大壯 → 豫
Hexagram 34: Great Power → Hexagram 16: Enthusiasm
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3).
Line 1
初九 壯于趾。征凶有孚。
Nine at the beginning means: Power in the toes. Continuing brings misfortune. This is certainly true.
Line 2
九二 貞吉。
Nine in the second place means: Perseverance brings good fortune.
Line 3
九三 小人用壯。君子用罔。貞厲。羝羊觸藩。羸其角。
Nine in the third place means: The inferior man works through power. The superior man does not act thus. To continue is dangerous. A goat butts against a hedge And gets its horns entangled.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
信譎龍且，塞水上流，半涉決囊，楚師覆凶。
Trusting in deceit against Long Ju; he dams the river's upper flow. At mid-crossing the sandbags burst; the army of Chu is overthrown.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder above heaven sends a flood crashing down upon the unwary. The verse alludes to Han Xin's devastating stratagem at the Battle of the Wei River in 204 BC. The Chu general Long Ju, brave but credulous, advanced to engage Han Xin's forces. Han Xin had secretly dammed the upper river with sandbags; when Long Ju's troops were halfway across, the dam was breached. The torrent swallowed the Chu army, and Long Ju perished in the deluge. From Great Power to Enthusiasm, thunder erupts from the earth in Yu — a surge of energy released with perfect timing. Han Xin's genius lay not in brute force but in choreographing nature's power to strike at the precise moment of vulnerability.
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