break through brambles and thorns--hack one's way through difficulties

This idiom comes from History of Later Han The life of Feng Yi. Liu Xiu was the First Emperor of the Eastern Han Dynasty.But in the first period of his building the army, the military power and living standard were very difficult and weak, so a lot of his followers and soldiers left him and went away. At the same time, a brave general, Feng Yi was very persistent and never complained of hardship.

Once, Liu Xiu led the troops through a place--WuLouting. All the soldiers were very cold and hungry. Feng tried his best to cook a big pot of porridge to make everyone comfortable. Later on their way to Nangong County, they caught up with a violent storm and all of them were numb with cold. Then Feng tried to find some grass and firewood to dry all the wet clothes by the fire and also cooked some food for them. All of these gave Liu Xiu an unforgetable impression. Especially, Feng Yi was very courageous and skillful in battle and had a lot of outstanding military exploits, so he had won Liu Xiu's great love and esteem.

After ascending the throne, Liu Xiu treated him as well as before. So it raised a lot of officials' jealousy and some of them brought false charges against him, they even warned Liu Xiu of Feng's comspiracy against the state, but Liu Xiu paid no attention to their claims. Once Liu Xiu told all his ministers in the court:" Feng Yi is my capable assistant, he has removed all the obstacles on the road of advance, so we can lay a victorious foundation of our state."

Now we usually use it to refer to clearing away all difficulties and obstacles to one's progress. Sometimes it's also used to refer to overcoming any hardships that may occur in the course of one's career.

此語(yǔ)出自《后漢書(shū)·馮異傳》。光武帝劉秀是東漢王朝的開(kāi)國(guó)皇帝，可他開(kāi)始起兵時(shí)勢(shì)單力薄，生活相當(dāng)艱苦，不少人為此離他而去，但當(dāng)時(shí)任主薄的馮異卻堅(jiān)定不移，從不叫苦。

一次，劉秀帶兵路過(guò)蕪蔞亭，又冷又餓，士兵們?nèi)滩蛔○囸I寒冷，后來(lái)馮異設(shè)法給大家煮了一大鍋粥，使大家消除了饑寒。后來(lái)又有一次隊(duì)伍到南宮縣，遇到狂風(fēng)暴雨，大家凍得受不了，馮異又給大家找來(lái)柴草點(diǎn)火烤衣服，又為大家設(shè)法煮飯吃。這兩件事給劉秀留下了難忘的印象，最主要的是馮異勇猛善戰(zhàn)，屢立戰(zhàn)功，因而劉秀對(duì)他十分信任。

由于光武帝對(duì)馮異的信任，也引起了不少大臣的嫉妒，有人誣告馮異，勸皇帝防止馮異權(quán)重謀反。劉秀不僅不信，還在一次上朝時(shí)，對(duì)滿朝文武官員說(shuō)：“馮異是我起兵時(shí)打天下的得力助手，曾為我劈開(kāi)了創(chuàng)業(yè)路上的荊棘，為我平定天下奠定了基礎(chǔ)?！?/p>

后用此典比喻掃除前進(jìn)中的困難和障礙，也形容克服創(chuàng)業(yè)中的種種艱難。