Nian Jie: a minor star that follows the birth-year branch

Start at the Dog, count back to the birth year

Volume 2 of the Complete Book (Zi Wei Dou Shu Quan Shu) has a short section on three stars, Tian De, Yue De and Jie Shen. The first two are counted to the Tai Sui of the passing year, while the Jie Shen line counts to the birth year. It starts at the Dog palace, and the opening clause reads:

start from the Dog and call it the Rat

The rest of the line says to count backward until the birth-year Tai Sui is reached. The reading is direct. Treat the Dog palace as the Rat year and count backward: the Ox year is on the Rooster, the Tiger year on the Monkey, one palace back per year, stopping at the branch of the birth year. The site's engine implements this verse as Nian Jie; the chart also carries a month-based Jie Shen, covered in Jie Shen: two months a spot.

Open the full-size diagram

Sketch: the five parallel lines pair each year branch with its Nian Jie spot, the Snake and Pig are the fixed points, and the spots come from the site engine run on each year branch.

The picture sets the twelve branches in a ring. Five parallel lines each join a year branch to its Nian Jie spot, and the Snake and the Pig sit on the axis, landing on themselves.

Hong Luan, Tian Xi and Feng Ge: four stars locked together

Set the twelve year branches out row by row and the four stars of one year can be read at a glance:

Three fixed relations hold in all twelve rows: Tian Xi is opposite Hong Luan, six branches apart; Nian Jie is one branch after Tian Xi; and Feng Ge shares a branch with Nian Jie. The last holds because the Feng Ge verse also starts at the Dog palace and counts back to the birth year, which is exactly Nian Jie's rule.

"Locked together" describes position only. This site has not found a classical text that names Nian Jie and Feng Ge together; the shared palace is two rules written the same way. The verses of the other two stars are in Hong Luan and Tian Xi.

Which year counts: two switches, two stars

A birthday after the lunar new year but before Start of Spring has two possible answers to "which year". Take February 1, 1990: the sixth day of the first lunar month, with Start of Spring coming on February 4, so the year is Geng Wu (庚午) by the lunar new year and Ji Si (己巳) by Start of Spring. Casting the chart under each of four settings:

The table makes it plain. Nian Jie listens only to the horoscope boundary: change it and Nian Jie uses the Snake year and lands on the Snake. Hong Luan and Tian Xi listen only to the chart year boundary: change it and Hong Luan uses the Snake year and lands on the Dog. Tian Chu, which also follows the year, moves with Nian Jie. Both switches default to the lunar new year, so most charts never meet the disagreement.

Which birth details a chart needs and how to record these settings are covered in which birth details a Zi Wei chart needs.

Nian Jie in the yearly layer

Beyond the natal chart, the time layers also show Nian Jie: the yearly layer applies the same table to the yearly branch, so the spot moves back one palace each year. Take a chart for someone born in 1995, whose natal Nian Jie is on the Pig; the yearly layer then shows:

Among the minor stars placed by year or month, only Nian Jie (under the same name) and Hong Luan and Tian Xi (renamed Liu Luan and Liu Xi) enter the yearly layer; Tian Chu, Tian Wu, Tian Yue and Jie Shen, among others, do not. When reading a year, first make sure whether the star in hand is the natal Nian Jie or the copy the yearly layer made.

Other minor stars take other inputs; the overview is in the minor-star input table.