Red Charm: ten stems, eight landing spots
Content version · · Sources & references
The Red Charm starts from the day stem, and ten stems land on only eight branches. A ring, a comparison table, two charts and the Sanming Tonghui entry that pairs it with Peach Blossom, with the two cells that differ.
The short version9 min read
The basis of the Red Charm is the day stem: it takes the day master's stem, looks up one branch, and finds it among the branches of the four pillars; the ten stems together land on only eight branches.
- Yang and Yin Wood both read Horse, Yang and Yin Earth both read Dragon, and Yang Fire, Yin Fire, Yang Metal, Yin Metal, Yang Water and Yin Water get Tiger, Goat, Dog, Rooster, Rat and Monkey; Ox, Rabbit, Snake and Pig receive no stem.
- Juan 3 and the site table agree on eight cells and differ on two: Yang Earth (Rat in the book, Dragon on the site) and Yang Water (Snake, Rat), where the site follows a verse in the Shenfeng Tongkao. The pairs ignore the life stages: a plain look-up.
- The site wording is gender-neutral and warm; the book files this star under women's charts with a different verdict and different conditions. The look-up settles whether a chart has it, and the meaning belongs to the whole chart.
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Symbolic Stars in BaZi: Check the Reference and Rule Before the Meaning ↗
Ten day stems, only eight landing spots
The Red Charm (红艳) starts from the day stem: take the day master's stem, look up one branch, then find it among the branches of the year, month, day and hour pillars.
Sketch: the twelve branches colored by how many day stems land on each, from the site engine's Red Charm table; Horse and Dragon are the two spots shared by a Yang and a Yin stem.
The ten stems together land on only eight branches. Yang Wood and Yin Wood share Horse, Yang Earth and Yin Earth share Dragon, and the rest take one branch each: Yang Fire lands on Tiger, Yin Fire on Goat, Yang Metal on Dog, Yin Metal on Rooster, Yang Water on Rat and Yin Water on Monkey. On the ring, brown marks a branch that exactly one day stem lands on, teal marks Horse and Dragon where two stems share, and purple marks Ox, Rabbit, Snake and Pig, where no stem lands at all.
A branch on any of the four pillars counts as a hit when it lands on one of these eight, the day branch included.
The book writes it under one heading with Peach Blossom
The Sanming Tonghui (三命通会), juan 3, has an entry headed "Peach Blossom and Red Charm sha", and a single sentence carries two tables:
Peach Blossom and Red Charm sha: Pig, Rabbit and Goat take Rat; Snake, Rooster and Ox take Horse; Tiger, Horse and Dog take Rabbit; Monkey, Rat and Dragon take Rooster: these are the Peach Blossom. Both Wood stems meet Horse; Yang Fire meets Tiger; Yin Fire, Goat; Yang Earth, Rat; Yin Earth, Dragon; Yang Metal, Dog; Yin Metal, Rooster; Yang Water, Snake; Yin Water, Monkey: these are the Red Charm. Women's charts fear it most.
Where the quotation reads "Snake, Rooster and Ox", this edition actually prints the near-identical character for Yin Earth in place of the Snake branch; the Peach Blossom grouping requires Snake, so it is corrected here. The first half is Peach Blossom, grouped by Three Harmony group; the second half is Red Charm, looked up by day stem. Two tables sit under one heading with different bases, and the site keeps that division: Peach Blossom is based on the day branch and the Red Charm on the day stem, so on one chart the two can land on different pillars. How Peach Blossom is looked up is in the article on Peach Blossom. Juan 7, where the book discusses women's charts, also puts the two together in several places.
Enlarge diagram · scroll sideways to read
Two cells differ: Yang Earth and Yang Water
Laying the line of juan 3 against the site engine's table cell by cell, eight of the ten stems agree and two differ. Juan 3 pairs Yang Earth with Rat and Yang Water with Snake, while the site pairs Yang Earth with Dragon and Yang Water with Rat.
Enlarge diagram · scroll sideways to read
The site's Yang Earth on Dragon and Yang Water on Rat have a source of their own. The Ming-dynasty Shenfeng Tongkao (神峰通考) by Zhang Nan carries, among its malefic stars, a Red Charm verse with the line "the Earth stems fear Dragon, Yang Water fears Rat", which matches those two site cells. The same verse has a line that only sets "the Wood stems" beside "Horse and Monkey" without pairing them one to one; common Red Charm tables read it as Yang Wood on Horse and Yin Wood on Monkey, while the site keeps Yin Wood on Horse, following juan 3's "both Wood stems meet Horse". The site table therefore combines two lines: Yin Wood from juan 3, Yang Earth and Yang Water from the verse. Yang Earth on Rat and Yang Water on Snake are how this edition of juan 3 (the Siku quanshu edition on Wikisource) writes them, and whether that is a copying slip is left open here. When you meet a Red Charm table elsewhere, check Yin Wood, Yang Earth and Yang Water first and you will see which line it follows.
A plain look-up: the Red Charm does not follow the twelve life stages
Emolument, the Yang Blade and the Golden Carriage can all be counted out from positions in the twelve life stages, but the Red Charm cannot. Yang Fire and Yang Earth have exactly the same twelve-stage row, yet one has Tiger and the other Dragon; Yin Fire and Yin Earth likewise. In the other direction, the two Wood stems run their stages in opposite directions and still share Horse.
Enlarge diagram · scroll sideways to read
That is why the Red Charm cannot be "counted one step on" the way the Yang Blade can; it has to be memorized and looked up, and when a cell is in doubt the way to settle it is the one in the previous section: go back to the text.
Two charts looked up, then seven day pillars counted
Enlarge diagram · scroll sideways to read
Chart one has a single hit, the Goat in the month pillar. Chart two, read with the site's Yang Earth on Dragon, has a Dragon in the year pillar and another in the hour pillar. Swap in juan 3's Yang Earth on Rat and the hit becomes the single Rat in the month pillar, so both its position and its count change. One chart and two tables give two conclusions, which is what the two differing cells cost in practice.
Exactly seven of the sixty day pillars have a day branch equal to their own stem's Red Charm: Yang Wood Horse, Yang Fire Tiger, Yin Fire Goat, Yang Earth Dragon, Yang Metal Dog, Yin Metal Rooster and Yang Water Rat. The day pillar of chart two, Yang Earth Horse, is not among them, so every hit in that chart falls on another pillar.
Which chapter the book puts it in, and where the site's wording comes from
In the book the Red Charm appears mostly in discussions of women's charts. Juan 7 has a verse that states the condition quite plainly:
Peach Blossom and Red Charm cross each other; she keeps turning to the dressing table to smooth her hair. If an Officer star is hidden or shows, she goes home to a good household, blessed without end.
The note says these two stars are unlucky and women dread them most, yet if an Officer star is present there is something to lean on and fortune follows instead. The point is the condition: a Red Charm met alone and one met with an Officer star are read differently. Keeping the layers of statement apart stops them from blurring together:
Three layers, kept apart
Look-up and position
The site looks up one branch from the day stem and marks which pillar each matching branch sits in.
Juan 3 and juan 7
Juan 3 lists the Red Charm beside Peach Blossom with the verdict "women's charts fear it most"; the verse in juan 7 says an Officer star gives something to lean on.
The site line
The site wording is gender-neutral and speaks of deep emotional investment, appeal and social attraction; the relevant passages of juan 3 and juan 7 have no matching original sentence.
The previous Symbolic Star based on the day stem is the Yang Blade, and the next, which turns to the year branch, is the Loneliness Star.
Questions readers ask next
My day master is Yang Wood and there is no Horse in my chart. Does that mean the Red Charm is absent?
Yes. The site looks up Horse for Yang Wood, and one of the year, month, day or hour branches has to be exactly Horse for a hit; Yin Wood also reads Horse, and the two Earth stems read Dragon. With no such branch in the chart there is no Red Charm, and an empty result is a normal outcome.
My day master is Yang Earth, Yang Water or Yin Wood, and another Red Charm table gives a different branch. Which one should I trust?
The site gives Dragon for Yang Earth and Rat for Yang Water, as the Red Charm verse in the Shenfeng Tongkao does; juan 3 reads Rat and Snake. For Yin Wood, juan 3 and the site give Horse, while common tables give Monkey from the same verse. Which side carries a copying slip is unsettled, so this article takes neither side; first see which table is being read.
Are Red Charm and Peach Blossom the same thing?
No. They are only written under one entry heading in the book. Peach Blossom is grouped by Three Harmony group and lands on Rat, Horse, Rabbit or Rooster, while the Red Charm is looked up by day stem and lands on eight branches. The site also uses different bases, the day branch for Peach Blossom and the day stem here, so the two can fall on different pillars of one chart.
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Loneliness Star (孤辰): One Branch Past the Year Branch's Direction Group ↗