At night, the Xuan room group was busy fishing alone in Huangxi.
Floating clouds look at wealth and prosperity, while flowing water makes one’s eyebrows pale.
I am not a bear sign, and I am honored as the emperor’s teacher.
Xuanshang is as natural as ever, evoking thoughts for thousands of years.
On the banks of the Wei River, an old man sits on a stone mound, with silver whiskers hanging down his chest and his eyes shining like torches. The fishing rod in his hand had no bait or hook, but it attracted King Wen of Zhou to cross the mountains and rivers and bow down to greet him. This seemingly absurd scene is actually the most vivid annotation of Tianji Star in Ziwei Doushu.
Tianji Star, the third benevolent star in Nandou, is transformed into qi by Yi wood, and is responsible for wisdom, strategy, and change. It is not as noble and prestigious as the Purple Star, nor as sharp as the Greedy Wolf Star, but it hides mysteries in the operation of the stars. Jiang Shang waits patiently for the wise master with a fishing without a hook, just like the celestial star responds with “movement” to “stillness”, accumulating energy to change the world in seemingly inaction.
Jiang Shang’s fishing rod had no bait, but he managed to catch the 800 year legacy of the Zhou Dynasty. Isn’t this the philosophy of Tianji Star’s way of life? It does not like to take shortcuts, but it makes good use of wisdom to perceive the situation. When the giant gate star moves and disputes arise, Tianji Star uses strategy to resolve them; When the Taiyin star is soft and the artistic spirit is present, the Tianji star captures it with ingenuity. Just as Jiang Shang observed celestial phenomena and geography, he weaved an invisible web by the Wei River.
Ziwei Doushu said, “The heavenly mechanism is a revolving star, with the main change.” Jiang Shang, who was seventy years old, still fished by the river, but suddenly rose up in his old age to assist King Wu in defeating Zhou. The ups and downs of this fate are a reflection of the constant movements of Tianji Star. It likes to migrate and is adaptable, circulating in the twelve palaces. Every time it changes, it is like Jiang Shang changing his master and fishing. On the surface, it is retreating, but in reality, it is accumulating momentum.
People are often confused by the mystery of Jiang Shang’s “willing to take the bait”, but they do not know that this is the highest realm of Tianji Star’s “transforming qi into goodness”. It is not like the Seven Killing Stars that use force to persuade people, nor is it like the Breaking Star that uses force to suppress the crowd, but rather uses wisdom to guide the way and virtue to conquer the heart. King Wen of Zhou realized the Tao when he saw that there was no bait on the fishing rod, just as the star of Tianji meets an auspicious star and everything is good – true wisdom does not lie in calculating all the tricks, but in understanding and comprehending the principles.
Standing at the ancient ferry crossing of the Wei River, one can vaguely see the hexagrams engraved on the bluestone. Jiang Shang has left with the flowing water, but the wisdom of Tianji Star still shines in the starry sky. It tells us that everything in the world has its time, and the wise should be like Jiang Shang, waiting patiently for the opportunity to fish without a hook, and finally “fish” their own long river of history.
Wen/Xingchen Mountain People