Clashes, combinations and harms between branches

The six clashes

A clash is traditionally read as instability, movement or disruption in whatever the two pillars govern. A clash between the day and hour branches is read differently from one between year and month, because the pillars cover different domains.

This is also the basis of ben ming nian: the year that clashes your own animal.

The six combinations

Combinations bind two branches together, and Tong Shu almanac writers hold that a combined branch is partly occupied. Less available to do its other work. Whether the combination transforms into the produced element is disputed and generally held to depend on supporting conditions elsewhere in the chart.

That last row is a good illustration of how much genuine disagreement exists in this material.

The three-harmony trines

Four groups of three branches, spaced evenly round the circle, that combine into a single element when all three are present in a chart.

Most clashes are noise. I count only the ones touching the day pillar and ignore the rest.

These are the same groupings used for zodiac compatibility, covered in the four trines. In a BaZi chart, Tong Shu almanac writers read having all three of a trine as a strong concentration of that element, which matters a great deal if it's the element you already had too much of.

Half-combinations, which are far more common

Most charts don't contain a complete trine. They contain two of the three, and Chinese almanacs treat some of those pairs as a weaker version of the full combination, a half-combination (半合).

The rule is that the pair must include the peak branch of the trine: Rat for Water, Horse for Fire, Rabbit for Wood, Rooster for Metal. Each trine therefore yields two valid halves, and one pair that's generally not counted.

The four leftover pairs (Monkey–Dragon, Pig–Goat, Tiger–Dog, Snake–Ox) have no peak branch between them. Most schools treat them as inert or very weak, though you will find practitioners who disagree.

The seasonal combinations, which are stronger still

A separate set: three consecutive branches forming a complete season and compass direction (三會). Because the branches are adjacent instead of scattered, these are generally held to produce a more forceful concentration of their element than the three-harmony trine does.

If a seasonal group appears in your chart it usually dominates the elemental reading, so it matters for what your chart is missing and for identifying a favourable god.

The six harms, and where they come from

Harms (害, also 穿) count, for Tong Shu almanac writers, as quiet undermining instead of opening conflict. They're rarely explained, which makes them look arbitrary, but every one is derived mechanically from the two tables above.

A harm is formed where one branch clashes the partner that the other branch wanted to combine with. It's the third party breaking up a pair.

All six work this way with no exceptions, which is a good sign the category is structural instead of invented after the fact. It also explains the traditional flavour of a harm: something interfering with a bond you already had, instead of a head-on collision.

Punishments and destructions

Two further layers, and the ones most often quoted at people without explanation.

Punishments (刑) count, for Chinese almanacs, as self-inflicted or entangled difficulty rather than external disruption.

Self-punishment is the one people meet most often, because it only requires the same branch to appear twice, which happens constantly once a Luck Pillar and an annual branch are in play.

Destructions (破) are the weakest layer and given least weight: Rat–Rooster, Rabbit–Horse, Dragon–Ox, Goat–Dog, Tiger–Pig and Snake–Monkey. Note that the last two are also six-combinations, and Snake–Monkey additionally lies inside the Tiger–Snake–Monkey punishment. The same pair can be a bond, a minor damage and a punishment at once, depending on which list a practitioner reaches for.

How much of this is always present

This is the part usually left out, and it is the reason to keep the whole apparatus in proportion.

Twelve branches make 66 possible pairs. Counting the clashes, combinations, harms, destructions, three-harmony pairs and seasonal pairs, 42 of those 66 pairs (64 per cent) carry at least one named relationship. Six pairs carry two names simultaneously.

Then apply that to a chart. Four natal branches give six pairs. Add a Luck Pillar and the annual branch and you have fifteen pairs, each drawn from a pool where roughly two in three carry a name. Finding several relationships in any chart in any year isn't a discovery. It's arithmetic.

When a branch is in two relationships at once

This is the question that comes up once you look at a real chart, and where the schools diverge most.

The general principle is that a branch tied up in a combination is less available to clash, often put as 貪合忘冲, greedy for the combination and forgetting the clash. Run the other way, a clash can also break a combination apart before it does anything. Which wins isn't settled, and any practitioner who states the rule flatly is picking a school without telling you.

None of this resolves into a formula, and the plain position is that it doesn't. What it gives you is a way to tell a considered reading from a mechanical one.

How to find these in your own chart

AsterNym does steps one to five for you on the BaZi page, including the Luck Pillar and current year, and lists what BaZi practitioners say about each relationship it finds. Without telling you what will happen as a result.

How to read them sensibly

Weigh which pillars are involved, not just whether a relationship exists. A clash involving the day pillar (the one that stands for you) is treated as more consequential than one between year and month.

Read them against elemental balance rather than in isolation. A clash that removes an element you have too much of is not obviously bad news, and the tradition itself says so. That's the same logic behind the favourable god.

Separate the structural from the passing. What is in your natal branches has been true your whole life; what arrives with a Luck Pillar or an annual branch is on a clock.

And treat the specific predictions with the same scepticism as everything else here. We compute the relationships present in your chart and describe what Chinese almanacs say about them, on your BaZi page, without claiming to know the outcome.