Annual Clashes and Combinations: The Pillar It Hits Is the Area That Moves
The elements a year brings decide whether it is a tailwind or a headwind; the year's clashes and combinations with your four pillars tell you where that wind blows. A clash with the day branch stirs you, your partner and where you live; a combination with the month branch pulls on your working life. A relation is neither lucky nor unlucky in itself: it marks where something is likely to happen. Whether that is welcome or hard depends, again, on your favorable elements.
What each pillar stands for
| Pillar | Palace | What a year tends to stir when it touches it |
|---|---|---|
| Year pillar | Elders, family, roots | Matters involving elders or family, or your own roots and background |
| Month pillar | Parents and siblings, work setting, public stage (month command) | Changes at work or in your surroundings; a reshuffle on your working stage |
| Day pillar | Yourself (day stem) and your partner (day branch), where you live | Your own state, close relationships, your home |
| Hour pillar | Children and juniors, subordinates, long-term plans | Matters involving younger people or people you manage, or progress on long-term plans |
For the full picture of the palaces, see pillar palaces. "Stirred" here means that area is more likely to see change, not that the person it stands for will come to harm.
How to read each relation
| Relation | What it is | A closer reading |
|---|---|---|
| Six Clashes | Branches directly opposite each other (Zi-Wu, Chou-Wei, Yin-Shen, Mao-You, Chen-Xu, Si-Hai) | Movement and change: moving house, a new setting, a new rhythm |
| Six Combinations | Branches that pair up (Zi-Chou, Yin-Hai, Mao-Xu, Chen-You, Si-Shen, Wu-Wei) | Attraction and joining; people come into your life, or you get tied down |
| Punishment | Zi-Mao, Yin-Si, Si-Shen, Chou-Xu, Xu-Wei | Friction, and pressure from rules and responsibilities |
| Self-punishment | Chen, Wu, You or Hai meeting the same branch | Being hard on yourself, going back and forth |
| Six Harms | Also called chuan, e.g. Zi-Wei, Chou-Wu | Wear and misunderstandings out of sight |
| Six Breaks | e.g. Zi-You, Wu-Mao | Existing arrangements taken apart and redone |
| Stem combination | Jia-Ji, Yi-Geng, Bing-Xin, Ding-Ren, Wu-Gui | Ties and partnership |
| Stem clash | Jia-Geng, Yi-Xin, Bing-Ren, Ding-Gui | A pull between what you think and the position you take |
| Fu yin | The year's stem and branch identical to one pillar | The same issues come round again |
| Fan yin | The year's stem controls, and its branch clashes, one pillar | A change of direction, bigger movement |
The full rules for each relation are in branch relations. Meeting several at once is common: a Si year against a Shen branch, for instance, is a combination, a punishment and a break all at the same time.
Every twelve years, everyone's day branch is clashed
The year's branch runs in a twelve-year cycle, so each branch in your chart is clashed by an annual pillar once every twelve years. That is how the calendar works, not a matter of luck. In our sample:
How we counted: our engine cast one chart for every day from 1960 to 2005 (birth hour drawn by a fixed-seed random sample), 16,802 charts in all, and looked at the ten years from 2026 to 2035. Years that repeat a luck pillar depend on the direction of the luck pillars, so each chart was read once as a man and once as a woman for that figure. This describes how chart structures are distributed; it says nothing about anyone's fortune.
In other words, a year with no clash or combination at all is the exception. What matters is not whether there is a clash but whether the pillar clashed, and the element doing the clashing, are favorable or not: clashing away an unfavorable element loosens things up, while stirring a favorable one calls for a little more care. A fan yin on the day pillar (stem controlled and branch clashed) is rarer, met by about 33.3% of people within ten years.
2026, Bing-Wu: one year touching all four pillars
Born July 10, 1990, Wu hour (11 a.m.–1 p.m.), female: a Bing Fire Day Master close to balanced; favorable Wood and Fire, unfavorable Metal and Water
- Year pillar Geng-Wu and hour pillar Jia-Wu: Wu meets Wu, and Wu is one of the self-punishing branches, so this is a self-punishment; the same year branch also makes it her zodiac year. Read as pulling against yourself and overthinking.
- Month pillar Gui-Wei: Wu and Wei combine, a pull on her working life: people coming and going, new connections.
- Day pillar Bing-Zi: Wu clashes Zi, stirring herself, her partner and where she lives. This year her annual pillar is her favorable Fire, so the clash brings help; it more often looks like choosing to change the rhythm of her life than being forced to.
- Taken together: a favorable year with all four pillars stirred makes for "a year you really feel." The lookup lists each of these and marks the palace it lands in.
Offending Tai Sui is one small part of this
The folk idea of offending Tai Sui (fan tai sui) looks only at your birth-year branch and whether the year's branch matches, clashes, punishes, breaks or harms it. That is one pillar out of the four on this page. BaZi reads the year against all four pillars, and a clash or combination with the month, day or hour pillar often affects daily life more directly than one with the year pillar. For the five types and a year-by-year table of signs, see offending Tai Sui; for the signs that offend Tai Sui in 2027, see Tai Sui 2027.
Look up your annual pillar: is the year favorable, and which pillar does it touch?
Enter your Gregorian birth date, sex and the year you want to look at. You will see that year's Ten Gods and favorability grade, its clashes and combinations with your four pillars, how it sits on your luck pillar, a ten-year overview and the twelve monthly pillars of that year. Everything is calculated in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
Uses your Gregorian birth date, with the day changing at 11 p.m. Years change at Li Chun (Start of Spring) and months at each jie solar term; sex only affects the direction of the luck pillars.
A straight word: an annual pillar is a weather forecast for the year
An annual pillar tells you whether the elements a year brings are a tailwind or a headwind for your chart, and which of your pillars they touch. Think of it as a weather forecast: knowing rain is coming lets you take an umbrella or change your plans, and it does not mean you will get soaked. A chart describes tendencies, not events that must happen, and everything on this site is for reference and entertainment.
Which of your pillars does this year hit?
Enter your birth date and the year you want to look at to list every clash, combination, punishment and harm between that year and your four pillars, and the palace each lands in.
Annual clashes and combinations FAQ
What does it mean when the year clashes my day branch?
The year's branch clashes your day branch, stirring you, your partner and where you live: a move, a new job or a new rhythm are common. Everyone meets it once every twelve years; whether it helps or hinders depends on whether the element doing the clashing is favorable for you.
Is a combination with the year a good thing?
A combination is a pull and a joining: a new partnership, a relationship moving forward, or being tied up in something. It is neither lucky nor unlucky in itself; look at whether the pillar and the element involved are favorable.
What are fu yin and fan yin?
Fu yin is a year whose stem and branch are identical to one of your pillars, often read as the same issues coming round again. Fan yin is a year whose stem controls and whose branch clashes one of your pillars, often read as a change of direction. Both are hints about rhythm, not forecasts of disaster.
How is offending Tai Sui different from annual clashes and combinations?
Offending Tai Sui looks only at your birth-year branch against the year's branch. BaZi reads the year against all four pillars, year, month, day and hour, which gives a fuller picture.