The wisdom of I Ching

Chapter 93 Learn to Persevere While Waiting—Need to be in the Suburbs, Profit Constantly, No Blame

【Original Code】

On the ninth day of the lunar new year, you need to be in the suburbs, there is constant profit, and there is no blame.

"Xiang" said: "It is necessary to live in the suburbs, and it is not difficult to do it."Utilize Heng Wugui, it is not abnormal.

——"Book of Changes Need"

【Interpretation】

"Need" Hexagram Nine Lines said: Waiting in the suburbs is beneficial to persistence, perseverance is beneficial, there will be no disasters, and there will be no faults.

"Xiang Zhuan" said: Waiting in the suburbs for a long time is not taking risks to move forward.It is beneficial to persistence and there is no disaster. This is a rational behavior.Waiting patiently is rationality. With rationality, you can control the pace of progress, so you will not be abnormal.

"Need" is synonymous with "must" here, which means to wait. "Shuowen" says: "Need, must, if it does not enter in case of rain, stop must." It means that when it rains, You have to wait for the rain to stop before you go on your way. This is waiting, waiting for the rain to clear before you can "benefit across the river".

In reality, when we want to do a certain thing or a certain business, we must wait patiently for the opportunity at the initial stage.Of course, waiting patiently requires confidence.In addition, you must be good at seizing the right timing while waiting, because when the timing is right, better results will emerge. This is what we often say "times come and go".

【Category】

Story [-]: Lord Anling waits for a good opportunity
During the Warring States Period, Lord Anling was the favorite of the King of Chu.One day, Jiang Yi said to Lord Anling: "You don't have any land, and there are no relatives of your flesh and blood in the palace. However, you are in a high position and receive a generous salary. When the people of the country see you, they all dress up and bow down to you. No one is unwilling. Accept your order, what is the reason for this?"

Lord Anling said: "This is because the king praised me, otherwise how could it be like this?" Jiang Yi pointed out: "If you use money to make friends, once the money is used up, the friendship will be broken; .Now that you hold the power of Chu State, but you have no way to have a close friendship with the King, I am secretly worried for you, and feel that you are in danger!"

Lord Anling suddenly realized, and respectfully asked Jiang Yi: "In this case, please guide me." Jiang Yi said: "I hope you will find a chance to tell the king that you are willing to die with the king and be buried as a king. If you say this, you will surely be able to keep your position for a long time." An Lingjun said: "I will follow your opinion."

But after several months, Lord Anling still didn't say this to King Chu.For this reason, Jiang Yi went to see Mr. Anling again: "The things I said to you have not been said so far. Since you don't use my tricks, I will never dare to meet you again." Lord Ling hastily asked to stay, saying: "How dare I forget my master's teaching? It's just that there is no suitable opportunity yet."

After another few months, the time finally came.When the king of Chu went hunting in Yunmeng, more than 1000 horse-drawn carriages rushed one after another, the flags covered the sun, and the wildfires were like clouds, which was very spectacular.At this time, a furious bison ran over. The king of Chu drew his bow and shot an arrow. The arrow hit the bull's head and shot the bison to death.All the officials and guards cheered and praised his archery skills.

The king of Chu drew out his arrow, held the bull's head down with the arrow, and said with a big smile, "I'm so happy! Today's hunting, how happy I am! After I live forever, who of you can share today's happiness with me?" At this time, An Lord Ling came forward with tears streaming down his face and said: "After I enter the palace, I will sit at the same table with the king. If the king lives forever, I hope to go to the underworld with the king and make bedding for the king to stop the ants. Is there something more comforting than happiness?"

Hearing this, the King of Chu was deeply moved, and formally set up an altar to enshrine him as Lord Anling. Since then, Lord Anling has won the favor of the King of Chu.

People say: "Jiang Yi is good at planning, and Anling Lord is good at waiting for opportunities." Although Jiang Yi has a sharp eye and predicts things like a god, after all, things will not develop as smoothly as he imagined; The reason is that he has enough patience to wait for the moment when the king of Chu is happy and sad. At this time, confession is undoubtedly a timely help and warms the king's heart. Therefore, he received miraculous results and preserved his long-term glory and wealth.

"Huainanzi · Daoying" says: "Those who are in need of something change according to the situation, and change is born in time, so those who know the time will not do things forever." Waiting for the time to come requires enough patience.In this process, we must also actively prepare, waiting for the opportunity is by no means the same as sitting idly by.The early days of the Three Kingdoms was the era of great chaos and disputes among heroes, and many people with lofty ideals threw themselves into the world and showed their talents.However, Zhuge Liang, who possesses a genius for governing the world, is willing to live in seclusion in Longzhong. On the surface, this is unreasonable. However, Zhuge Liang's move is patiently waiting for the opportunity to come.After analyzing the situation in the world, Zhuge Liang didn't want to go to the powerful Cao Cao and Yuan Shao, nor did he want to be an official under Sun Quan in Jiangdong. Finally came out of the mountain, and finally contributed to the situation of the tripartite confrontation.

Story [-]: Xiang Yu failed Jiangdong's mistake
In 202 BC, Han Xin arranged an ambush on all sides and besieged Xiang Yu in Gaixia (now southeast of Lingbi County, Anhui).Besieged on all sides, Xiang Yu stepped on the black-tailed horse, led eight thousand soldiers, rushed out of the encirclement, and ran forward without stopping.

At dawn, the Han army realized that Xiang Yu had broken through, and quickly sent 5000 cavalry to chase after him.

On the way of Xiang Yu's escape, the soldiers accompanying him were killed or wounded.When they arrived in Dongcheng (now southeast of Dingyuan County, Anhui), only 28 cavalry accompanied them.However, thousands of pursuers of the Han army surrounded them densely.Xiang Yu didn't expect to get out, but he still refused to admit defeat, and said to the soldiers who followed him: "It has been more than eight years since I started my army, and I have gone through more than 70 battles. I have never lost a single battle, so I have become a soldier." The overlord of the world. I didn’t expect to be besieged here today. It’s because the sky is calling me dead, it’s not that I can’t beat them!”

Later, Xiang Yu broke out of the siege of the Han soldiers and came to the Wujiang River (in the northeast of Hexian County, Anhui today).It happened that the pavilion chief of the Wujiang River had a small boat parked on the bank.The pavilion chief persuaded Xiang Yu to cross the river immediately, saying: "Although the east of the river is small, there is still more than 1000 miles of land and a population of hundreds of thousands. If you cross the river, you can still be king there."

Xiang Yu smiled wryly and said: "After I raised an army in Kuaiji County, I took eight thousand children across the river. None of them can go back today. Even if Jiangdong's elders sympathized with me and made me king, what face would I have to see them again? "

He gave the Wuzhui horse to the head of the pavilion, and committed suicide by drawing his sword by the Wujiang River.A generation of heroes ended their lives in this way.But think about it calmly, is Xiang Yu's death necessary?If he had returned to Jiangdong at that time, learned from the painful experience, and accumulated strength again, it would not be that there was no chance of a comeback, so why must he rush to become a "ghost hero"?No matter whether they are princes, generals, or ordinary people, it is impossible for anyone to go through a smooth sailing and live a life in peace. Everyone will encounter various setbacks and various difficulties.The question is, what do you do when the external environment is against you?This requires waiting, because waiting is an inevitable process in the development of things.

Story Three: Zhao Chongguo waited for the uproar with silence

During the reign of Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty, the Xiqiang people and the Xiongnu united to invade the Han land.In the spring of 61 BC, Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty appointed Zhao Chongguo as his commander and led more than [-] cavalry to stop the Qiang invasion.In order to prevent the invasion of the Qiang people, Zhao Chongguo ordered three military academies to lead a team to cross the river quietly at night, camp on the opposite bank, and then command the army to cross the river one by one.

At this moment, hundreds of cavalry Qiang soldiers galloped back and forth around the Han army from the opposite side, yelling "Aoao".Seeing that there were few Qiang soldiers, all the generals asked to go to battle one after another. They wanted to drive these Qiang soldiers away, so as not to disturb the Han army crossing the river.However, Zhao Chongguo believed that the Han army should not pursue the enemy after traveling long distances.At the same time, he believed that these Qiang soldiers had superb riding skills, and if they chased them, they would definitely fall for their tricks to lure them.Therefore, Zhao Chongguo ignored the provocations of these Qiang soldiers, and still calmly commanded his army to speed up the pace of crossing the river.

Afterwards, I came to report that there was a rolling mountain range 30 miles away from the Han army, where more than ten thousand Qiang soldiers were ambushed.The few Qiang soldiers who came to challenge originally wanted to lure the Han army into the ambush circle through provocation.Because of Zhao Chongguo's calm and witty, he waited quietly and made the enemy return without success.

After all the Han troops crossed the river, Zhao Chongguo always adopted the tactics of fighting steadily and step by step against the Qiang soldiers.First of all, send a small group of cavalry to conduct in-depth reconnaissance in a wide range to gain insight into the enemy's situation, and then prevent ambushes during the march.At the same time, the troops were required to maintain a high degree of vigilance and be ready to fight at any time, and the camps where they stayed were also required to be very strong.After the Han army advanced steadily to Jincheng, the Qiang soldiers challenged them again and again, but the Han army could not get out of the wall.

In order to find out the situation of the Qiang soldiers and reduce the losses in the battle, Zhao Chongguo sent many spies deep into the areas where the Qiang people lived.It turned out that the Qiang soldiers were divided into three parts: Xianling, Han, and Kai. The former had enmity with the latter two.Zhao Chongguo cleverly used strategies to divide and disintegrate them, to appease Han and Kai two parts politically, and to deploy troops to attack Xianling militarily.Seeing that the Han army had been standing firm for a long time, he gradually relaxed his vigilance. In early June, Zhao Chongguo led an army to raid Xianling's garrison.Xian Ling was unsuspecting, collapsed at the touch of a touch, and fled in a hurry. Hundreds of people drowned, and more than a thousand people were killed.When the Han army entered the Han and Kai areas, Zhao Chongguo forbade the soldiers to burn and kill.The people of Han and Kai were grateful and immediately surrendered to the Han army.In the autumn, more than ten thousand Qiang people returned to the Han Dynasty under the influence of Zhao Chongguo's appeasement policy.Zhao Chongguo also dismissed his cavalry, set up farmland, "benefited savings" and "saved a lot of money" in order to wait for the weak.In the autumn of the second year, Ruoling and others assassinated Yang Yu, the leader of Xianling, and led more than 6 people to surrender to Han.Zhao Chongguo won the first battle against Qiang.

"Stay still and wait for the uproar" is the combat strategy proposed by the military strategist Sun Bin.Its purpose is to treat the enemy's chaos with one's own rigor, and to deal with the enemy's panic with one's own calmness. This is the way to grasp the morale of the army.Therefore, watch the enemy's changes with a calm and quiet mind, take the opportunity to attack the impetuous enemy, or control the turbulent situation with a calm attitude, and fully grasp the rhythm of victory.

Story [-]: Kissinger assesses the situation

U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was the number one diplomat in the United States in the 20s. He liked to perform "stunts" on the international diplomatic stage, but he would not go abroad easily without being sure.

In the early stage of the crisis situation in the Middle East, because Israel relied on the support of Britain and France, it invaded Egypt on a large scale, which aroused the dissatisfaction of many Arab countries.Under such circumstances, it is impossible for any country to mediate successfully.Without any certainty, Kissinger did not attack, but waited for the time to come.

When the Egyptian army crossed the Suez Canal, broke through the Israeli defense line, and broke the situation of no war and discord, the war situation took a major turn, and the Egyptian army was about to win the war against aggression.Kissinger believed that the time was ripe, so he immediately attacked and frequently carried out "shuttle diplomacy", traveling between countries in the Middle East, taking advantage of various contradictions, and negotiating the "possibility" of various political transactions.Thanks to Kissinger's efforts, the Middle East issue was eased for the time being. As a result, he also won a good reputation in the Arab world.

To accomplish and do something well, we must consider the possibility of its realization, and then find the right time to attack quickly.Before that, you have to learn to wait patiently so that you can be targeted in your actions. "If you see what can be achieved, do it, if you see what can't be achieved, avoid it", this is also the embodiment of being a shrewd person.

【The Heart of the Book of Changes】

From birth to death, a person's whole life is actually in a state of waiting.When a person encounters difficulties and dangers, he must be good at waiting, strengthen his beliefs while waiting, and actively enrich and improve himself.When the time is right, it will naturally turn the bad luck into good fortune and achieve success in action.

In real life, we must learn to wait patiently for the opportunity, especially for young people, it is undoubtedly very important.Young people have exposed edges and corners, and they always fantasize about relying on their own knowledge to achieve a certain status and achievements in society.Their vigor is amazing, but it is also short-lived. Once they suffer setbacks, the ruthless reality will make them feel untimely or underappreciated, and become cynical. It will also make some people discouraged and give up on themselves. is very sad.

He who knows how to bide his time has a noble heart, symbolized by never being in a hurry, never being swayed by emotion.You have to pass the test of time to reach the center, and wise reservations make the goal even more relevant.A wise man said it well: "Time can resist anyone's attack." The god of luck will always reward those who wait patiently.

There is a saying in China: "It is better to take advantage of the situation than to wait for the time." Many major tasks that seem to be difficult to do can be successfully completed in the end because of the understanding of "waiting for the time and taking advantage of the situation".The same thing may be impossible to do at that time no matter how much effort is spent, but it may be "no effort at all" to do it at this time.When the various external conditions that contribute to the success of a certain thing are met, that is, at the right time, it is almost as good as one, and then you can "complete all achievements in one battle" when you do something at this time.

(End of this chapter)