坎 → 師
Hexagram 29: The Abysmal Water → Hexagram 7: The Army
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 1 changing line (line 5).
Line 5
九五 坎不盈。祗既平。无咎。
Nine in the fifth place means: The abyss is not filled to overflowing, It is filled only to the rim. No blame.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
雷行相逐，無有休息。戰於平陸，為夷所覆。
Black clouds press the steppe as war-horses scream. Iron cavalry charges in all directions — dust blots out the sky. Broken flags lie on the ground, no one to lift them — a thousand li of plains, blood runs like rivers.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water upon water, danger cascades without rest. Thunder pursues thunder in relentless succession — no pause, no respite. The army engages on the open plain at Pinglu, only to be overwhelmed and destroyed by foreign forces. The original verse drives with urgency: chase follows chase as disaster unfolds in the flat terrain where there is nowhere to hide. From The Abysmal to The Army, the transformation reveals water contained within the earth — disciplined force held beneath a calm surface. Yet this verse shows the army's failure: when military power is deployed without strategic depth, when thunder merely chases without plan, the result is annihilation on exposed ground rather than the controlled application of force that The Army demands.
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