"Easy! Easy", inmate in the opposite consoled Ji Chang, "The prerequisition to get revenge is you remain alive. You are jailed here with me because you are nobody, just like a mouse, you are despised like me, isn't it true? Yep, it must be true".
Ji Chang ignored him without even looking up. He was wondering what to do next? Familiar voices repeatedly came to him, that was something he said not long ago before he departed Xiqi for Zhaoge.
"Emperor Xin is on guard of his kindom Xiqi at all times for fear that I would become stronger one day and thus pose a threat to the Shang Dynasty. Once I left, you, my little loyal brother should take charge of the kindom temporarily. You are cautious and quick-minded. You have been taught by father since you were a child, so you are in a position to be a good governor" said he to his brother, Dan.
"Having read many books on military silks since childhood, I'm sure you are an expert in military affairs. If I wouldn't come back, let Dan take over my position, and you my little son, military affairs. Do remember that you must not be swayed, you must not go to Zhaoge for me, otherwise Zhou would be in ruin. But if you can repair domestic politics, make more friends with neighbour tribes, be loyal to the Shang Dynasty in rituals, send valuables and beauties every year, it is hopeful Zhou would become stronger and greater! What he wants this time is me. So I must take the risk, with my debilitated body and dozens of guards go to Zhaoge, pleading my guilty to the Emperor. "
Although he said so, at that time he was worried about his second son, Fa. Good as he was in martial arts, he was sometimes self-willed. If he learned that his father and brother were both murdered, he must not take orders, but risk his life leading troops eastward. Although Fa was brave, he was then definitely not an opponent of the Shang Dynasty, the bronze army. After all, Shang strictly restricted the armed forces of the vassal states, such as soldiers recruitment, and weapons forging. They had to report all the time to the Zhaoge. Therefore, if he led the army to attack Zhaoge, he would fight first with the vassal states along the way who knew very well that without the Order of Smoke, power only enjoyed by Emperor Xin, no vassal state could lead a troop to the East. Thinking of it, he sighed, "I wish I were in a study."
In this dungeon, there was nothing one could do but wait to die. What else could one do? Now reduced to a prisoner, the tragedy his father encountered would again come to him. This moment was one when good ideas were in great need, but what he didn't expect was that Emperor Xin killed his son to warn him, leaving an old man to immerse into a tragedy of aged parents burying his son, a white and black hair tragedy. Xin might continue to sentence him, but the possibility came low. After all, his father and son have been killed by Shang Dynasty. Emperor Xin never did so to any vassal states but Zhou. If something happened to him at this prison, then the other vassal states will surely fall into a situation of panic, self-danger, what's more, they may unite together to attack Zhaoge and force the Xin to abdicate! At present, Zhou, headquartered in Xiqi, was not strong enough to go against Zhaoge, so killing the three generations of Zhou was not benefit to Emperor Xin at all, if anything, a feud was created, causing great panic to these vassal states and brought shame and contempt to Shang Dynasty. Thinking of this, Ji Chang couldn't help sniggering, he thougt in his mind that "Xin, an unfledged child, eager for quick success and instant benefits by killing my father and son, had broken my two arms ... hahaha ..."
"Old man, wouldn't you have lost your mind?" His inmate only knew that the old man was distraught, but he couldn't understand his crafty heart, and had no idea why the old man was laughing! "Ha ha ha ..." He laughed even harder and seemed unable to stop. "Xin, a little child, wet behind the ears, ha ha ha ..."
This anguish brought him nothing but some meditation. Ji Chang began his wondering again, from which his abstruse but brilliant thinking came.
"At the beginning of Chaos, Yin and Yang are merged together where Heaven and Earth are nourished and began to divide later, it is natural that birds of a feather flock together. The most incomprehensible thing in the world is not the world itself but human beings who may live less than a dog that is being simple and natural, free all day long, begging for its food, resting in the twilight, but becoming active again in the morning wihout the seven emotions and six sensory pleasures, desires and scams. But human beings, struggling to survive, are not natural at all. They say yes and mean no, intrigue against each other, be self-righteous, even particular about eating. Firewood, rice and noodles, oil and vegetables, salt, sauce, vinegar as well as tea among which no taste could be addded to or cutted from three meals a day, cooking before eating really makes it unique existence in the universe, therefore a safe conclusion maybe made it is eating that makes human different from other creatures. Yes, that must be true."
"The change of Yin and Yang couldn't escape from the Eight-Trigrams. Life is but a span, like grass and trees, withers and nourishes for a few times. " Meditating in this way brough him peace, and his vision broke his stereotype. He seemed to be physically present and walked into the world of the Eight-Trigrams. There is the eternal Daoism of all things. But no one could ever decipher the most mysterious secret embedded in that. Now he was trying to get in its center and explore how it was created by the legendary divine man, Fuxi.
In the Eight-Trigrams, the sun rises in the northeast, appears to all creatures in the east, grows higher in the southeast, and reaches its apex in the south, then slants in the southwest, wanes in the west, falls in the northwest, die in the north. But why is this so?
His thoughts went back to ancient times when his ancestors struggled to survive.
With the development of agricultural civilization, primitive tribes have become more stable, people no longer moved from place to place in search of water and grass. But captive breeding couldn't meet all tribes' demands for fur. At that time, hunting was still more likely to be a collective behavior because hunters in need of assistance had slim chance to succeed. There was one thing, however, like an eternal myth for all creatures on the planet, that was how to agree on time and place. The hunting activity of a tribe can be agreed on departure time and site, but when it came to tribal hunting in alliance, a fixed time and site to rally were the issues on top of agenda. The invention of the Eight-Trigrams, a watch for people in ancient times solved this problem very well as it gave people bearings and time. Otherwise, the process of hunting, the chasing often brought them far from home. Without knowing the time and bearings, they stand to lose with the preys in hand. Thus the Eight-Trigrams embodied the movements of the sun in the sky from all directions, namely "the east, the west, the south, the north, the northeast, the southeast, the southwest and northwest".
"Why are there just three lines for each trigram of the Eight-Trigrams?" Ji Cang was utterly absorbing himself in deep and pure meditation.
He understood that the ancients observed astronomical phenomena to guide agricultural production activities. The most important thing was to use "pole-hanging" to measure the position of the sun in the sky and the shadow on the ground at different time. The so-called hanging was to stand a pole on the ground to observe the route of the shadows. His knowledge about this came from his grand-grand father. This "hanging" shared the same pronunciation with "trigrams" even in these days!
Sunrises and sunset were made 360 times a year (it was recorded that there were 360 days in a year in ancient times). There were 360 trajectories of the sun in the sky one year, then there were surely 360 shadows casted on the ground. This was the case every year, and year after year. Of these 360 trajectories, only three ones were very special, that is, the solar trajectory and shade on the day of the Winter Solstice, the Summer Solstice and two days of Equinox. What made it special was that in the northern hemisphere, when the elevating angle on the Winter Solstice was the lowest in the year, the shadow cast on the ground reached the longest in the year; when the elevating angle on the Summer Solstice was the highest in the year, the shadow cast on the ground was the shortest. On the two days of Equinox, the sun's trajectory was equal to its shadow on the ground, so the day and night were equally long. Therefore, the ancient people who were good at observing drew these three sun's trajectories and shadows into three closed circles, forming almost three concentric circles in the abstract. Since the sun's trajectory was always reciprocating in these three closed lines, it was possible to introduce an active symbol of "Yang" in these enclosesd circles, it will circle within forever.
By human intuition, it is true that the sun is moving around the earth! In this way, the concept of "Yin and Yang" came into being. The lines occupied by the sun is Yang while the opposite side of Yang, which can be simply regarded as night, is Yin! In this way, the Eight-Trigrams were created!
First trigram "Zhen" represented the sunrise from the horizon, where a little head bulged. Then came trigram "Li". To understand this trigram, the earth should be regarded as a ball that was floating on the water where one out of five was submerged, the top and bottom line of this trigram in fact constituted the periphery line of the ball while the middle dotted line symbolized the part immersed in water. With the lapse of time, Yang became increasingly big and powerful and a bit more was needed before it reached its hayday.This was what it looked like this, one dotted-line at the top but two full lines at the bottom. Then the high noon which was made of three full lines came where Yang played a full role in the day. After that, an west-towards journey was on its way, where the opposite order of sun-rise moving to the high noon would present itself.
The trigram that two full lines at the top and middle while a dotted-line at the bottom meant that the sun began to slant, just like the moment when it was about to reach high noon, but now it went contrary. A full line in the middle with two dooted-lines at the top and bottom was a trigram where four out of five of the ball were submerged. It wanes in heat and stands to fall. The trigram which was topped by a full-line with two dotted lines at the middle and bottom represented sunset, where the sunrise was still there, upsidedown. At last, the eternal peace fell, at this trigram where there were all dotted-lines, no light could be seen and Yin dominated all.
Here is the original sequence of the Eight-Trigrams created by a legendary man Fuxi.
The folloing is the Eight-Trigrams created by Fuxi, but Ji Chang believed there must be no character of any kind on it at the very beginning.
He was now in extreme excitement! "Human beings are nature's derivatives. It is completely wishful thinking of people in different regions (namely the east, the west, the south, the north, the northeast, the southeast, the southwest and northwest )to think where the sun would rise from! What year it is now is completely man-made, and there is actually no such thing as what time it is now in nature. Therefore, these trigrams can be arranged in sequence, but no matter how it is changed, there are only 64 possibilities but no more".
Just at this moment, it occurred to Ji Chang that he had found something very special that was enough to be his breakthroughs over some fifty year past. How amazing!
But what was the use of this hexagram? No body must ever dream of this. This was his own understandings and discovery of the ancient Eight-Trigrams, a great and proud one. The brand-new 64 hexagrams belongs only to knowledge of his own.
Though in prison, he felt as light as a bird.
"Yes, this could be a secret letter. I should immediately send a letter to Xiqi, asking Dan to save me. Only by leaving this place could I complete the Great Uprising, and revenge my father and my son!
But how should he send this letter to Xiqi? This was where the shoe pinched! His countenance was tense, his eyes blurred, and he began to scratch his ears and cheeks again.
"To send a letter to Xiqi right now is absolutely out of the question! His eyebrows froze immediately. It seemed that something useful had come to his mind. No, it was more than being useful, it was astonishing and almost perfect!
He looked at the inmate, he was calm and quiet at this moment. The man seemed to fall asleep, but J Chang tried it with his eyes and ears open.
"Wang, Wang ..." He was learning dog-barking! This ventriloquism sounded real. It was vivid. It seemed that the man opposite was sleeping like a log, dog barkings he just made didn't wake him up, he was snoring like thunders. It was only natural that he was in great need of sleep after murmuring for days.
All of a sudden, a dog barking suddenly came from outside, and he quickly uttered "Hush!" to make the dog quiet. The dog outside seemed to be able to understand Ji Chang's words, and its barking stopped abruptly. Ji Chang was extremely pleased as a picture that he was saved came to mind! The dog outside was raised by himself, it was called "Smart Ghost". The dog was very smart, and almost human. Heading to Zhaoge few months ago, he decided to bring Smart Ghost. If something unexpected should happen, the dog could at least accompany him to the end. Expectedly, he was put into the prison, the dog, however, kept waiting outside and refused to leave. He could not stand the dog suffering outside, so he whistled him to go, but he didn't listen, instead stayed around, waiting. However, Ji Chang couldn't hear Smart Ghost lately. He might have gone, or starved, or simply killed by the guards out there. I never expected that after such a long time, his Smart Ghost had not yet left, and was still alive. He was very happy, but he didn't dare to let it be lest he would wake up the inmate opposite. Ji Chang understood very well that he was the feudal prince at Xiqi, but he was locked up with an ordinary prisoner for no reason. Except that the Emperor Xin wanted to insult him and treat him as a pariah, the man opposite was tasked to spy, so he was very suspicious. He had heard the cruelty of Emperor Xin. Comparing torturing his enemy in the jail for truth with placing a seemingly sympathetic spy beside him to induce him say some words that he didn't want Emperor Xin to know, it was obviously the latter is more interesting and more likely to be truth.
Ji Chang was glad that he had lived for 70 years and had experienced ups and downs! "Xin, you little child, if you dare to play with me, then let the old man play with you". Just then, Ji Chang felt the wall leaning behind him was shocking, as if something was moving inside and eager to get out. He quickly moved his buttock, his heart suspended, "What's that? Am I spied in my mind just now? …This is absolutely impossible! He hasn't calmed down yet, seeing the wall breaking with a hole expanding, larger and larger. He shrank back with nothing in mind. "I'm afraid demon is coming!" But soon he saw through the prank, that was not a demon, nothing else, but "Smart Ghost"!
I'm very sad to tell you my dear readers that this chapter could be more interesting if my pictures of Eight-trigrams and 64-Hexagrms could have been uploaded, but the system refused them!!! Hope you like it.
Best Wishes!