Gu Chen: first spot after the season

Four seasons of three branches: Gu Chen opens the next one

Gu Chen (孤辰) also looks at the birth-year branch only, but it does not use the three-branch groups. It cuts the twelve branches into four seasons of three: Tiger, Rabbit and Dragon are spring; Snake, Horse and Goat are summer; Monkey, Rooster and Dog are autumn; Pig, Rat and Ox are winter. Gu Chen lands on the first branch after the season the year branch sits in:

Open the full-size diagram

Ring: Gu Chen spots follow the iztro 2.6.0 placement rule (Tiger-Rabbit-Dragon years to Snake, Snake-Horse-Goat to Monkey, Monkey-Rooster-Dog to Pig, Pig-Rat-Ox to Tiger), checked by charting all twelve year branches.

The ring starts at Tiger with three branches per season, and each arrow runs from the last branch of one season to the first of the next, which is where Gu Chen sits. Chart each of the twelve year branches in turn and Gu Chen is always where the table says.

The BaZi look-up for the Loneliness Star (孤辰) uses these same twelve cells; how that side is read is on the BaZi Loneliness Star.

In the book, "Gu Chen" is a turn of phrase

A placement rhyme for this minor star does not exist in the Quan Shu: the rhymes of juan 2 do not include Gu Chen. The two characters appear once only, in the entry on Qi Sha (七杀) in juan 1:

It is the senior general among the Dipper stars, in truth the Gu Chen of success and failure.

The term modifies Qi Sha here, and the line gives it neither a branch nor a placement.

All that can be set out clearly for the chart-page star is its placement: from which year branch to which landing branch, and then the palace name counted from Life.

Three charts: from year branch to palace

Read each sample by year pillar first, then look up the season group, and finally count the palace from Life. Three terms to line up first:

The three samples:

The first two charts, Bing Yin (丙寅) and Ding Mao (丁卯), share the spring group, so Gu Chen is on Snake in both. Their Life palaces are on Dragon and Ox, which turns Snake into two different palaces. Snake is only one step past Dragon, so counting backward from Dragon takes eleven steps to reach it, the last of the twelve palaces, Parents; counting backward from Ox to Snake takes eight steps, the Career palace. The third chart, Ji Si (己巳), belongs to the summer group, with Gu Chen on Monkey and Life on Rat; four steps back is the Wealth palace.

A staircase over twelve years: four boundaries move it

Put twelve years in a row, taking 15 July of each, and Gu Chen climbs a staircase: two years on Tiger, three on Snake, three on Monkey, three on Pig, then back to Tiger.

Neighboring years mostly share a season group, so only four of the twelve year boundaries move the star: Ox to Tiger, Dragon to Snake, Goat to Monkey and Dog to Pig. Try a changeover. On 5 February 1989 the year is still Wu Chen (戊辰) and Gu Chen is on Snake; from 6 February it is Ji Si and Gu Chen is on Monkey, because Dragon to Snake crosses a season. On 26 January 1990 the year is Ji Si and on 27 January Geng Wu (庚午), yet Gu Chen stays on Monkey, since Snake and Horse are both summer.

A side-by-side table of all four year-based stars is on the Hua Gai page.

Two short exercises

The partner star that sits one step before each season instead is Gua Su.