I think you mean 100 into 1000. My guess is that hardly anyone was actually translating from the Chinese. Most English speakers were just quoting something they had heard previously. Somewhere along the line one or more persons misquoted "hundred" as "thousand" because they forgot and/or because as you say it "sounded better".
Once a misquote gets into general circulation, especially on the internet, it's almost impossible to stamp out. I've seen several cases of this recently.
That was a pre-internet misquote