地支 are the working units of a Chinese chart. The生肖 is how most people meet them, but a branch also carries hidden stems, a season, a direction, a two-hour period of the day and a set of relationships with the other eleven — which is where the detail in a reading actually lives.
Every branch contains between one and three heavenly stems, listed as main qi, middle qi and leftover qi. This is the layer that explains why two charts with the same branch behave differently, and why a branch that looks like one element can supply another.
| Branch | Animal | Element | Hidden stems | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 子 Zi | Rat | Water | 癸 | 23:00–01:00 |
| 丑 Chou | Ox | Earth | 己 癸 辛 | 01:00–03:00 |
| 寅 Yin | Tiger | Wood | 甲 丙 戊 | 03:00–05:00 |
| 卯 Mao | Rabbit | Wood | 乙 | 05:00–07:00 |
| 辰 Chen | Dragon | Earth | 戊 乙 癸 | 07:00–09:00 |
| 巳 Si | Snake | Fire | 丙 戊 庚 | 09:00–11:00 |
| 午 Wu | Horse | Fire | 丁 己 | 11:00–13:00 |
| 未 Wei | Goat | Earth | 己 丁 乙 | 13:00–15:00 |
| 申 Shen | Monkey | Metal | 庚 壬 戊 | 15:00–17:00 |
| 酉 You | Rooster | Metal | 辛 | 17:00–19:00 |
| 戌 Xu | Dog | Earth | 戊 辛 丁 | 19:00–21:00 |
| 亥 Hai | Pig | Water | 壬 甲 | 21:00–23:00 |
Six relationships run through the twelve branches: 六合 six harmony, 三合 three harmony, 冲 clash, 刑 punishment, 害 harm and 破 break. Every branch page lists its own partners. None of these relationships is a verdict on its own — they describe how the energy in a chart moves, where it accelerates and where it meets friction.
Read alone, a clash looks alarming. Read against a day master and a season, the same clash is often the mechanism that releases something that was stuck.
Your four pillars are four stem-branch pairs. The calculator shows every hidden stem and how your branches relate to each other.
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