乾 → 大壯
Hexagram 1: The Creative → Hexagram 34: Great Power
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 5, 6).
Line 5
九五 飛龍在天。利見大人。
Nine in the fifth place means: Flying dragon in the heavens. It furthers one to see the great man.
Line 6
上九 亢龍有悔。
Nine at the top means: Arrogant dragon will have cause to repent.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
隙大墻壞，蠹眾木折。狼虎為政，天降罪罰。高弒望夷，胡亥以斃。
When the crack is wide the wall crumbles; when the worm-bores are many the wood snaps. Wolves and tigers govern; heaven sends down punishment. Gao murdered at Wangyi; Huhai perished.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
When gaps grow wide the wall collapses; when wood-borers multiply the beam snaps. Wolves and tigers govern the state, and heaven sends its punishment. Zhao Gao murders the emperor at Wangyi Palace; the Second Emperor Huhai perishes. From Creative to Great Power, thunder roars above heaven — overwhelming force. Yet the verse shows Da Zhuang's peril: power unchecked by propriety destroys itself. Zhao Gao's regime was raw coercion wearing the mask of governance, its wall already riddled with cracks. The timber-beetle metaphor makes the mechanism explicit: corruption eats from within until the structure cannot bear even its own weight, and the powerful are crushed by the very force they wielded.
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