 AD, Ma Teng, lord of Liangzhou (present Wuwei in Gansu Provicne), was killed by Cao Cao. His son Ma Chao, who was very strong and skillful in martial arts, united with Ma Teng's sworn brother Han Sui to attack Cao Cao for revenge. The two sides set their battle arrays by Weishui River in present Shaanxi Province. Ma Chao came out from his own battle field and asked for the one-on-one duel with the generals in Cao Cao's army. He defeated Yu Jin and Zhang He and even killed Li Tong in a very short time. This scared Cao Cao very much. His most powerful general Xu Chu came out to fight against Ma Chao. These two men fought more than one hundred rounds and got a deuce. Even the horses they rode felt tired. They came back to their arrays to change the horses. Xu Chu felt very excited and he took off his plate armor and fought against Ma Chao barebacked. All the soldiers and generals of both sides were astonished by this. After thirty rounds' fighting, Ma and Xu broke their own arms and the armies of each side came up to help their leaders. Cao's army was defeated and returned to their camps. Xu Chu was also injured by the arrows since he lacked the protection of the armor. Ma Chao returned to the camps after victory and said to Han Sui: "Xu Chu was the boldest man I have ever seen in the battle. He is really a 'Fight-fanaticism like A Tiger'!"
 
This idiom was formerly used to praise Xu Chu's martial arts and boldness. Now it is mainly to describe that a man does something with very high fanaticism.
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