The Dragon in 2026: no clash with the year’s Tai Sui (太岁)

2026 is the Fire Horse year (Bing Wu, 丙午). Its Tai Sui (太岁) — the star said to rule the year — sits with the Horse. The Dragon and the Horse: they neither clash, punish, harm nor break each other, and do not pair. So the Dragon is not on the folk lists of signs that “offend” the year, Fan Tai Sui (犯太岁).

Counted by sign, every Dragon gets the same answer for the year — one person in twelve. Below they are split twice: by birth year, counting the element of the year as well as its animal, and then by the day pillar — the element and animal of the day you were born — which is what the classics actually read.

First, check your sign — and your day pillar

If you were born in January or February, check: some count the sign from Chinese New Year and some from the Start of Spring (Li Chun, 立春, around 4 February), and anyone born between the two gets a different sign from each. Settle it to the minute with your birth time and place

All twelve signs against 2026’s Tai Sui (太岁)

Red: on the folk lists of signs that “offend” the year, Fan Tai Sui (犯太岁) — the same sign, or a clash, punishment, harm or break. Green: in harmony with the year — a pair (six harmony, Liu He, 六合) or one of a group of three (trine, San He, 三合) — which folk lists count as lucky. Grey: neither. These are fixed relations between the animals, not ratings.

The Dragon with each sign, from the classics: Rat · Ox · Tiger · Rabbit · Dragon · Snake · Horse · Goat · Monkey · Rooster · Dog · Pig

The Dragon, birth year by birth year

The animal is the same in every row: the Dragon against the Horse, with no clash, punishment, harm, break or harmony. What differs is the element: each birth year’s stem stands differently to 2026’s Yang Fire (丙), and the Stems column says how. The nayin is the birth year’s traditional image. Age is the age turned during 2026.

Born Pillar Nayin Age Stems Named
1928 戊辰Earth Dragon 大林木Wood of the Great Forest 98 Fire produces Earth
1940 庚辰Metal Dragon 白蜡金White Wax Metal 86 Fire controls Metal
1952 壬辰Water Dragon 长流水Long-flowing Water 74 Water controls Fire
1964 甲辰Wood Dragon 覆灯火Lamp Fire 62 Wood produces Fire
1976 丙辰Fire Dragon 沙中土Earth in the Sand 50 the same stem
1988 戊辰Earth Dragon 大林木Wood of the Great Forest 38 Fire produces Earth
2000 庚辰Metal Dragon 白蜡金White Wax Metal 26 Fire controls Metal
2012 壬辰Water Dragon 长流水Long-flowing Water 14 Water controls Fire
2024 甲辰Wood Dragon 覆灯火Lamp Fire 2 Wood produces Fire

Double clash (Tian Ke Di Chong, 天克地冲): the stems control each other and the animals clash. Double bond (Tian He Di He, 天合地合): the stems bind and the animals pair. Same pillar: the year’s pillar is the birth year’s, sixty years on. These three are the combinations folk readings mention most; they are marked here, not judged.

What the classics read: the day pillar, not the sign

The Song-dynasty manual Yuan Hai Zi Ping (淵海子平) judges Tai Sui by the day pillar — the element and animal of the day you were born — against the year’s, in three ways: offending the year’s lord (Fan Sui Jun, 犯岁君), war (Zheng, 征), gloom (Hui, 晦). In 2026, 25 of the sixty day pillars are marked. Of the days in Dragon years from 1928 to 2024, about 42% fall on one of them — much the same as for every other sign. By the classical rule, your sign does not decide it.

The same work says to “look only at whether the chart holds help” (但看八字有无救助), so whether it matters is the whole chart’s question. Check your day pillar with the form above, or see the full list of marked day pillars for 2026.

The twelve months of 2026 against the Dragon’s branch, Chen (辰)

How each month’s animal stands to the Dragon (辰). Months run from one solar term (Jie, 节) to the next, UTC+8, not from new moon to new moon.

Month pillar Begins With the Dragon
庚寅Metal Tiger 2026-02-04 —
辛卯Metal Rabbit 2026-03-05 harm
壬辰Water Dragon 2026-04-05 same branch, punishment
癸巳Water Snake 2026-05-05 —
甲午Wood Horse 2026-06-05 —
乙未Wood Goat 2026-07-07 —
丙申Fire Monkey 2026-08-07 trine
丁酉Fire Rooster 2026-09-07 six harmony
戊戌Earth Dog 2026-10-08 clash
己亥Earth Pig 2026-11-07 —
庚子Metal Rat 2026-12-07 trine
辛丑Metal Ox 2027-01-05 break

Famous Dragons

Soong Ching-ling (1893), Deng Xiaoping (1904), Ding Ling (1904), Li Ka-shing (1928), Bruce Lee (1940), Lee Hsien Loong (1952), Vladimir Putin (1952), Teresa Teng (1953), Tony Fernandes (1964), Jack Ma (1964)

One sign, and a different day pillar each. Every page has that person’s pillars.

Does 2026 help you or not?

A sign is one character of the year pillar; a day pillar is two of the eight. What 2026 is to you means setting the Fire Horse (丙午) against all four pillars, which needs your birth time and place.

About this page

Same sign, clash, punishment, harm, break, six harmony and trine are fixed relations between branches; the year pillars, nayin, month pillars and solar-term moments are calendar arithmetic; the Tai Sui (太岁) section follows the Yuan Hai Zi Ping (淵海子平). There are no ratings here for money, love or career — a sign cannot give them.