小畜 → 師
Hexagram 9: Small Taming → Hexagram 7: The Army
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 5, 6).
Line 1
初九 復自道。何其咎。吉。
Nine at the beginning means: Return to the way. How could there be blame in this? Good fortune.
Line 3
九三 輿說輻。夫妻反目。
Nine in the third place means: The spokes burst out of the wagon wheels. Man and wife roll their eyes.
Line 5
九五 有孚攣如。富以其鄰。
Nine in the fifth place means: If you are sincere and loyally attached, You are rich in your neighbor.
Line 6
上九 既雨既處。尚德載。婦貞厲。月幾望。君子征凶。
Nine at the top means: The rain comes, there is rest. This is due to the lasting effect of character. Perseverance brings the woman into danger. The moon is nearly full. If the superior man persists, Misfortune comes.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
鑿山通道，南至嘉國；周公祝祖，襄適荊楚。
Cutting through mountains to open roads, heading south to a fair land. The Duke of Zhou offers ancestral prayers; Xiang goes to the land of Jing and Chu.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wind above heaven sinks into earth concealing water — the image of disciplined reserves. Mountains are hewn open to carve a road south to a prosperous state. The Duke of Zhou prays to the ancestral spirits, and Duke Xiang journeys to the realm of Jing-Chu. The verse evokes the Zhou tradition of ritual preparation before major undertakings: prayer secures spiritual sanction, engineering opens the physical path. From Small Taming to The Army, gentle cultural refinement transforms into organized mobilization. The mountain passage is not conquest but logistics — the patient infrastructure that makes great expeditions possible. The army's true strength lies in the road built before the march begins.
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