---
title: The Saga Rebellion (1874) — Takashima Ekidan case study
lang: en
canonical: https://ekidan.ai/heritage/cases/saga-rebellion-1874
alternates:
  - ja: https://ekidan.ai/ja/heritage/cases/saga-rebellion-1874
  - zh-Hant: https://ekidan.ai/zh/heritage/cases/saga-rebellion-1874
  - zh-TW: https://ekidan.ai/zh/heritage/cases/saga-rebellion-1874
  - zh-HK: https://ekidan.ai/zh/heritage/cases/saga-rebellion-1874
source: 高島易断 (Takashima Ekidan), public-domain 1893 English and 1901 Chinese editions
provider: ekidan.ai — AI-assisted I Ching reading grounded in 88 source-verified historical Takashima cases
license: Classical source text is public domain. This structured edition and its modern commentary are © ICHING LLC, ekidan.ai. Attribution requested when quoted.
---

# The Saga Rebellion

> Two officers came to Takashima to have the coming subjugation of the Saga rebellion divined. He read doubled fire — a thing that flares suddenly and disappears quickly.

- Year: 1874
- Hexagram: Hexagram 30 → 55 · Ri (離) changing to Hō (豐), line 6
- Source: Takashima Ekidan, translated by Shigetake Sugiura (1893), public domain. Quotations are from that translation.
- Hexagram 30: [離為火 · The Clinging Fire](https://ekidan.ai/library/30)
- Hexagram 55: [雷火豊 · Abundance](https://ekidan.ai/library/55)

## The Question

A rebellion arose at Saga in the 7th year of Meiji (1874) and the government prepared to send an army. A colonel and a lieutenant-colonel came to Takashima and asked him to divine the coming subjugation.

## The Cast

He obtained Ri (離) changing to Hō (豐), with the sixth line moving: "The king employs Positive VI to undertake an expedition. Good fortune follows; the chief is beheaded, and his followers are exempted. Free from blame."

He read the doubled fire as war, and as a thing that flares suddenly and disappears quickly; that the imperial army should destroy the leader and not the followers; and, from fire burning wood in the changed hexagram, that the rebellion would be put down within thirty days.

## The Outcome

As recorded: "After less than a four week's interval, the rebel was greatly defeated, and its leaders were all captured."

## How to Read This Case Today

Ri is fire: brilliant, dependent on what it burns, and short-lived once its fuel is gone. The line's distinction between the chief and the followers is a statement about proportion — deal with the source, not with everyone caught up in it.

In a modern conflict inside an organisation, that is a genuinely useful separation to make, and the fire image is a reminder to ask what is feeding the flare before assuming it will last.


Source: [Takashima Ekidan AI — ekidan.ai](https://ekidan.ai/heritage/cases/saga-rebellion-1874)