Moving the Pole
Before he dares write a single law, Shang Yang stands a pole in the market and pays gold to the one man who moves it — buying the trust no statute can compel.
Credibility is a single kept promise, paid where everyone can see.
The cure-seller at the north gate laid fifty copper on his mat and gave them away to be believed.
Bring back any salve of his that failed you, he called over the crowd, and he would pay you twice what it cost. The market knew a swindle and kept its purses shut. Then a carter with a bad knee bought a pot to spite him, found no ease in it, and came back loud — and the seller counted twice the price into his palm where the whole row could watch, and bowed him off.
After that he could not weigh his powders fast enough. "He lost money," Dog said. "On purpose. Loudly."
"There was a minister in Qin who stood a pole in the market and paid gold to the one man who would carry it to the far gate — before he had written a single law." The Wu drew the boy back from the press. "They thought it a joke. He paid on the spot. After that they believed the laws too."
She had a reading like that of her own, somewhere behind her: one word spoken true in a full room, paid out while strangers counted along. She had been spending the credit of it town to town ever since. She let the boy go on thinking it was the powders that sold.
The history. From the Shiji (chapter 68). Before promulgating his new code, the reformer Shang Yang feared the people of Qin would not trust it. He had a thirty-foot timber set at the south gate of the capital market and offered ten measures of gold to anyone who would move it to the north gate; the people thought it strange and no one dared. He raised the reward to fifty; one man finally moved it and was paid the fifty gold at once, to show the state would not cheat. Only then did he issue the laws — and they were obeyed. 徙木立信, "moving the pole to establish trust."
The figure. ䷃ Youthful Folly (Meng) · line 5 — Childlike openness brings good fortune. The key word is childlike, not childish. No arrogance, genuine curiosity, willingness to not-know. This is the right attitude.
The reading. Credibility is a single kept promise, paid where everyone can see. The scene carries it as a cure-seller who loses money loudly to be believed ever after — the same move by which Shang Yang's pole bought a state its laws. It lands on the Wu, whose whole trade is the one reading that came true in a full room, the credit she and the boy have lived on since.
Source: Shiji 68 · State of Qin (秦) · Hexagram ䷃ Youthful Folly · line 5
Illustrated & divined by Digital Rain Studios.