Hexagram Cast Cast from anything
中文 Sign In
<- Library
<- 6 · Conflict 8 · Holding Together ->
FILE · 7 / 64
007 · U+4DC6
䷆

The Army

SHĪ
Discipline · Command · Just war
Upper · Kun ☷ Earth / Lower · Kan ☵ Water

Judgment

— I Ching · classical

贞，丈人，吉，无咎。

Mobilizing collective force demands firm resolve and a seasoned commander at its head. This brings good fortune and no fault.

Image

— Great Image

地中有水，师，君子以容民畜众。

Water lies hidden within the earth itself: this is the image of a standing army. Seeing this, a person of quality builds up the people through care and education, drawing their strength together in the process.

Six Lines

— Bottom to top

Initial Six · 初六 ⚋ yin
师出以律，否臧凶。
A mobilized force has to move under real discipline from the start -- if that order breaks down, disaster is bound to follow.
Discipline, SOP, and clear chain of command come first. Without these, even superior weapons lose.
Nine in the second · 九二 ⚊ yang
在师中，吉，无咎，王三锡命。
Standing right in the thick of it alongside the troops -- good fortune, no fault, and recognition from the highest authority follows, more than once.
Commander serves on the front line, builds credibility through shared hardship, earns repeated mandates from above.
Six in the third · 六三 ⚋ yin
师或舆尸，凶。
The campaign may well end with the wagons hauling home the dead instead of victory -- misfortune.
Multiple commanders, scattered authority, incompetent substitutes — the battle-line dissolves; only corpses come home.
Six in the fourth · 六四 ⚋ yin
师左次，无咎。
Pulling the force back to a safer position draws no fault at all.
Reading the terrain, withdrawing leftward to preserve force, is tactical wisdom — not cowardice.
Six in the fifth · 六五 ⚋ yin
田有禽，利执言，无咎。长子帅师，弟子舆尸，贞凶。
There's real quarry in the field, and going after it is justified -- no fault there. Put the seasoned veteran in command; hand it to the untested junior instead, and even firm resolve ends in disaster.
Casus belli is just; entrust command to the seasoned (the elder son). Promoting an inexperienced favorite (the younger) loses the war.
Six at the top · 上六 ⚋ yin
大君有命，开国承家，小人勿用。
The ruler now issues the victory orders -- founding new territories, granting estates to loyal houses. But those of poor character must never be handed a seat in that new order.
After victory: reward freely with goods, never with seats in the strategic core. Wartime utility ≠ peacetime fitness.

Modern Readings

— Interdisciplinary

Career & Management

Existential transformation, major reorgs, severe public-relations crises. Time to abandon flat democracy and enter militarized execution mode with unified command.

Psychology & Cognition

High-resilience 'super-execution state'. Demands focused will, strong personal boundaries, internalized order.

Decision Guidance

Centralize command in a single seasoned figure. Discipline before strategy. Distribute spoils, but guard the strategic core from political promotions.

Integrated Reading

— Structure · timing · relations

The Army places The Receptive / Earth above The Abysmal / Water. Read the lower trigram as the emerging ground and the upper trigram as the field, pressure, or constraint it must answer. The core theme is Discipline · Command · Just war. Relations: the opposite hexagram shows the shadow/complement (Fellowship with Men); the inverse shows the other-side view (Holding Together); the nuclear hexagram shows the hidden internal mechanism (Return).

Line Path

Line path: Initial Six → Nine in the second → Six in the third → Six in the fourth → Six in the fifth → Six at the top. Read from bottom to top to see how the situation emerges, develops, crosses thresholds, and resolves.

Reflection Prompt

Am I acting from the proper position of The Army, or am I being pulled by command without legitimacy? What is the smallest reversible next move that respects the timing?

Western Parallels

— Cross-cultural

Clausewitz on the moral forces of war; Sun Tzu's emphasis on unified command and provisions; Drucker on crisis leadership; Boyd's OODA loop applied under pressure; military maxim 'amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics'.

· Classical Chinese source text is normalized from the received Yijing / I Ching tradition; punctuation is editorial.
· English renderings and modern readings are original editorial writing, cross-checked against public-domain and classical commentary lineages.
· Hexagram Cast does not predict, score, schedule, ward, or recommend rituals.
· Modern inputs are reproducible; traditional casts can be audited line by line from the stored coin/yarrow trace.
Add Hexagram Cast to your home screen for instant casting anywhere.