Yue De: count from Snake to the year branch

Treat Snake as Rat, then count to the birth year

Yue De (月德) is a minor star in the chart, placed by the branch of the birth year and by nothing else. Take the Snake position and treat it as "Rat", then count forward in branch order until you reach the branch of the birth year. The palace where the count stops is the palace of Yue De.

Open the full-size diagram

The ring lists the twelve branches and each arc runs from the birth-year branch to Yue De; the positions follow the site engine and were checked against all sixty year pillars.

The picture takes two birth years. For a Rat year, the first name counted from Snake is Rat itself, so Yue De sits at Snake. For a Horse year the count runs from Rat to Horse, which takes you from Snake round to Pig. Both arcs are five places long, because Yue De always sits five positions after the birth-year branch. As one more worked case, take a Rabbit year: Rabbit is the fourth of the twelve branches, the fourth position counted from Snake is Monkey, and Yue De sits at Monkey.

Twelve birth years, twelve landing points

Each of the twelve branches is counted once and each of the twelve landing points is used once, so no two birth years share a position. In the table below the left column is the branch holding Yue De, and the right column comes from twelve real charts whose Life palace is at Tiger, showing what that position is called on the chart.

The right column shows a pattern. Each year later, the Yue De branch moves one place forward while the palace name steps one place back, in the order Property, Career, Friends, Travel and so on. That is because branches are counted forward while the twelve palaces run the other way round the chart (the Siblings palace sits on the branch just before the Life palace). So for one birth year, moving the Life palace rewrites every name: the branch of Yue De does not change, but what that branch is called is decided by the Life palace.

One line of text, two starting points

For the placement of Yue De, the chapter on star placement in the Complete Book of Zi Wei Dou Shu (紫微斗数全书, "Quan Shu" for short), juan 2, has one line:

Tian De starts from the Rooster position, counted as Rat, and runs forward to the Grand Duke of the current year. Yue De starts from the Rat position, counted as Rat, and runs forward to the Grand Duke of the current year.

Tian De starts at Rooster, which matches the engine. Yue De is written as starting from Rat, while the engine starts at Snake. Read literally, a Rat year counts from Rat to Rat and Yue De shares the position of the Grand Duke (太岁, the cell of the year branch itself); in the engine Yue De sits five positions after it. The line also says "the current year", whereas a rule a little later in the same juan, for Jie Lu (截路) and Kong Wang (空亡) adds a note, "by the birth year", and the site casts a birth chart from the branch of the birth year.

A pair four places apart: Yue De and Tian De

The book writes the two stars in one rule, and in the engine they also travel as a pair. Tian De starts at Rooster and Yue De at Snake, and Rooster lies four places after Snake, so in every birth year Tian De sits four positions after Yue De.

Tian De has its own counting rule and a same-name list that meets this one; both are treated in the Tian De article.

Same name, different method: the BaZi Moon Virtue

BaZi has a star called Moon Virtue noble as well, and the two are easy to mix up. Side by side the differences are plain:

The two share a name but differ in basis, result and place of landing. A note should say "Zi Wei Yue De" or "BaZi Moon Virtue noble", never just "Moon Virtue". The BaZi star is explained in the Moon Virtue noble article.

Before recording a Yue De, align three things

1. 1

   Birth-year branch

   Fix the branch of the birth year first, then read the branch where Yue De sits on the chart; the site changes the year at Lunar New Year, and if other software changes it at the Start of Spring, people born between the two may differ by one place.

2. 2

   Start from the engine's Snake

   There is only one counting rule: Snake as Rat, count to the year branch. The "start from Rat" wording in juan 2 stays in the source column of the note.

3. 3

   Leave the palace name to the Life palace

   Yue De supplies only a branch. What that branch is called depends on where this chart's Life palace sits, then counting back from it.

For where this star sits among the other minor stars and what limits apply, see supporting, malefic and minor stars; for the names and order of the twelve palaces, see the twelve palaces.