The 12 Earthly Branches in BaZi

The Earthly Branches (地支) are the lower half of every pillar in a BaZi chart. If the Heavenly Stem shows which element is "visible" in a pillar, the branch describes the ground beneath it: the season, the time of day and a set of Hidden Stems. A chart of Four Pillars has four branches — of the year, month, day and hour. It is the branches that enter clashes and combinations, and it is in the branches that the Day Master's roots are found.

What an Earthly Branch is

The twelve branches are at once the twelve months of the solar year, the twelve two-hour periods of the day and the twelve years of the cycle. Each branch is traditionally paired with an animal, but in BaZi the animal is only a label. What works is the branch's element, its polarity and its Hidden Stems — the Heavenly Stems the branch "contains" inside.

The principal Hidden Stem is called the main qi (本气): it sets the branch's core element. The others are remnants of the previous season or the seeds of the next. How they are counted is covered in Hidden Stems.

Table of the twelve branches

Months follow the solar calendar: each starts at the moment of one of the 12 solar-term nodes (jieqi, 节气), and the year starts at Lichun (立春, around 4 February). Dates are approximate; the exact boundary differs from year to year. Hours are given in true solar time for the place of birth.

In the Hidden Stems column the main qi comes first. The hours in the table are not clock time. In Tashkent today, true solar time runs roughly 7–37 minutes behind civil time depending on the date, and in Soviet years, with decree time and daylight saving, the gap reached more than two hours. In the reference example, a birth on 19 May 1990 at 06:20 by the clock is 04:00 true solar time — the 寅 period, not 卯. Why this happens and how it is calculated is covered in True Solar Time.

Do not confuse the branch Yin 寅 with Yin polarity: they are different words that happen to share a transliteration, which is why the reference always shows the character next to the branch.

Polarity: order and main qi

In the table, polarity follows the order of the branches: the odd-numbered ones (子, 寅, 辰, 午, 申, 戌) are Yang, the even-numbered ones Yin. For the Ten Gods, however, the main qi is used, and for four branches the polarities differ: the main qi of 子 is Gui (Yin Water), of 午 Ding (Yin Fire), of 巳 Bing (Yang Fire), of 亥 Ren (Yang Water). That is why, for a 甲 Day Master, the branch 午 gives the Hurting Officer rather than the Eating God. The relationships of stems to the Day Master are covered in The Ten Gods.

Branches by season and element

The branches fall into four seasons of three. In each season two branches carry the season's element, and the third, closing branch carries Earth:

• spring — 寅, 卯 (Wood) and 辰 (Earth);
• summer — 巳, 午 (Fire) and 未 (Earth);
• autumn — 申, 酉 (Metal) and 戌 (Earth);
• winter — 亥, 子 (Water) and 丑 (Earth).

The month branch — the birth season (月令) — is the main factor in assessing the Day Master's strength. For a Jia Day Master, for example, the 寅 and 卯 months are a season of support, while 申 and 酉 are a season in which Wood is weakened. The tradition calls the Earth branches 辰, 未, 戌 and 丑 "storehouses": their Hidden Stems keep the element of the departing season.

This gives the traditional division of the branches into three groups of four:

This grouping explains why one branch is "simple" and another complex: 卯 contains only Yi, while 寅 carries Wood, Fire and Earth at once.

How branches interact

Position on the circle determines how branches meet each other:

• branches that stand opposite each other (six steps apart) form clashes — 子–午, 丑–未, 寅–申, 卯–酉, 辰–戌, 巳–亥;
• certain pairs and trios form combinations, as well as punishments and harms.

A Bazi.uz reading takes clashes within the chart into account; combinations are reference information, and punishments and harms are not used at present.

Why "Year of the Horse" is not BaZi

The popular "Chinese zodiac" describes a person by a single animal — the branch of the birth year. In a BaZi chart this is one of eight positions, and not the most important one: the centre of the chart is the Day Master, the stem of the day pillar, while the year branch describes the outer context, family background and early years. Two people born in the same year share the same year branch and have completely different other seven characters.

The second difference is the year boundary. The popular calendar often switches animals at Chinese New Year, which falls between 21 January and 20 February, or even on 1 January. BaZi counts the year from Lichun — a precise astronomical moment around 4 February. For example, the 丙午 (Horse) year began on 4 February 2026 at 01:02 Tashkent time, while Chinese New Year fell on 17 February. People born between those dates already have a 午 year in BaZi, but are still Snakes in the popular calendar. The 丁未 year begins on 4 February 2027 at 06:46 Tashkent time. How the year is calculated and read is covered in The Annual Pillar.

The third difference is content. Even the year branch itself is read in BaZi not through the image of an animal but through its element, its Hidden Stems and their relation to the Day Master. The "Horse" 午 is Fire with Ding as main qi and Ji as the second stem; for one Day Master it is Output, for another Resource or pressure.

How to read the branches of your chart

1. Write down the branches of the four pillars (three without a birth time).
2. Use the table to find the element and Hidden Stems of each branch.
3. Mark the month branch: this is the birth season.
4. Find which branches contain the Day Master's element — these are its roots.
5. Check the pairs for clashes.