Great Power, Line 4

The fourth line is the third line done correctly. Legge's translation gives good fortune to firm correctness, says the occasion for repentance disappears, shows the fence opened without the horns becoming entangled, and compares the strength at work to that of a large waggon. Every element answers the line below it. The same obstacle is met, the same power is applied, and this time the barrier gives way while the subject remains free to move afterwards.

Structure explains the difference. This stroke is strong in an even place, which the ordinary rule counts as incorrect, and it stands at the base of the upper trigram Zhen, the first line of thunder and the fourth firm line in a row. It is the head of the accumulated force of the entire lower half. What it does not have is the correctness of position the third line had, and the hexagram treats that absence as an advantage: a line with no formal entitlement to charge is the one that thinks about how.

The waggon carries the point of the comparison. A ram is all impact and no carriage, so its strength ends at the moment of contact, while a waggon moves its power along an axle and keeps rolling once the way is clear. Great Power is a figure about force that overreaches, and this line is its one unambiguous demonstration that force need not, provided what stands behind it was built to keep going.

Nine in the fourth place is the best practical reading in Great Power. The obstacle opens, the horns stay clear, and the regret attached to the situation disappears. A querent drawing this has usually been holding back after an earlier overreach, and the line releases them to act, with the qualification that the good fortune is attached to firm correctness rather than to the force itself.

The position is why it works. A strong stroke stands at the foot of the thunder trigram Zhen with three more firm lines beneath it, so the whole weight of the lower half of the figure is behind the movement, and by the ordinary rule the placement is incorrect, a strong line in an even seat. The classic repeatedly finds that a line without formal entitlement handles power better, because it has to find a way through instead of assuming one is owed.

When the line changes, the upper trigram Zhen becomes Kun and the figure becomes Peace, King Wen 11, heaven below and earth above, the two moving toward one another so that everything passes freely. That is an unusually generous destination and it fits the line exactly. An obstruction removed by strength that did not entangle itself leaves an open channel behind it, and what follows is not another exertion but a stretch in which things simply go through.