Xun Kong: two voids in a decade, one is taken

Neighboring years, one decade, voids one cell apart

The year 1990 is a Geng Wu year and 1991 is a Xin Wei year. Both pillars belong to the Jia Zi decade, yet Xun Kong sits at Dog in one and at Pig in the other. Start with the whole table:

Open the full-size diagram

The six-decade table: decades follow the sixty-cycle chart, the two voids are the branches left after ten pillars are paired, and the right two columns show the engine's choice, checked pillar by pillar.

Each of the six decades has two void positions. A yang-stem year takes the first and a yin-stem year takes the second: Yang Metal is a yang stem, so it takes Dog; Yin Metal is a yin stem, so it takes Pig. The sixty pillars take one each, every one of the twelve branches is taken exactly five times, and the five pillars sharing a branch all come from the same decade. Dog, for instance, appears only among five pillars of the Jia Zi decade: Jia Zi, Bing Yin, Wu Chen, Geng Wu and Ren Shen.

Two voids per decade, which one is taken

A decade (旬) is ten consecutive pillars of the sixty-cycle. Jia Zi to Gui You is the first decade: ten stems are used up, and two branches, Dog and Pig, never get a partner. Those two are the void positions of the decade. The engine then takes one more step: it looks at the yin or yang of the birth-year pillar and picks one of the two, the first for yang and the second for yin.

The book lists only the two voids

A rule in juan 2 of the Quan Shu (紫微斗数全书) is devoted to Xun Kong, marked "by the birth year", which means the decade starts from the birth-year pillar:

In the Jia Zi decade the voids are Dog and Pig; in the Jia Yin decade, Rat and Ox; in the Jia Chen decade, Tiger and Rabbit; in the Jia Wu decade, Dragon and Snake; in the Jia Shen decade, Horse and Goat; in the Jia Xu decade, Monkey and Rooster.

Each decade has a pair, and the pairs match the table above one for one; the book simply runs from the Jia Zi decade downward to the Jia Xu decade, in the reverse of the table's order. The book gives two voids and says nothing on how to choose between them. The engine turns Xun Kong into one star that falls on only one, and the yang-first, yin-second rule has no source in the material in hand.

Behind the "tightest" group

At the start of juan 3, in the passage on the essentials of reading stars, one sentence ranks several kinds of "void":

In viewing the body and Life, and whether Lu Cun (禄存) and Tian Ma (天马) fall into the void: Tian Kong and Jie Kong are the tightest; Xun Kong comes next.

The original has no punctuation. Breaking it after "Lu Cun and Tian Ma do not fall into the void (空亡)", where the void is a catch-all word as in the juan 3 line about Tian Ma meeting the void, the "tightest" group holds Tian Kong and Jie Kong (截空), and Xun Kong sits in the "next" group. That is the book's order of a few names; which star each name points to has to be checked against its own placement rule. The Tian Kong in this sentence, for example, is the one that juan 2 places by birth hour, which matches what the site calls Di Kong; see the Tian Kong article.

One Xun Kong, a different palace name per Life palace

The branch of Xun Kong is fixed by the year pillar alone, while the palace name is rewritten by the Life palace. Take three year pillars and cast two charts for each with different Life palaces:

Recording an Xun Kong: align three things first

1. 1

   Which decade the year pillar is in

   Find the decade from the full year pillar, not from the branch alone; Jia Zi to Gui You is the first decade and each following decade holds ten.

2. 2

   Yang first, yin second

   A year stem of Yang Wood, Yang Fire, Yang Earth, Yang Metal or Yang Water takes the first void, and Yin Wood, Yin Fire, Yin Earth, Yin Metal or Yin Water the second; when this goes in the source column, note that it is the engine's.

3. 3

   Leave the palace name to the Life palace

   Only a branch comes out of Xun Kong; the palace name follows from the Life palace on the chart in front of you.

The same name in Liu Yao is explained in Xun Kong and Yue Po; the star grouped with it is Kong Wang, and for the wider picture of minor stars start from supporting, malefic and minor stars.