丙子 bing zi

丙 above, 子 below

The branch controls the stem: Water restrains Fire. The stem is working against its own footing, which shows up as effort that costs more than it should.

Where 丙子 sits in the five elements

Wood, Earth and Metal do not appear anywhere in this pillar.

Water leads at 52.4%, then fire at 47.6%.

What is buried inside 子

子 hides a single stem, 癸 (Water) — what restrains the stem.

丙 meeting 子: the 胎 stage

The twelve stages (十二長生): yang stems run forward, yin stems backward.

丙 meets 子 at the 胎 stage — conception.

子 against 午, with 丑

Opposite across the cycle (六沖), and paired with (六合):

Clashes with

午 (Horse) — 庚午

Combines with

丑 (Ox) — 乙丑

Nayin: 涧下水

Nayin (納音) groups the cycle in pairs, each with an image. This one shares its image with 丁丑: 涧下水, “water in the ravine.”

How 丙子 is conventionally read

丙 is the sun itself: visible, outward, impossible to keep indoors. 子 is the middle of the night, where the cycle restarts.

A fire-element day master on a water footing — one of eight characters, which colours a chart and does not fix the person.

When the next 丙子 days fall

The sixty-cycle repeats every sixty days, so this pillar returns roughly every two months. The next one is 28 December 2026 (Monday). Each is calculated at midday Beijing time; a birth in the hour before midnight can still belong to the previous 丙子 day, because the day rolls at 23:00 true solar time.

Showing up to eight of the 6 occurrences in the next twelve months, from 2026-10-31.

丙 on six different footings

Six pillars carry this stem. It is the same day master every time, so everything that differs below is caused by the branch underneath it:

Here the footing is Water — what restrains the stem. The other five branches this stem sits on are 寅 (Wood), 戌 (Earth), 申 (Metal), 午 (Fire), 辰 (Earth).