Count Itō's Mission to China

Count Itō left Yokohama for China as ambassador on 28 February of the 18th year of Meiji (1885), to negotiate with the Chinese government over the Korean affair of December the previous year. Takashima divined the result.

He obtained Ken (乾) changing to Tai-yū (大有), with the fifth line moving: "The dragon has flown up into the heaven. Advantageous to see great men."

He read that the two "great men" would set aside small matters and attend only to large ones, and that both would seek a peaceful result serving the people of both countries. He noted that he had earlier obtained Ko changing to Taikwa, and had been afraid of it.

He sent the written divination to Tientsin with a clerk, to be presented to the Count through his secretary Mr. M. Itō.

In his account, the negotiation closed without disturbance and the ambassador returned home successfully.

Ken changing to Tai-yū moves from pure creative force to "great possession" — abundance that has to be held with restraint rather than pressed. The fifth line's counsel to see great men is, in plain terms, an instruction to raise the level of the conversation.

Applied to a negotiation today, it argues for separating the large question from the accumulation of small grievances, and for dealing with whoever can actually decide. Useful as a discipline of attention, not as a prediction of the result.