Chart Structure: The Frame of Your Chart and Where You Are Put to Use
Chart structure (格局, gyeokguk) is the frame of a chart. It looks for the clearest energy in your month branch — the branch of your birth month — and reads from it how you are put to use and where your social talents lie. The classic textbook is the Qing-dynasty Zi Ping Zhen Quan by Shen Xiaozhan.
Why the month branch?
The month branch is your birth season and the heaviest position in a chart; it also carries the most weight in chart strength. The month pillar stands for young adulthood and social life, so its energy is said to show the role in which the world puts you to use.
How the structure is chosen
- Look for a revealed stem. If one of the hidden stems in the month branch also appears among the year, month or hour stems, the structure takes that stem's ten god. If several appear, the main stem comes first, then the middle stem, then the residual stem.
- If none is revealed, use the main stem. With nothing revealed, the structure is taken from the month branch's main hidden stem.
- If the month branch is the same energy as you, it gets its own name. Friend and Rob Wealth are not used as structures. If the month branch is your Day Master's Prosperity branch, it is a Prosperity structure; if it is your Yang Blade, a Yang Blade structure; otherwise a Month Rob structure.
The structures and the work that suits them
Structure is less a personality type than an answer to "on which stage are you used well?" Below are traditional readings translated into modern work.
| Structure | Character | Suited to |
|---|---|---|
| Direct Officer | Upright, trustworthy, grows within organisations | Public institutions, management, well-structured organisations |
| Seven Killings | Decisive, thrives under pressure, charismatic | Crisis management, field command, medicine, law, security |
| Direct Wealth | Diligent, meticulous, practical | Finance, accounting, administration, stable organisations |
| Indirect Wealth | Sociable, sees the big picture, active | Business, sales, distribution, investing, partnerships |
| Eating God | Steady, expert, easygoing | Specialist skills, content, cooking, education services |
| Hurting Officer | Expressive, quick, creatively breaks the mould | Sales, marketing, creative work, consulting, speaking |
| Direct Resource | Studious, qualified, careful | Education, research, documentation, licensed professions |
| Indirect Resource | Original viewpoints, digs deep | Planning, IT, analysis, specialist technology, art |
| Prosperity | Independent, does it their own way | Independent work, freelancing, specialist self-employment |
| Yang Blade | Competitive, strong drive | Competitive fields, sport, starting a business |
| Month Rob | Camaraderie and competitiveness, nerve | Competitive fields, sales, businesses run together |
Completed and broken structures
The Zi Ping Zhen Quan cares a great deal about whether a structure is well formed (成格) or broken (破格). A few classic examples:
- Direct Officer structure with a Hurting Officer revealed: the Hurting Officer strikes the Officer (傷官見官), a flaw. A Resource that blocks the Hurting Officer restores it.
- Seven Killings structure with an Eating God: the Eating God tames the rough Seven Killings (食神制殺), a good structure.
- Wealth structure with many Peers: the Peers split the wealth and drain its strength. An Officer that holds back the Peers helps.
- Resource structure with strong Wealth: Wealth breaks the Resource (財剋印), so learning and support are easily shaken.
Our engine currently calculates the name of your structure and the reasoning behind it; whether it is completed or broken is something Master Han explains by looking at the whole chart.
How this site calculates it
We list the hidden stems of the month branch in the order main, middle, residual, and pick the first one — other than Friend or Rob Wealth — that is revealed in the year, month or hour stem. The result shows its reason, for example "the main stem of month branch X is revealed among the stems".
The aptitude in the career report comes from the ten god of this structure, and your working style from the strongest of the five ten-god groups, hidden stems included. Your structure and its reasoning are in the complete reading; the aptitude it implies is in the career report.
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