Guai to Ge: exposing or hushing up an agent's fraud

Date not recorded · The head clerk of a wealthy merchant house · 中文版

The cast

Hexagram 43 Guài (Breakthrough), line 2 moving, changing to Hexagram 49 Gé (Revolution).

Original text

某豪商家甲幹某來曰。僕爲商用旅行。暫以店事。托友代理。不料彼等通同舞弊。擅支餘金。又復僞擡貨價。捏造虛帳。余近已得悉奸狀。意將摘發其私。以正其罪。抑將隱瞞其跡。以了其事乎。二者若何。請爲一占。筮得夬之革。爻辭曰。九二惕號。莫夜有戎。勿恤。斷曰。夬者以剛決柔。爲決去小人之卦也。上爻一陰。是奸惡之渠魁也。五陽在下。合志去讒。彖傳曰孚號有厲。謂明信發號。而不勝危厲。奸惡之難除如是。今足下占得二爻。辭曰。惕號莫夜有戎。勿恤。凡作僞舞弊。皆爲陰謀。陰爲夜。且鼠窃之徒。晝伏夜行。其象亦爲莫夜。而因事防維。亦要在莫夜之間。號惕者。爲警惕申令。如防盜然。終夜擊柝也。兌爲口。惟口興戎。足下若過於嚴詰。彼等皆爲窮寇。小則口舌。大則用武。在所不免。足下理直辭當。彼即用武。亦無憂也。故曰勿恤。至夬卦全義。雖在夬去小人。而象稱健而說。夬而和。是夬之中。亦不失忠厚之意。足下其審度行之。某甲幹聞而大感。悉從予占。其事乃得平和而了。

In plain words

The head clerk of a wealthy merchant house came and said: I went travelling on business and left the shop in the hands of friends for a while. To my surprise they colluded in fraud: they helped themselves to surplus funds, inflated the prices of goods and falsified the accounts. I have now uncovered what they did. Should I expose them and see them punished, or cover it up and put the matter to rest? Please cast. The cast gave Guai with its second line moving, changing into Ge. The line reads: "Nine in the second place: alarm and a warning cry; attack in the dark of night; do not worry."

Takashima's judgment: Guai is the firm breaking through the yielding, the hexagram of getting rid of petty people. The single yin line at the top is the ringleader; the five yang lines below are united in removing him. The commentary's "a sincere proclamation, yet there is danger" means that even open, honest orders cannot escape danger, so hard is wrongdoing to root out. You drew the second line, "alarm and a warning cry; attack at night; do not worry". All fraud is scheming in the dark; yin is night, and petty thieves hide by day and move by night, which is also "the dark of night". Guarding against them likewise has to happen at night. "Alarm and a warning cry" is being watchful and giving clear orders, as when guarding against burglars, beating the watchman's clappers all night.

Dui is the mouth, and "the mouth can start a fight": if you press them too hard, they will be like cornered bandits; a quarrel at least, and at worst violence, would be hard to avoid. But if you are in the right and speak fairly, even if they turn violent you need not fear; hence "do not worry". As for Guai as a whole, though it is about removing petty people, the commentary calls it "strong yet gladdening, decisive yet harmonious", so decisiveness does not have to lose its generosity. Weigh it carefully and act accordingly.

The clerk was deeply moved, did exactly as advised, and the matter was settled peacefully.

How Takashima read it

Only one line text is read: with one moving line, the second line of Guai is read, with a good deal of the Tuan commentary.
The figure is five yang lines breaking through one yin: the top yin line is the ringleader and the five yang lines together remove it, matching the clerk's need to deal with the fraud.
"Attack at night" takes yin as night and fraud as scheming in the dark, and becomes guarding carefully, as against thieves in the night.
It ends with the commentary's "decisive yet harmonious": leave room in one's decisiveness and do not drive people into a corner. This is Takashima's third way between exposing and covering up.

About the outcome

That "it was settled peacefully" is Takashima's record, without saying exactly what was done or what became of the men. What the reading mainly offers is a sense of proportion: neither let it pass nor push people too far.

Applying it to your situation

On discovering someone's wrongdoing, we often see only two paths: expose it or swallow it. "Decisive yet harmonious" suggests a third: deal with it firmly, but leave the other person a dignified way out. For the dilemma in front of you, is there such a third way?

Original: Takashima Kaemon, Takashima Ekidan (expanded edition), recorded by Yanagida Ikusaku, Chinese text by Wang Zhiben, 1901. Translation, notes and reflection by this site.

These are historical records kept by the diviner himself. The outcomes are his own account; this site uses them to study how the lines were read, not as evidence that divination predicts events.

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