Placing the Annual Spirits, Dou Jun and Kong Wang

All four stars are counted from the palace of that year's branch (the year's Tai Sui), so they move every year. In a Bing Wu year, for example, Tai Sui is in Wu: two palaces in front, Shen, is Sang Men; two palaces behind, Chen, is Diao Ke; opposite Shen, Yin is Bai Hu; opposite Chen, Xu is Guan Fu.

Xingge's twelve Sui Qian spirits include these four (Xingge writes Guan Fu as 官符), in positions that agree with the Quan Shu's method. To see them, switch the chart to an Annual Luck: the Sui Qian spirits in the small text of each palace change to that year's set. Without an Annual Luck selected, the set shown is the one laid out from the birth year.

This segment is the rhyme version of the previous one. The four stars form two pairs: Sang Men faces Bai Hu, and Diao Ke faces Guan Fu, so a palace with Sang Men always has Bai Hu opposite. The ancients used them to read mourning, visits to the sick, bloodshed and lawsuits in a given year. The Gu Sui Fu says 「弔客喪門，綠珠有墮樓之厄」 (see the original), Diao Ke and Sang Men bringing Lü Zhu's fall from the tower.

Read today, this group is better taken as a hint that, in that year, matters of this palace easily involve social obligations, hospitals or disputes over documents. The year's transformations and main stars still need to be read; Sang Men alone is no reason to predict a death.

The Dou Jun is simply the palace where the first month of the year falls; from there the months are counted forward, one palace per month. A worked example: someone born in the third month in the Mao hour, looking at a Bing Wu year. Start the first month at the Tai Sui palace, Wu, and count backward to the third month, which reaches Chen; start the Zi hour at Chen and count forward to the Mao hour, which reaches Wei. The Dou Jun is in Wei: in the Bing Wu year, the first month is read at Wei, the second at Shen, and so on.

Xingge computes the monthly luck by this very method: switch the same chart to the first month of the Bing Wu year on Xingge and the monthly Life Palace lands in Wei. For how the Dou Jun is used palace by palace in the Quan Shu, see the line 「若斗君正月初一日值在某宮過度」 in The Nature of the Four Transformations.

This rhyme mirrors the method for placing the Life Palace: the Life Palace counts months forward from Yin and hours backward, while the Dou Jun counts months backward from the Tai Sui palace and hours forward. That gives a shortcut: however many palaces the Life Palace lies backward from Yin, the Dou Jun lies that many palaces forward from the Tai Sui palace. With the Life Palace in Chou (one palace backward from Yin), for instance, the Dou Jun in a Wu year is one palace forward from Wu, at Wei, the same as worked out in the previous segment.

For people whose Life Palace is in Yin, the Dou Jun is always the Tai Sui palace itself: the first month of each year is read at the palace of that year's branch.

The Quan Shu's method reveals two regularities. Yue De starts the Zi year at Zi and counts forward to Tai Sui, so Yue De is always in the Tai Sui palace itself; Tian De starts at You, so it is always the ninth palace forward from Tai Sui. In a Wu year, for example, Yue De is in Wu and Tian De in Mao.

Tian De, Yue De and Jie Shen all belong to the stars that dissolve misfortune. Xingge's annual Sui Qian spirits also include a Tian De, in the same position as the Quan Shu's annual Tian De here; the natal chart has a separate Tian De and Yue De placed by the birth year, see 'The Xingge approach' above.

This line goes by 「當生年太歲」, the birth year, so it belongs to the natal chart, unlike the two previous lines, which read the Annual Luck. Born in a Wu year, for example: Zi at Xu, Chou at You, Yin at Shen, Mao at Wei, Chen at Wu, Si at Si, Wu at Chen, so Jie Shen is in Chen.

Xingge calls it Nian Jie and lists it among the palace's lesser stars; switch to an Annual Luck and an annual Nian Jie placed by that year is shown as well. Its meaning is dissolving: the ancients looked at the palace it falls in, where misfortune can more easily be dissolved.

The rule behind the three flying killers: step back three palaces from the trine group of that year's branch, and you have the trine group of the killers. Yin, Wu and Xu years fly into Hai, Mao and Wei: three palaces back from Yin is Hai. Shen, Zi and Chen years fly into Si, You and Chou: three back from Shen is Si. The other two groups work the same way. So each year three palaces receive the killers, and those three are in trine with one another.

The heading says the three killers are Zou Shu, Jiang Jun and Zhi Fu, but the rhyme does not say which one lands in which palace; all we know is that the three palaces together are the killers' ground. Xingge does not place this set; the Zou Shu and Jiang Jun on the chart belong to the Bo Shi spirits, a different system, as the note on this segment says.

For example, in a Bing Wu year (the Yin-Wu-Xu group) the three killers are in Hai, Mao and Wei; in a Ding Wei year (the Hai-Mao-Wei group) they are in Shen, Zi and Chen. Notice that the killers' ground is never in the same trine group as the year's branch, so the Tai Sui palace itself never receives them.

In the chapter on the Decade Luck, the Quan Shu lists the stars Tai Sui fears most, and the first string is 「奏書將軍直符」 (see the original), which shows that this set is used for the Annual Luck.

Here is what each killer means: Zou Shu governs quarrels, Jiang Jun fright and regret, Zhi Fu trouble with the authorities. In the old days 'trouble with the authorities' covered being sued, jailed or punished; today it can be read as trouble involving government, regulations or contracts.

The Quan Shu's view is that meeting one or two of them shows signs of losing money, illness or weeping, and that it only becomes serious when Hua Ji, Qing Yang or Tuo Luo pile on top (see Fortune and Misfortune in the Decade Luck). Without other bad signs, the position of the three killers alone is not enough to predict a lawsuit.

Jie Lu Kong Wang follows a regularity: for the first four groups, the two palaces are exactly the palaces whose stems are Ren and Gui. Born in a Jia year, for example, the Yin palace starts at Bing, and laying the stems out gives Ren Shen at Shen and Gui You at You, so Jie Kong is at Shen and You. In a Yi year Yin starts at Wu (戊), and the stems reach Ren Wu at Wu and Gui Wei at Wei. The ancients said Ren and Gui are water, and 'Jie Lu' is water cutting off the road. Only the Wu and Gui years are an exception: by the palace stems, Ren and Gui fall at Xu and Hai, yet the rhyme says Zi and Chou, which counts Ren Zi and Gui Chou backward before the Yin palace, the opposite of the direction in which the palace stems are laid out.

Xingge splits it into two stars, Jie Lu on the yang branch and Kong Wang on the yin branch, both in the list of lesser stars. The Quan Shu's Essentials of Reading the Stars says 「祿馬不落空亡天空截空最緊，旬空次之」 (see the original), rating Jie Kong as heavier than Xun Kong.

The reasoning behind Xun Zhong Kong Wang: ten stems paired with twelve branches means each decade only reaches ten branches, and the two left over are that decade's emptiness. To find it, count back from the birth year's stem and branch to the nearest Jia. A Geng Wu year, for example, counts back through Ji Si, Wu Chen and on to Jia Zi, so it belongs to the Jia Zi decade and is empty at Xu and Hai.

Xingge marks only one palace, as explained under 'The Xingge approach' above. To read by the Quan Shu, count the other palace in yourself: someone born in a Jia Zi year, for instance, has Xun Kong marked at Xu on Xingge, but the Hai palace is also inside the emptiness.

In the order the original gives them, the emptiness of the six decades runs Xu-Hai, Zi-Chou, Yin-Mao, Chen-Si, Wu-Wei, Shen-You. Xun Kong means that palace is 'hollow': a lucky star there loses strength, and an unlucky star there loses some of its harm. The Xing Xing Fu says 「殺落空亡竟無威力」 (see the original), the side of it in which a malefic star in emptiness turns out harmless.

When reading a chart, Lu Cun, Tian Ma or Hua Lu in Xun Kong or Jie Kong is the case the Quan Shu cares about most; when you see such a combination, go back and read the first entry of Essentials of Reading the Stars.