六冲

Branch six clashes (六冲) are the six opposing pairs of the twelve earthly branches: 子午, 丑未, 寅申, 卯酉, 辰戌 and 巳亥. Each pair sits diametrically opposite on the cycle of branches, which is why Ziping Zhenquan's chapter on resolving punishment, clash, trinity and harmony (《子平真诠·论刑冲会合解法》) describes these relations as a matter of branches shooting across at one another. The lookup table here is engine-derived.

The six pairs are not all of one kind. Two join the cardinal branches, two the branches that open a season, and two the four storehouse branches 辰戌丑未. Ziping Zhenquan's chapter on the storehouse-clash doctrine (《子平真诠·论墓库刑冲之说》) makes the distinction explicit and unusually sharp: a clash between cardinal branches is a clash of mutual hostility, whereas the storehouse branches clashing among themselves is a clash of stirring rather than of injury. Its reason is that the four storehouses, whatever else they contain, are governed by earth, and earth responds to being clashed.

That chapter is also a sustained rejection of a claim still widely repeated — that the storehouse branches want to be clashed, and that wealth or office locked in a storehouse will not amount to anything unless a clash opens it. The chapter records the claim as one the popular manuals are fond of, and denies that Ziping practice contains it. Its argument is that a mixed-qi branch whose stem is already revealed needs no clash at all, and that where the sought thing is water rather than earth, the clash damages what it was supposed to release.

Worked example. The example chart below has 辰 in the day and 戌 in the hour: both are storehouse branches, so this is the stirring kind of clash rather than the hostile kind.

Worked example (solar 1975-02-03 20:00, male, computed by this site's engine):

Pattern: 正印格 · Strength: 中和 (engine verdicts)