What Should Be Noted During Travel? Xu Shu's Insights into the True Meaning of the Second Yang Line (Jiu'er) of the Qian Hexagram from His Journey Through Jingxiang

During the late Eastern Han Dynasty, Xu Shu wandered around the Jingzhou region for three months with a cloth bundle on his back. Originally, he had been living comfortably in his hometown of Yingchuan, but lately, everything seemed to go wrong for him: he was made things difficult by the county officials when he helped neighbors write legal petitions, he was pushed around by pedantic scholars when he taught village children to read, and he even ran into a mad dog when he went out to buy a pancake. He slapped his thigh and complained to his friend, "How do I adjust when I feel like I have bad luck? I can't just stay cooped up at home every day, can I?" His friend tossed him a scroll of the Book of Changes and said, "Go out and travel a bit. Haven't you read the second line of the Qian hexagram? 'Seeing a dragon in the field, it is favorable to meet a great man.'"

Xu Shu didn't believe in such things at first, but he couldn't stand the frustration of staying in Yingchuan any longer, so he simply packed his bundle and headed south. The first few days of his journey were utterly vexing: he stayed at a shady inn that overcharged him for the room, a shepherd boy pointed him in the wrong direction when he asked for directions, he got caught in two rainstorms, and a hole wore through the sole of his shoe. As he squatted by the roadside mending his shoe, he was still pondering what to pay attention to when traveling—after all, you can't just rely on luck, can you?

When he wandered into the Xiangyang area, things gradually changed. At first, he just hung around a tavern west of the city, eavesdropping on people's conversations. But as he listened, he sensed something was different: people here weren't talking about who had more farmland, but about who had how many military books hidden away, and how Zhuge Liang of such-and-such family was singing the Liangfu Ballad in the fields again. At first, Xu Shu put on the airs of a scholar from Yingchuan, thinking how much skill could a farmer possibly have. Later, when he heard that Zhuge Liang compared himself to Guan Zhong and Yue Yi, he nearly spit out the rice wine in his mouth—this guy had an even bigger ego than he did back in the day.

The next day, he made a detour to Longzhong specifically, wanting to see what kind of person this "Sleeping Dragon" really was. When he reached the foot of the mountain, he saw a young man in coarse short clothes squatting on a ridge chatting with an old farmer about crops. He spoke with great authority, even calculating exactly how much rain had fallen that year and how much rice the harvest would yield. Xu Shu stood nearby listening for about half an incense stick's time, and suddenly remembered what his friend had said about "seeing a dragon in the field"—so dragons don't just fly in the sky first; they start out staying in the fields.

He went up to strike up a conversation, and within a few words, they were talking about military strategy. The young man's eyes lit up, and he pulled him up the mountain. The two chatted in the thatched cottage all night long, talking about the general situation of the world and the hardships of the common people, from the Six Secret Teachings to Sun Tzu's Art of War. The more they talked, the more shocked Xu Shu became—turns out the little skill he had before wasn't even worth half a bucket of water compared to this man. He later figured it out: it wasn't that he had bad luck, it was that the place he used to live had no one he could really connect with, so his judgment naturally couldn't improve.

At dawn, Xu Shu said his farewells. Zhuge Liang walked him to the mountain pass, pointed to the fields at the foot of the mountain, and said, "Look at these seedlings. They have to take root firmly in the field first before they can grow upward. People are the same—don't always think you can reach the sky in a single bound." Standing in the mountain wind, Xu Shu suddenly understood the meaning of "it is favorable to meet a great man"—it's not about you going to find some big shot; it's that you have to go to the right place to meet people who can help you grow. As for how to improve your judgment? Chat with people like this a few more times, and you'll naturally understand.

Later, Xu Shu really settled down in Jingzhou, and even later, he recommended Zhuge Liang to Liu Bei. When people asked him how he had been so sure back then that Zhuge Liang was a talented person, he always smiled and said, "Go take a look at the fields in Longzhong and you'll know. When a dragon is staying in the fields, that's when it's easiest to recognize."