需 → 履
Hexagram 5: Waiting → Hexagram 10: Treading
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 3, 4, 6).
Line 3
九三 需于泥。致寇至。
Nine in the third place means: Waiting in the mud Brings about the arrival of the enemy.
Line 4
六四 需于血。出自穴。
Six in the fourth place means: Waiting in blood. Get out of the pit.
Line 6
上六 入于穴。有不速之客三人來。敬之終吉。
Six at the top means: One falls into the pit. Three uninvited guests arrive. Honor them, and in the end there will be good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
兵征大宛，北出玉門。與胡寇戰，平城道西。七日絕糧，身幾不全。
The army campaigns against Dayuan, going north out through Jade Gate. Battling the Xiongnu raiders west of Pingcheng; seven days without grain, the body nearly lost.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Clouds above heaven darken into the perils of a distant campaign. Troops are dispatched against Dayuan, marching north beyond the Jade Gate Pass. They clash with the Xiongnu raiders west of Pingcheng — an allusion that conflates two Han military disasters: Emperor Wu's Dayuan campaign under Li Guangli and Emperor Gaozu's encirclement at Baideng near Pingcheng, where Han forces were besieged for seven days without provisions, the emperor barely escaping alive. The verse compresses these episodes into a single image of reckless overreach. From Waiting to Treading, patience is abandoned for the perilous step of treading on the tiger's tail: one who ventures beyond heaven's shelter walks where destruction waits.
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