Takashima & the Yilin · A short read
They ask how to give up the shipyard. They keep it.
In 1876, Ōura O-Kei and a partner brought Takashima a choice. They had been running ship repairs at the Yokohama ironworks and losing money. Should they return the works to the bureau that had lent them out, or pass the business to someone else?
A third answer
The two options both meant giving up the works. Takashima’s answer kept them there. They had drawn the top line of Sun, hexagram 41, Decrease, changing to Lin. The line includes 弗損益之: no decrease; increase instead.
He read the top position as the end of loss. Having reached the far end of Decrease, he said, they would have nothing further to lose and would begin to gain. The partners believed him and decided to carry on.
Then the repair work comes
Takashima writes that the following year brought the Satsuma Rebellion. There was much ship repair work, and the partners made a large profit. That is the ending as he records it.
The short reading had said nothing about the rebellion. Only when we reach the last sentence do we learn what changed the demand for repairs. If you stop after Takashima’s judgment, the yard is still losing money and the extra work has yet to arrive.
The top line and the last sentence
The story makes it easy to hear “the end of Decrease” as a description of what happened. At the moment the partners had to decide, it was Takashima’s interpretation of their cast. They could not read the last sentence of the account we now have.
Keep those two moments apart as you read the full case: the visit in 1876, then the later report of profits. You can follow the partners’ relief without treating every loss-making venture as a story that has reached the same point.
Sources & translation
Takashima Ekidan, expanded edition (1901), 下經利, p. 103, Sun, top line. Takashima records the subsequent profits and wartime repair demand. English introduction: DaYan.