豐 → 屯
Hexagram 55: Abundance → Hexagram 3: Difficulty at the Beginning
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 3, 4, 5).
Line 3
九三 豐其沛。日中見沬。折其右肱。无咎。
Nine in the third place means: The underbrush is of such abundance That the small stars can be seen at noon. He breaks his right arm. No blame.
Line 4
九四 豐其蔀。日中見斗。遇其夷主。吉。
Nine in the fourth place means: The curtain is of such fullness That the polestars can be seen at noon. He meets his ruler, who is of like kind. Good fortune.
Line 5
六五 來章。有慶譽吉。
Six in the fifth place means: Lines are coming, Blessing and fame draw near. Good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
東山皋落,叛逆不服。興師征討,恭子敗覆。
At East Mountain the Gaoluo rebel and refuse submission. Raising troops to campaign and punish them, Lord Gong meets with defeat.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder and fire converge in Abundance, but the verse plunges into military disaster. The Dongshan Gaoluo, a barbarian tribe east of Jin, refuse submission. An army is raised to punish them, yet the campaign ends in defeat for Gongzi — likely a prince or general leading the expedition. According to the Zuo Zhuan, Duke Xian of Jin dispatched forces against the Eastern Mountain Gaoluo tribe, and the campaign met with serious reversals. The verse names the pattern plainly: rebellion resists order, force is mustered, and the commander is overthrown. From Abundance to Difficulty at the Beginning, clouds and thunder gather but birth is painful: the bright confidence of Abundance crashes into the tangled chaos of a new situation where every step forward meets obstruction.
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