Four Pillars (BaZi) guide
What the Four Pillars are
Your birth year, month, day and hour are each written as one of the 60 stem-branch pairs; the four pairs are the pillars and the eight characters are the "BaZi". In the Song dynasty Xu Ziping made the Day Master — the stem of your birth day — stand for "you" and read every other character by its relation to it. Almost all modern readings follow this Ziping method.
What sets each pillar
The year changes at the exact moment of Lichun (start of spring), not at Lunar New Year; the month changes at each of the twelve solar "nodes". People born on those days need the birth time to get the right pillars. The day pillar is the 60-cycle date; the hour pillar uses two-hour branches (Zi to Hai) with a stem derived from the day stem.
The Zi hour and true solar time
The Zi hour runs 23:00–01:00, and schools disagree whether the day changes at 23:00 or at midnight. Standard time can also differ from local solar time by tens of minutes (Korea's clock is about 30 minutes ahead of its solar time). Myeonglore offers both as options, applies the historical time-zone and daylight-saving rules of your birthplace automatically, and prints the rules used under every result.
The Ten Gods
Each character is named by how it relates to the Day Master — supports me (Resource), is produced by me (Output), is controlled by me (Wealth), controls me (Officer/Power), or is like me (Companion) — split by yin and yang into ten: Friend, Rob Wealth, Eating God, Hurting Officer, Indirect/Direct Wealth, Seven Killings, Direct Officer, Indirect/Direct Resource. They are the basic grammar for character, money, work and relationships.
Hidden stems and the twelve stages
Each branch hides one to three stems; the last ("main qi") is the strongest. The twelve stages (Birth, Bath, Youth, Prime, Peak, Decline, Illness, Death, Tomb, Void, Conception, Nurture) show the Day Master's life phase in each branch.
Strength and the useful element
The month branch (season), day branch and the other characters are scored for how much they support the Day Master, giving Strong, Weak or Balanced. The "useful element" rebalances the chart; the support/restraint view and the climate view can disagree, so Myeonglore shows ranked candidates rather than one verdict.
Symbolic stars
Traditional labels attached to particular combinations — Nobleman, Scholar, Travel Horse, Peach Blossom, Canopy, Sheep Blade, Void, Kuigang, White Tiger, Enmity, Ghost Gate. Schools differ, so only eleven widely used ones are shown.
Luck cycles
Ten-year cycles start from the month pillar, moving forward for men born in yang years and women in yin years, backward otherwise. The starting age is the number of days to the next (or previous) node divided by three. The annual pillar is the 60-cycle name of each year.
How this site calculates
Solar-term instants for 1900–2100 are precomputed astronomically to the minute; time-zone history comes from the tz database. Defaults: day changes at 23:00, true solar time off, luck-cycle start rounded — all adjustable, and always printed in the "Calculation basis" box.
Please remember
BaZi is an East Asian cultural tradition, not a scientific prediction. Do not base marriage, hiring, investment or medical decisions on it. Myeonglore presents it as cultural content and never claims an "accuracy rate".