Bing Yin · Yang Fire Tiger
In Chinese: 丙寅
Bing Yin, the Yang Fire Tiger: the sun rising over the first wood of spring, fire at its birth, warm, bold and fed by what it stands on.
Meaning
Bing Yin is the sun at the start of spring: the Tiger’s month opens the solar year, and the Wood of Yin feeds the fire above it, which is born there. The tradition reads warmth with fresh fuel, an enthusiasm whose sources are close at hand.
Bing over Yin: yang Fire over yang Wood, a stem its branch produces, as Wood produces Fire.
Bing, Yang Fire, is the sun: warm, generous, shining on everyone alike. The Tiger is brave, magnetic and independent.
The zodiac reads a Bing Yin year as the Fire Tiger’s. The Fire Tiger is the Tiger at full blaze: passionate, daring, unconventional, impossible to ignore. It lights others up, and learns to pace itself so the fire lasts.
Its Na Yin, shared with Ding Mao, is Fire in the furnace (爐中火 lúzhōng huǒ): a sound of Fire, heard beside the pillar’s Fire and Wood.
In practice
- As a year, from Lichun, around 4 February: 1806, 1866, 1926, 1986, 2046, 2106 and 2166, in the 1800–2200 table.
- As a month: the Tiger month of every Jia or Ji year, opened by Start of Spring, as in the solar years 2024 and 2029.
- As a day, every sixty days: in 2026, on 21 February, 22 April, 21 June, 20 August, 19 October and 18 December.
- As an hour: the Tiger’s double hour, 03:00–05:00, of Jia and Ji days.
- As a day pillar, its stem is the Day Master, Bing, sitting on Yin, the partner palace: Yin holds Jia, Bing and Wu, Bing’s Indirect Resource, Companion and Eating God, and Bing stands at its Birth stage there.
- As a luck pillar or a year, it brings each Day Master the god of its stem and the god of its branch’s main qi: the Correspondences below give them for all ten.
Across traditions
- In Japan, Korea and Vietnam the same pillar is hinoe-tora, byeong-in and Bính Dần, with each language’s readings of 丙 and 寅.
How Ulune calculates it
Bing Yin is the 3rd of the sixty pillars: the 3rd of the ten stems over the 3rd of the twelve branches, which the cycle moves on one step together, so that a stem only ever meets the branches of its polarity. Ulune counts a year’s pillar from Lichun, 1984 being Jia Zi; a month’s twelve a year through the cycle, from Bing Yin in the Tiger month of 1984 (the rule of the five tigers); a day’s by the count of days, 1 January 2000 being Wu Wu; an hour’s twelve a day (the rule of the five rats).
Bing Yin belongs to the ten-day week from Jia Zi to Gui You, whose stems meet the branches from Zi to You and leave out Xu and Hai: for a day pillar of this week, those are the empty branches. Its Na Yin is the 2nd of the thirty, one for each two pillars.
Correspondences
| Correspondence | Bing Yin |
|---|---|
| Characters, pinyin | 丙寅 bǐngyín |
| Place in the cycle | 3 of 60 |
| Stem | Bing, yang Fire |
| Branch | Yin, the Tiger, yang Wood |
| Hidden in the branch | Jia 60, Bing 30, Wu 10 |
| Stem and branch | Wood produces Fire |
| Na Yin | Fire in the furnace, with Ding Mao |
| Its stem’s stage in its branch | Birth |
| Ten-day week | Jia Zi to Gui You; empty branches Xu and Hai |
| Its stem, for each Day Master | Jia → Eating God, Yi → Hurting Officer, Bing → Companion, Ding → Rob Wealth, Wu → Indirect Resource, Ji → Direct Resource, Geng → Seven Killings, Xin → Direct Officer, Ren → Indirect Wealth, Gui → Direct Wealth |
| Its branch’s main qi, for each Day Master | Jia → Companion, Yi → Rob Wealth, Bing → Indirect Resource, Ding → Direct Resource, Wu → Seven Killings, Ji → Direct Officer, Geng → Indirect Wealth, Xin → Direct Wealth, Ren → Eating God, Gui → Hurting Officer |
| Years, 1800–2200 | 1806, 1866, 1926, 1986, 2046, 2106, 2166 |
| Month | Tiger month of Jia and Ji years |
| Hour | Tiger hour, 03:00–05:00, of Jia and Ji days |
| Before and after | Yi Chou, Ding Mao |
| Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese | Hinoe-tora, byeong-in, Bính Dần |
Related
- Bing · Yang FireThe third Heavenly Stem, yang Fire: the sun at noon, warmth and light given to everything alike, open, generous and seen from afar.
- Yin · TigerThe third Earthly Branch, yang Wood: the Tiger, the first month of spring and the hour before dawn, the year’s new growth drawn out into the open.
- TigerThe third of the twelve animals, the Tiger of the branch Yin: brave, magnetic and independent, it acts on its convictions and stands up for others.
- Fire in the furnaceFire in the furnace, the Na Yin of Bing Yin and Ding Mao: fire at work within walls, heat that forges and transforms.
- Yi Chou · Yin Wood OxYi Chou, the Yin Wood Ox: the vine on frozen ground, supple life holding on through the last of winter and waiting for the thaw.
- Ding Mao · Yin Fire RabbitDing Mao, the Yin Fire Rabbit: a lamp lit from spring wood, a small, steady flame kept by a gentle hand.
Sources
- Sima Qian, Shiji, c. 94 BC
- Ban Gu, Hanshu, 1st century
- Xu Sheng (ed.), Yuanhai Ziping, Song dynasty
- Wan Minying, San Ming Tong Hui, 16th century
- Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 3, 1959