Earthly branches · 六冲
The Six Clashes (六冲)
A six-clash is one of six earthly-branch pairs that pull against each other: Rat and Horse, Ox and Goat, Tiger and Monkey, Rabbit and Rooster, Dragon and Dog, Snake and Pig. The branches below stay sections on this page only.
Rat and Horse 子午
Zi, the Rat
Zi is the northern water branch, the one that stores the quiet end of the night. Its main hidden stem is Gui, yin water: feeling that seeps rather than announces. In a chart, Zi often marks a private current, a memory, a need to go inward before the day starts. On its own it is not a crisis. It is a shore. People with Zi prominent can look calm while a lot of weather is moving under the surface. The branch wants a container. Without one, the night never quite ends, and the person keeps a second life of feeling that the visible day does not know about.
Wu, the Horse
Wu is the southern fire branch, noon rather than night. Its main hidden stem is Ding, the candle, with earth beside it. Wu wants to be seen moving: a journey, a stage, a decision that does not wait for the feeling to settle. On its own it is heat and motion. The person starts, travels, and gets impatient with a plan that has no flame. The branch is not only temper. It is the part of life that refuses to stay in the dark room Zi would rather keep.
When both are in the chart
When Zi and Wu both sit in the chart, night and noon occupy the same life. The classic effect is movement that will not sit still: a move, a job that keeps changing cities, a heart that wants rest and a calendar that will not give it. Water and fire do not cancel. They make steam. The useful version is a person who can feel deeply and still act in public. The costly version is restlessness treated as destiny, or a private life that is punished every time it asks for a quiet hour. Which pillar holds each branch matters. A clash with the year often pulls the person away from the family map. A clash with the day or hour lands closer to partnership and the daily room.
Ox and Goat 丑未
Chou, the Ox
Chou is wet earth at the end of winter. It stores metal and a trace of water under a patient surface. The branch is slow on purpose. It keeps what it has, including a grudge, a savings habit, and a standard that does not need an audience. On its own, Chou is the field that is still frozen and still fertile. People read it as stubborn. Often it is just unwilling to till the ground before the season is real. The hidden metal wants a shape. The earth wants to wait.
Wei, the Goat
Wei is dry earth at the end of summer. It stores fire and wood: a garden that has already grown something and is now holding the residue. The branch is also patient, but the patience is warm and tangled, not cold. Wei keeps family feeling, a taste, a loyalty that is hard to explain in a spreadsheet. On its own it nurtures and it clings. Letting a season end is the work. The branch would rather compost a relationship than call it finished.
When both are in the chart
Chou and Wei are both earth, so the clash is not a clean element war. It is two storehouses that will not share a field. Wet earth and dry earth argue about what should be kept. In a life this often shows up as property, a family role, or a duty that two parts of the chart claim. The person can look immovable from outside and be in a long argument with themselves about what they owe. The useful clash opens a store that had gone stale: a habit, a holding, a loyalty that was only inertia. The costly clash is two stubborn grounds, each sure the other is the one refusing to move. Nothing dramatic has to happen on the birthday. The friction is structural. It repeats until one field is allowed to lie fallow.
Tiger and Monkey 寅申
Yin, the Tiger
Yin is the wood of early spring, and its main hidden stem is Jia, the pine. The branch wants to start: a road, a reform, a body that would rather move than negotiate the first step. Bing fire sits inside it as well, so the start has heat, not only a plan. On its own Yin is initiative. It leads from the front and gets bored with a gate that will not open. The risk, before any clash, is starting as a personality and calling the unfinished thing a direction.
Shen, the Monkey
Shen is yang metal in autumn, main stem Geng, the axe. It also holds water and earth, so the cut is rarely only a cut. It is a decision with a route away from the scene. On its own Shen is skill, a sharp read, and a low tolerance for a soft plan that will not name the cost. People experience it as clever and hard to pin. The branch likes a problem it can solve by changing the terms, including leaving.
When both are in the chart
Yin and Shen are the tree and the axe. The clash is one of the moving pairs: travel, a career break, an argument that produces an action instead of a mood. Jia and Geng do not share a room quietly. One wants the trunk to stand. The other wants a clean severance. In a chart this can be the life that keeps relocating, or the job that is cut and replanted every few years. It is not automatically bad luck. A life that has gone soft needs the axe. A life that only cuts never grows a trunk worth keeping. Read the pillars. Month is the season of work. Day and hour sit closer to the partner and the private afternoon. The clash asks for a road with one tree you do not fell.
Rabbit and Rooster 卯酉
Mao, the Rabbit
Mao is pure yin wood, Yi, the vine in full spring. There is little hidden beside it, so the branch is unusually single-minded: relationship, tact, a way through the hedge rather than through the wall. On its own Mao is attraction and adaptability. It keeps a connection alive by bending. The cost is a self that is hard to find once the bending has gone on for years. The branch wants beauty and a door that stays open. It does not want a verdict.
You, the Rooster
You is pure yin metal, Xin, the finished edge. Like Mao, it is not a crowded storehouse. The branch is a standard: speech, appearance, a contract, the exact word. On its own You refines. It notices the flaw that makes a thing untrue, including a relationship that has been running on atmosphere. People feel judged. Often they are being measured against a finish the Rooster cannot stop seeing. The branch would rather be precise than be easy.
When both are in the chart
Mao and You clash at the gate. The vine and the jewel do not want the same kind of closeness. One keeps the door open by adapting. The other keeps it honest by refusing a sloppy bond. In practice this pair often lands on partnership, reputation, and the question of who is allowed to be seen. It can be a move, a public break, or a private standard that keeps cutting a tenderness that was real. The useful version is a relationship, or a craft, that is both alive and finished: flexible, and still unwilling to lie. The costly version is charm on one side and a perpetual audit on the other, so nobody stays. Because both branches are nearly pure, the clash is clean. There is less mixed element to soften the cut.
Dragon and Dog 辰戌
Chen, the Dragon
Chen is a storehouse of water, held by yang earth, with wood inside. It is a reservoir: feeling, a plan, a resource that is not on the table until something opens it. On its own Chen can look larger than the life around it, because the branch contains more than it shows. People trust the scale. They also wait a long time for the water to be released. The branch is not only ambition. It is storage. What it keeps can be a talent, a fear, or a family story that has not been allowed to move.
Xu, the Dog
Xu is a storehouse of fire, also yang earth, with metal inside. It keeps heat, a loyalty, a dry standard, and it guards the gate of what has been stored. On its own Xu is duty with a temperature. The person holds the line for a group, a belief, or a house, and does not advertise the fire under the earth. The branch can be the most reliable thing in a chart and the least willing to open the vault just because someone asked.
When both are in the chart
Chen and Xu clash by opening the stores. Water's reservoir and fire's vault do not sit quietly in one chart. Something that was kept, money, a role, a feeling, a piece of land in the old reading, gets forced into the weather. This is why the pair is often felt as a sudden change rather than a constant argument. The useful clash is an opening you needed: a resource that had become a locked room, a loyalty that had become a tomb. The costly clash opens the store in public, before you chose the hour, and then both earths try to slam it shut again. Read it as pressure on what was buried, not as a moral about dragons. If the chart has a use for what spills, the clash is a door. If it does not, it is a flood in a dry yard.
Snake and Pig 巳亥
Si, the Snake
Si is yang fire coming into summer, main stem Bing, with metal and earth hidden in the coil. The branch thinks, plans, and keeps a heat that does not always show its face. On its own Si is strategy with a flame: a person who sees the next turn and would rather be right than be early and loud. The hidden metal means the insight wants a tool, not only a vision. The risk is a mind that keeps coiling, refining the plan until the season has moved on.
Hai, the Pig
Hai is yang water at the start of winter, main stem Ren, the river, with wood beside it. The branch is scope. It wants a current large enough to carry more than one life, and it is generous with what flows through. On its own Hai is imagination, travel of the mind, and a difficulty with a small repeating duty. The wood inside wants the water to grow something, not only to roam. Without a bank, the branch is weather: present, moving, and hard to bill.
When both are in the chart
Si and Hai are the flame and the river. Bing and Ren in one chart pull between a concentrated plan and a current that wants the whole map. The life often changes belief, place, or work, because the two branches cannot keep the same shore. The useful version is vision that actually travels: a strategy with enough water to reach someone, a river with enough fire to arrive somewhere specific. The costly version is a person who is always about to begin the real project, or who drowns a good idea in one more possibility. As with the other moving clashes, the pillar tells you the room. Year is the inherited map. Month is the work season. Day and hour sit closer to the partner and the hour you actually live. The branches stay here, as sections, until each one is an essay of its own.
See which clashes your chart holds
A birthday gives the year branch. The month, day, and hour branches need the full birth date and time.
Calculate the Four Pillars