未濟 → 睽

Commentary

Fire above water, and nomadic invaders breach the frontier. The Xianyun overstep their bounds, and troops muster at Jiaohuo to repel them. The campaign reaches Hao and Fang, as the invaders contend with Zhou for supremacy. War chariots roll, but the conflict weakens King Yi of Zhou. The verse recalls Western Zhou military campaigns against the Xianyun nomads, documented in bronze inscriptions like the Duoyou ding. The Xianyun repeatedly raided the Wei River heartland during the reigns of Kings Li and Yi. From Before Completion to Opposition, fire-over-water transforms into fire above the lake — two elements that see each other but can never merge. Opposition captures the structural hostility between Zhou civilization and the steppe: visible to one another, fundamentally incompatible, each diminished by the encounter.