師 → 巽
Hexagram 7: The Army → Hexagram 57: The Gentle Wind
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 3, 5, 6).
Line 3
六三 師或輿尸。凶。
Six in the third place means: Perchance the army carries corpses in the wagon. Misfortune.
Line 5
六五 田有禽。利執言。无咎。長子帥師。弟子輿尸。貞凶。
Six in the fifth place means: There is game in the field. It furthers one to catch it. Without blame. Let the eldest lead the army. The younger transports corpses; Then perseverance brings misfortune.
Line 6
上六 大君有命。開國承家。小人勿用。
Six at the top means: The great prince issues commands, Founds states, vests families with fiefs. Inferior people should not be employed.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
胡蠻戎狄，大陰所積。涸冰凍寒，君子不存。
The Hu, Man, Rong, and Di; where great yin accumulates. Dry ice, frozen cold; the noble man cannot survive.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water hidden within the earth meets the frozen hostility of the borderlands. Hu, Man, Rong, and Di — the four barbarian peoples on China's periphery — dwell where great yin accumulates. Parched ice and bitter cold grip the landscape; the gentleman cannot survive there. The verse maps the army's limit: beyond the pale of civilization lies terrain so harsh that even the cultivated person perishes. From The Army to The Gentle, doubled wind penetrates softly and persistently. Yet the verse negates wind's gentle infiltration — these frozen wastes admit no subtle influence. The frontier's accumulated yin simply overwhelms any attempt at civilizing penetration. Some territories resist all command.
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