Mobilization

Moving a group toward one goal.

The situation

Collective effort needs structure and a legitimate reason. Without both, people follow for a while and then stop.

What it asks of you

Put an experienced hand in charge. Discipline first, enthusiasm second.

Where it leads

The six lines

1. initial An army sets out in order or not at all. Anything else goes badly. 師出以律，否臧凶
2. second In the middle of the army, not out in front. Honoured three times over. 在師中，吉无咎，王三錫命
3. third The army coming home with corpses in the wagon. 師或輿尸，凶
4. fourth The army pulls back and camps. Nothing wrong with retreating. 師左次，无咎
5. fifth Game in the field: say so plainly, and hunt it. Put the eldest in charge — a crowd of juniors brings the corpses home. 田有禽，利執言，无咎。長子帥師，弟子輿尸
6. top The ruler hands out the rewards. Some of these people should not be given anything. 大君有命，開國承家，小人勿用

The line texts are the oldest layer of the book. They are pictures, not instructions, and they are meant to be held against your own situation rather than decoded.

How this one is built

Written out as six lines, bottom to top, this pattern is 000010 — a solid line is 1, a broken line is 0. Every relationship above is arithmetic on those six digits, not interpretation: reverse the order and you get the other side, flip every digit and you get the opposite reading, take the middle four and you get what sits underneath. Anyone can check the result, which is what separates a structure from a fortune.

The sequence is built the same way. The sixty-four are arranged in thirty-two pairs, and turned upside down it becomes Alignment. The rule holds for all thirty-two pairs without exception — twenty-eight joined by reversal, four by inversion.

In the received order it sits between Dispute and Alignment. The order is not alphabetical or random: the old commentary reads it as a chain, one situation giving rise to the next.