Qing Yang: the star one step after Lu Cun

Eight cells out of twelve, and never the other four

Qing Yang (擎羊) needs no verse of its own. You read it off the birth-year stem: find that year's Lu Cun (禄存), and Qing Yang is the next branch after it in the usual Rat, Ox, Tiger sequence.

Open the full-size diagram

Sketch: the twelve branches run clockwise with the Rat at the top; the colored cells are the eight that can hold Qing Yang, and the Miao/Xian colors follow the juan 2 table.

The ring is the twelve branches, with the eight cells that can hold Qing Yang colored in. The birth-year stems that send it to each of them are: Yang Water to the Rat, Yin Water to the Ox, Yang Wood to the Rabbit, Yin Wood to the Dragon, Yang Fire and Yang Earth to the Horse, Yin Fire and Yin Earth to the Goat, Yang Metal to the Rooster, Yin Metal to the Dog. Tiger, Snake, Monkey and Pig stay blank: ten stems produce only eight landing points, and Qing Yang never appears on those four branches. The two colors are explained in section 4.

One verse and one example

The song for placing Qing Yang and Tuo Luo (安擎羊陀罗二星诀) in juan 2 of the Zi Wei Dou Shu Quan Shu (紫微斗数全书, "Complete Book of Zi Wei Dou Shu") opens with one short line, "Qing Yang goes in front of Lu, Tuo Luo behind", and then adds the method and a worked example in plain prose:

These two stars are placed by following Lu Cun: Qing Yang goes in front of Lu, Tuo Luo behind it. For example, if the Lu of a Yin Water year is on the Rat, Qing Yang is placed in the Ox palace and Tuo Luo in the Pig palace; the rest follow this.

"In front" means one step onward in the sequence Rat, Ox, Tiger and so on, and "behind" means one step back; neither has anything to do with the direction in which the palace names run. Lu Cun has a verse of its own in the same juan:

Yang Wood puts Lu Cun in the Tiger palace; Yin Wood has it at the Rabbit and Yang Fire and Yang Earth at the Snake; Yin Fire and Yin Earth, Lu Cun stops at the Horse; Yang Metal's Lu sits at the Monkey, Yin Metal's at the Rooster; Yang Water's Lu is at the Pig and Yin Water's at the Rat.

Together the two verses make two steps: look up Lu Cun by the stem, then count one branch on.

Ten stems fold into eight rows

Written out as a table, the look-up shows that Yang Fire and Yang Earth, and likewise Yin Fire and Yin Earth, merge into one row each:

The verse writes the two stems together in each of those pairs, so they already share one Lu Cun branch, and Qing Yang, which sits right behind it, shares a cell too. The eight Lu Cun branches are Tiger, Rabbit, Snake, Horse, Monkey, Rooster, Pig and Rat; the branch after each is Rabbit, Dragon, Horse, Goat, Rooster, Dog, Rat and Ox. Tiger, Monkey, Snake and Pig are not among them. That gives a ready test: if a chart program shows Qing Yang on one of those four branches, check the birth-year stem first, then whether the program uses a placement rule different from this site's.

Yang stems land on Xian cells, Yin stems on Miao cells

The Miao/Wang table in juan 2 sorts each star into seven grades by branch. Qing Yang uses only two: Ox, Dragon, Goat and Dog are written Miao (庙), and Rat, Rabbit, Horse and Rooster are written Xian (落陷). Juan 3 says the same in a single grading line, set just before its run of Qing Yang entries:

Qing Yang: Miao at Dragon, Dog, Ox, Goat; Xian at Rat, Horse, Rabbit, Rooster.

Laying that table over the eight-row look-up gives a tidy split:

The split has a plain origin. Every Yang stem has its Lu Cun on Tiger, Snake, Monkey or Pig, and the next branch is Rabbit, Horse, Rooster or Rat. Every Yin stem has its Lu Cun on Rabbit, Horse, Rooster or Rat, and the next branch is Dragon, Goat, Dog or Ox. In the same section, the note to the entry on Qing Yang meeting Li Shi reads "A Yang Wood birth with Life on the Rabbit, a Yang Fire birth with Life on the Horse, a Yang Metal birth with Life on the Rooster, a Yang Water birth with Life on the Rat", which lists the four cases where the Life palace itself holds Qing Yang. They are four of the five Yang stems above; Yang Earth is not written out, and by the placement rule it shares the Horse with Yang Fire.

The two cells beside Lu Cun are the Yang-Tuo flank

Put Lu Cun in the middle: the branch after it holds Qing Yang, the branch before it holds Tuo Luo (陀罗), and the three stars occupy three consecutive cells. When the Life palace is exactly the cell with Lu Cun, its two neighbors are Qing Yang and Tuo Luo, which is what "Yang-Tuo flanking the Life palace" means. Juan 3 has an entry on it; only its position example is used here:

Suppose the Life palace is at the Monkey and the Hua Ji star is also met, with Qing Yang at the Rooster and Tuo Luo at the Goat flanking it; the rest follow this example.

The earlier method confirms it. Life at the Monkey means Lu Cun must be at the Monkey, and only a Yang Metal year does that (its Lu sits at the Monkey). Qing Yang is then at the Rooster and Tuo Luo at the Goat, exactly as in the book. In the site engine we took 360 charts, birth years 1984 to 1993, every month, three hour slots; "the Life palace is flanked by Yang and Tuo" and "Lu Cun sits in the Life palace" held together every time, with no exception.

To see why Tuo Luo stands on the other side, read Tuo Luo next; to meet Lu Cun itself, see Lu Cun. How a flank differs from an opposite palace or a converging one is in opposite, flanking and converging palaces, and the placement basis for the whole group of malefic stars is in auxiliary, malefic and minor stars.