Xun to Gou: buying ginseng in Nikkō and Aizu

Date not recorded · A merchant in Yokohama · 中文版

The cast

Hexagram 57 Xùn (The Gentle Wind), line 4 moving, changing to Hexagram 44 Gòu (Coming to Meet).

Original text

橫濱某商來謂曰。僕今欲謀一事。請占其得失。筮得巽之姤。爻辭曰。六四悔亡。田獲三品。斷曰。巽爲近市利三倍之卦。六四爲重巽之主。足以當之。今占得四爻。四悔亡。田獲三品。是明言无悔而有獲也。子之謀事。其有大利。可知也。子勿疑。擧全力而從事可也。某大喜。乃彙集資金。直赴日光會津地方。采買人參。轉售與淸商。果得大利云。

In plain words

A merchant from Yokohama came and said: I am thinking of taking on a venture; please divine whether I will gain or lose. The cast gave Xun with its fourth line moving, changing into Gou. The line reads: "Six in the fourth place: regret vanishes; in the hunt, three kinds of game are taken."

Takashima's judgment: Xun is the hexagram of "close to profit, threefold in the market", and the fourth line, ruler of the doubled Xun, is well able to bear it. You drew the fourth line, "regret vanishes; in the hunt, three kinds of game", which plainly says no regret and a good catch. Your venture will clearly bring large profits. Do not doubt it; put all your strength into it.

The merchant was delighted. He pooled his capital, went straight to the Nikkō and Aizu region, bought up ginseng and sold it on to Chinese merchants, and made a large profit.

How Takashima read it

Only one line text is read: with one moving line, the fourth line of Xun is read.
Xun's image from the Shuo Gua, "close to profit, threefold in the market", settles at once that this is a hexagram for traders.
The line's place: the fourth line rules the doubled Xun, read as being well able to carry the profit.
"In the hunt, three kinds of game" is read as a real, tangible gain. There is almost no hedging here; Takashima simply tells him to go all in.

About the outcome

The large profit is Takashima's own record. He urged the man to go all in, and this success was written down; the book cannot tell us how many others were urged the same way and failed. This site does not treat it as evidence.

Applying it to your situation

"Three kinds of game" is a catch in hand, not a daydream. For what you want to throw yourself into, do you have something as concrete as the ginseng and its buyers, or only a good omen?

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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