Lu Cun: ten stems, eight branches, and the pair beside it

Ten stems, eight branches

Lu Cun (禄存) is placed by the stem of the birth year, and the ten stems land on only eight branches. The four branches Dragon, Dog, Ox and Goat never hold Lu Cun at all.

Open the full-size diagram

Placement table: all ten stems were charted in the engine, one birthday each from 1984 to 2043; green is the Lu Cun column, with Qing Yang one branch after it and Tuo Luo one before.

Each stem has a row, and the three columns give the branch of Lu Cun, Qing Yang and Tuo Luo in that order. Look at the first column: the two Wood stems sit on Tiger and Rabbit, the two Metal stems on Monkey and Rooster, the two Water stems on Pig and Rat, and the four Fire and Earth stems share Snake and Horse, Yang Fire and Yang Earth on Snake and Yin Fire and Yin Earth on Horse. Ten stems end up in eight places.

The section of juan 2 on placing Lu Cun turns the table into a short verse that names the branch stem by stem, in the usual order of the stems, so all ten are covered in one breath; the table here matches the verse exactly.

Qing Yang ahead, Tuo Luo behind: always flanking Lu Cun

Once Lu Cun has a place, Qing Yang and Tuo Luo follow. The next song, on placing the two, says they follow Lu Cun. In the book's wording "in front" is the next branch in the usual order, where Qing Yang goes, and "behind" is the previous one, where Tuo Luo goes. Its example is a Yin Water year: Lu Cun on Rat, Qing Yang on Ox just after it, Tuo Luo on Pig just before it. Swap in any other stem and the pattern stays the same:

So the palace Lu Cun sits in always has Qing Yang and Tuo Luo as its two neighbors. One more detail in the first table: when Qing Yang or Tuo Luo falls on Dragon, Dog, Ox or Goat, the pattern is tidy: Yin-stem years (Yin Wood, Yin Fire, Yin Earth, Yin Metal, Yin Water) put Qing Yang there, and Yang-stem years put Tuo Luo there. Each star has its own placement and reading notes; see Qing Yang.

The same table as the BaZi Emolument Star

Zi Wei is not the only place this ten-row table turns up. In BaZi the Emolument Star (禄神), which is the Establishment (临官) position in the twelve life stages, is looked up in the very same table, and for every stem it gives the same branch as Lu Cun.

The table is shared but the starting point is not: Zi Wei looks up the stem of the birth year, the site's BaZi engine looks up the day stem, so one person often gets two different branches on the two sides. The BaZi side is explained in Emolument Star, and what the Establishment stage means is in Establishment.

Lu Cun starts the twelve Boshi gods

Lu Cun is also the starting point of another run of stars. The song for placing the twelve stars of the Tai Sui group says:

To know it, regardless of man or woman, start from the Lu Cun star: for Yang men and Yin women, push forward; for Yin men and Yang women, run backward.

In other words, the first of the twelve gods, Boshi, goes in the palace where Lu Cun sits, and the next, Li Shi, runs forward for Yang men and Yin women and backward for Yin men and Yang women. Check it on two years, a man and a woman each:

In these four rows Lu Cun's position depends on the stem alone, so a man and a woman of the same year stem have the same Lu Cun, yet their Boshi runs go opposite ways. The Life Ruler table also names Lu Cun when the Life palace falls on Tiger or Dog, but that is a separate clue looked up by the Life palace's branch and has nothing to do with where Lu Cun sits.

The same table, another stem, another place

The table looks only at the stem, so change the stem and all three stars move. The most common stem change is the year boundary. In the site settings, the year can change at lunar new year or at the Start of Spring. February 5, 2024 is after the Start of Spring and before lunar new year (February 10):

The other stem change is the flowing year. Juan 2 gives an example in its song for the flowing Lu, Yang and Tuo:

Take a Ji Chou (Yin Earth Ox) flowing year: the flowing Lu is at Horse, the flowing Yang at Goat, the flowing Tuo at Snake.

Look it up in the same table: Yin Earth gives Horse, Qing Yang sits on Goat just after Horse and Tuo Luo on Snake just before it, matching the book's example. The engine's chart for the Yin Wood Snake year 2025 gives flowing Lu on Rabbit, flowing Yang on Dragon and flowing Tuo on Tiger, again from the same table. How the flowing-year layer sits over the natal chart is covered in the source classification of Hua Lu.

1. 1

   Fix the year boundary first

   For births between the Start of Spring and lunar new year, decide which boundary applies before taking the year stem.

2. 2

   Then read the table by stem

   Go down the ten rows and write the Lu Cun branch; do not mix up the shared Snake and the shared Horse.

3. 3

   Write the two neighbors last

   Qing Yang goes one after, Tuo Luo one before; if either lands on a tomb branch, check whether the year stem is Yin or Yang.