强弱
day-master strength — the first judgment call
Every method past this point depends on one question: is the day master strong or weak? Not morally — structurally. A "strong" day master has enough support (its own element, or what generates it) to withstand being drained, controlled, or spent. A "weak" one does not. Everything downstream — which 十神 helps, which pattern the chart forms, which god is favorable — flips depending on the answer. Get 强弱 wrong and every later step reads backwards.
The tradition never scores this with a single number, and neither will this module pretend to. What follows is the four-factor method (得令, 得地, 得势, 通根) used to build a qualitative judgment, worked on real pillars so the process is concrete rather than mystical.
得令 — commanding the season — 得令
The single heaviest factor. 得令 asks: does the month branch's season favor the day master's element? A 甲 (yang wood) day master born in 寅卯辰 (spring) is 得令 — the season itself is wood's home. A 甲 born in 申酉戌 (autumn, metal's season, which controls wood) is not.
The classical seasonal-strength doctrine names five states for a phase against the month: 旺 wàng (flourishing, its own season), 相 xiàng (supported, generated by the season), 休 xiū (resting, generates the season), 囚 qiú (confined, restrains the season), 死 sǐ (dormant, restrained by the season). 得令 means 旺 or 相; anything else is 失令 shī lìng, "losing the season."
| day master phase | 旺 season (得令) / 死·囚 season (失令, hardest) |
|---|---|
| 木 wood | 寅卯辰 spring / 申酉戌 autumn (metal controls wood) |
| 火 fire | 巳午未 summer / 亥子丑 winter (water controls fire) |
| 土 earth | 辰戌丑未 (the four turning months) / 寅卯辰 spring (wood controls earth) |
| 金 metal | 申酉戌 autumn / 巳午未 summer (fire controls metal) |
| 水 water | 亥子丑 winter / 辰戌丑未 (earth controls water) |
得地 — rooted in the earth — 得地 · 通根
得地 asks whether the day master finds support in the BRANCHES — not just the month, but any of the four. This is mostly a question of 通根 tōng gēn, "rooting through": does the day stem's element appear as a hidden stem (藏干, module 4) inside any branch of the chart? A 甲 (yang wood) day master with a 寅 branch anywhere in the chart is rooted — 寅 hides 甲 as its 主气. A 甲 with a 卯 branch is also rooted (卯 hides 乙, wood's yin register, a weaker but real root).
Roots are not equal. A 主气 root (the branch's presiding hidden stem, from module 4) is a strong root; a 中气 or 余气 root is a weaker one. A day master with multiple roots across several branches is far harder to uproot than one standing on a single 余气 trace.
得势 — support from the stems — 得势
得势 asks about the visible STEMS: do the other three stems (year, month, hour) generate or share the day master's element? A 甲 day master with a 壬 or 癸 stem elsewhere (water generates wood) or another 甲/乙 stem (a peer or rival) gains 得势. This is the weakest of the three factors alone, but stacks with 得令 and 得地 — a day master strong in season, root, AND stem support is about as strong as a chart gets.
putting it together — a worked judgment
Take the app's worked example from module 6: 己卯 · 丙子 · 戊午 · 戊午 (born 2000-01-01, noon, Beijing). Day master 戊 (yang earth). Month branch 子 (water's own season) — earth is controlled by water in its own season, so this is 失令: the day master does NOT command the season.
Check 得地: does 戊 (earth) root anywhere? The day branch 午 hides 丁己 (主气 丁, 余气 己) — 己 is earth's yin register, a real but secondary root. The hour branch is also 午 — the same secondary root, doubled. Some root, but not the strongest kind.
Check 得势: the other stems are 己 (year, earth — a peer, direct support) and 丙 (month, fire — generates earth, support). Two supporting stems.
Verdict: 失令 (lost the season) but real support from stems and a doubled secondary root — this reads as a day master on the WEAK side of the line, but not collapsed. The tradition calls this a 身弱 (body weak) chart that still has resource — exactly the kind of case where the four factors have to be weighed together, not read off one alone.
the twelve stages of growth — 十二长生 — 十二长生
A finer-grained lens the tradition lays over every stem-branch pairing: twelve stages of a life cycle, from birth to burial, mapped onto the twelve branches for each of the ten stems. 长生 (birth), 沐浴 (bathing), 冠带 (capping), 临官 (office), 帝旺 (imperial peak — the strongest stage, same idea as 旺 above but stem-specific), 衰 (decline), 病 (illness), 死 (death), 墓 (tomb/vault — the same 库 seats from module 8's 三合 groups), 绝 (severance), 胎 (conception), 养 (nurture).
Each stem has its own cycle direction (yang stems run forward through the twelve branches from their 长生 seat; yin stems run backward — a doctrine detail with real disagreement between schools on whether yin stems truly reverse). The engine does not yet compute this table; treat it as a finer supplement to 得地 above, not a replacement — knowing a branch is a day master's 帝旺 seat versus its 死 seat sharpens the root-strength read past a simple yes/no.
Honest note: 十二长生 is real, widely taught doctrine — and also one of the more school-divided corners of the system (the yin-reversal question above is unresolved between traditions). The app does not compute it; this module teaches it as vocabulary you will meet in other books and readers, not as something you can currently look up in your own chart here.