The lines
Six at the beginning [yin at bottom] means:
An army must set forth in proper order.
If the order is not good, misfortune threatens.
AT THE BEGINNING of a military enterprise, order is imperative. A just and valid cause must exist, and the obedience and co-ordination of the troops must be well organised, otherwise the result is inevitably failure.
Nine in the second place means:
In the midst of the army.
Good fortune. No blame.
The king bestows a triple decoration.
.
The leader should be in the midst of his army, in touch with it, sharing good and bad with the masses he leads. This alone makes him equal to the heavy demands made on him. He needs also the recognition of the ruler. The decorations he receives are justified, because there is no question of personal preferment here: the whole army, whose centre he is, is honoured in his person.
Six in the third place means:
Perchance the army carries corpses in the wagon.
Misfortune.
Here we have a choice of two explanations. One points to defeat because someone other than the chosen leader interferes with the command; the other is similar in its general meaning, but the expression, \"carries corpses in the wagon,\" is interpreted differently. At burials and at sacrifices to the dead it was customary in China for the deceased to whom the sacrifice was made to be represented by a boy of the family, who sat in the dead man\'s place and was honoured as his representative. On the basis of this custom the text is interpreted as meaning that a \"corpse boy\" is sitting in the wagon, or, in other words, that authority is not being exercised by the proper leaders but has been usurped by others. Perhaps the whole difficulty clears up if it is inferred that there has been an error in copying. The character fan, meaning \"all,\" may have been misread as shih, which means \"corpse.\" Allowing for this error, the meaning would be that if the multitude assumes leadership of the army (rides in the wagon), misfortune will ensue.