England and Russia over Afghanistan

In 1885 the boundary dispute between England and Russia over Afghanistan looked to many observers like the opening of a war. Takashima divined the matter on 8 May of the 18th year of Meiji.

He obtained Ton (遯), with the sixth line moving: "Retreats at a bound; advantageous in every way." He assigned England to the inner trigram Gon — mountain, fixed — and Russia to the outer trigram Ken — heaven, strong and advancing.

He argued that England was not truly willing to fight: her navy could not act effectively in landlocked Afghanistan, her army was small and partly committed elsewhere, and Indian troops could not campaign well in that climate. She would therefore confine herself to a defensive posture and to pressure on Russian shipping. Reading the line as a wealthy power withdrawing, he concluded England would not engage.

From the successive lines he further read that Russia could not act that year, would feign humility and build up railways, and would be able to move in force only some years later, once the line across the desert was complete.

Takashima's record gives the reading and its reasoning; no outcome is stated here beyond his own analysis of the two powers' positions.

Ton is the hexagram of retreat as a deliberate act — withdrawing while you still can choose the terms, rather than being pushed. Its sixth line describes a party with enough resources that stepping back costs it nothing.

The modern reading is about capability rather than appetite: what can each side actually do, given its terrain, its commitments and its logistics? Structuring a dispute that way is a useful analytic habit, whatever the Changes are taken to be.