Wu Ding's reign period

The reign of Wu Ding, dated in the source to 1364–1324 BCE, enters this account not as a continuous royal biography but as a point where political action, divinatory practice, and the interpretation of the I Ching intersect. Its clearest narrative association is an expedition against peoples in the northern regions: an undertaking the author considers potentially justified and successful, yet prolonged enough to call for restraint.

Chronology and Historical Setting

The source identifies Wu Ding as one of the capable sovereigns of the Shang dynasty and dates his reign to 1364–1324 BCE. The dates place him in an early historical period invoked by the author’s account of divination. The source does not narrate the events of his reign in detail; instead, it draws on him to illuminate particular passages and historical practices.

That distinction matters to the entry’s scope. The author describes divination by tortoise shell as present in a document purporting to date to the twenty-third century BCE, and says that later evidence shows both that practice and divination with plant stalks. The reign of Wu Ding is mentioned separately as the setting for a military enterprise. These references locate divination and political action in early history, but do not establish that Wu Ding himself consulted the oracle or connect his expedition causally to its use.

Expedition and Its Interpretation

In explaining a line of the I Ching’s final hexagram, the author associates its image of a vigorous enterprise with Wu Ding, whose sacrificial title is given as Kâo Ȝung. He is said to have undertaken an expedition against peoples from cold, bleak regions north of the Middle States. The author characterizes the campaign as possibly good and successful, while stressing that it was tedious and that the passage concludes with a caution.

The account therefore preserves both a favorable assessment and a limit: success does not erase the costs or duration of an undertaking. The expedition is an illustrative historical association within the commentary, not a developed campaign narrative. No further particulars about its course, participants, or outcome are supplied here.

Divination and the Limits of Prediction

The book’s discussion of divination supplies a broader intellectual setting for the reign’s appearance. It describes the use of tortoise shell and plant stalks as an established practice, and explains that consultation was meant to assess whether a contemplated plan or set of circumstances would turn out favorably or unfavorably. It was not, in the author’s account, simply a means of discovering future events as fixed beforehand.

The procedure described for the I Ching used forty-nine stalks, manipulated three times for each line; forming a six-line hexagram thus required eighteen manipulations. Odd and even numbers determined strong or divided lines, with the numbers and emblematic values helping construct the figure. Once formed, the hexagram was interpreted through the judgments attributed to King Wen and the line statements attributed to the Duke of Zhou. The numbers served the operation of producing the figure; the author explicitly distinguishes that role from treating number as the underlying cause of all things.

The author also notes that the language of the Appendix could mislead a cursory reader into thinking the book promised foreknowledge. A cited principle instead allows that, when both tortoise shell and stalks oppose a person’s judgment, stillness may be fortunate while active measures are not. In this framework, divination bears on a decision—whether to proceed—not on an assured revelation of everything that will happen. The account of Wu Ding’s prolonged campaign resonates with that emphasis on judgment and caution, although the source does not say that the campaign was decided by divination.

Place in the Commentary

Wu Ding’s reign is thus a chronological and interpretive reference rather than the subject of an independent life story. The expedition gives a concrete historical example for a line about undertaking a difficult enterprise; the discussion of divination clarifies the kind of practical judgment the author believes the text addressed. Keeping those functions distinct preserves the source’s careful limits: it associates Wu Ding with a particular military undertaking, but does not supply a full history of his reign or claim that divination directed his actions.