Chiang Kai-shek’s BaZi chart 蒋介石

The three pillars the date fixes

Each pillar is two characters: a stem on top (an element, yin or yang) and a branch below (one of the twelve zodiac animals). The day stem is the day master — the person. The label above each other stem is its ten god (Shi Shen, 十神): what that element is to the day master.

Each animal also hides stems of its own, strongest first: the Pig hides Yang Water (壬, Direct Wealth), Yang Wood (甲, Direct Officer); the Dog hides Yang Earth (戊, Rob Wealth), Yin Metal (辛, Eating God), Yin Fire (丁, Indirect Resource); the Snake hides Yang Fire (丙, Direct Resource), Yang Metal (庚, Hurting Officer), Yang Earth (戊, Rob Wealth).

Indirect Resource (Pian Yin, 偏印)

What produces you, same polarity. Support of an indirect kind — the tradition treats it as nourishment that can also crowd out the Eating God (食神).

Direct Wealth (Zheng Cai, 正财)

What you control, opposite polarity. Wealth held steadily — earned, kept, accounted for.

Direct Officer (Zheng Guan, 正官)

What controls you, opposite polarity. Authority in its orderly form: office, rule, the structure you fit into.

Hurting Officer (Shang Guan, 伤官)

What you produce, opposite polarity. Output with an edge on it. The name means it injures the Direct Officer (正官), which is why the tradition reads it as talent that does not sit well with authority.

Rob Wealth (Jie Cai, 劫财)

Same element, opposite polarity. A peer who takes rather than shares — the tradition reads it as what draws on your resources through people close to you.

Eating God (Shi Shen, 食神)

What you produce, same polarity. Output that comes easily: making, feeding, expressing, without strain.

Direct Resource (Zheng Yin, 正印)

What produces you, opposite polarity. Straightforward support: what teaches, shelters and backs you.

Day master

Born in a Dog month (Xu, 戌), when Earth rules the season. In that season Yin Earth is thriving (Wang, 旺): the season is its own. (One of five seasonal states, Wang Xiang Xiu Qiu Si, 旺相休囚死, after the San Ming Tong Hui, 三命通會, book 2.)

Elements in the six known characters

None of the six is Wood. The hour pillar’s two characters may supply it or may not — that depends on the hour. Hidden stems are not counted here.

All twelve hours, cast one by one

In all twelve hours the Yin Earth day master reads strong. Whatever the hour, the support-and-restrain method favours Metal, Water, Wood — the date alone settles it.

The chart most often quoted for Chiang — Fire Pig, Metal Dog, Earth Snake, Metal Horse (丁亥 庚戌 己巳 庚午) — takes the Horse hour (午). We know of no primary record of his birth time, so all twelve are still cast. Taking the Horse hour (Wu, 午), the hour pillar is Metal Horse (Geng Wu, 庚午), the day master reads strong, and support-and-restrain favours Metal, Water, Wood. The row is tagged “circulating” below.

Each row is exactly what the full calculator would say for a birth in that hour. Strength comes from three tests: in season (De Ling, 得令) — born in the season of the day master’s own element; rooted (De Di, 得地) — the same element hidden in a branch; backed (De Shi, 得势) — as much support around it as drain. Two of three reads strong. The favoured elements come from support and restrain (Fu Yi, 扶抑): a strong day master wants draining, a weak one wants support. There are three other methods for the useful element — climate (Tiao Hou, 调候), bridging (Tong Guan, 通關) and disease and cure (Bing Yao, 病藥) — each from its own text; see the useful god page. Hours are solar time at the birthplace, so a clock time needs correcting first; and a birth after 23:00 falls in the late Rat hour, where the two schools disagree about whether the day has turned.

Chiang Kai-shek’s bone weight (Cheng Gu, 称骨)

Lunar date: day 15 of the 9th month, Fire Pig year (丁亥年九月十五). Its weights: year 1.6 liang, month 1.8 liang, day 1.0 liang — 4.4 liang before the hour. Over the twelve hours that makes 5.0 liang to 6.0 liang. At the Horse hour (Wu, 午), circulating: 5.4 liang.

Bone weighing is a folk almanac sum over the calendar positions of the year, month, day and hour — not the elements, and not the chart above. How heavy is heavy? The tables and the spread ›