比 → 師
Hexagram 8: Holding Together → Hexagram 7: The Army
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 2, 5).
Line 2
六二 比之自內。貞吉。
Six in the second place means: Hold to him inwardly. Perseverance brings good fortune.
Line 5
九五 顯比。王用三驅。失前禽。邑人不誡。吉。
Nine in the fifth place means: Manifestation of holding together. In the hunt the king uses beaters on three sides only And forgoes game that runs off in front. The citizens need no warning. Good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
千歲之墟，大國所屠。不見子都，城空無家。
A thousand-year-old ruin; a great state laid waste. Zidu is nowhere to be seen; the city is empty, no home remains.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water upon earth binds states in alliance, but when that bond is weaponized, devastation follows. A city that stood for a thousand years is razed by a great power. The famous beauty Zidu — the paragon of Zheng's aristocratic splendor — can no longer be seen; the city stands hollow, its households emptied. Zidu (公孫閼) was the celebrated handsome warrior of Zheng, so renowned that the Shijing declares 'one who does not know Zidu's beauty has no eyes.' His absence here signals the total erasure of a civilization's finest. From Holding Together to The Army, the transformation is direct: alliance gives way to disciplined military force. What water gathered upon earth in peace, water hidden within earth now marshals for war.
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