Reproducible Bazi Calculation Cases

How to reproduce these cases

Enter the listed calendar, date, time, place, true-solar setting, and day-boundary option. Compare the Four Pillars and corrected time first, then the luck-cycle fields. The page publishes the user-visible inputs, selected conventions, and expected results.

These are purpose-built fixed examples, not user charts, and they are not associated with accounts, reports, or conversations. The same inputs and options should produce the Four Pillars and cycle results shown here. They do not cherry-pick life events to “prove accuracy,” and they do not present a traditional interpretive system as a scientific experiment.

Case 1: 23:00 early Zi versus midnight

23:00 early-Zi result: Gui-Hai year, Jia-Zi month, Xin-Wei day, Wu-Zi hour (癸亥 甲子 辛未 戊子).

00:00 midnight result: Gui-Hai year, Jia-Zi month, Geng-Wu day, Bing-Zi hour (癸亥 甲子 庚午 丙子). A Geng day starts Zi hour with Bing.

Reproducible conclusion: the Year and Month Pillars and the Hour Branch agree, but the Day Pillar and Hour Stem differ. The Hour Stem must be recalculated from the Day Stem actually selected. The product must expose the convention rather than hide a lineage default inside the answer.

Case 2: Jixi true solar time crosses 23:00

The longitude correction is about +43.9 minutes and the equation-of-time approximation about +7.0 minutes, producing a rounded total of +51 minutes.

Reproducible conclusion: corrected 23:21 crosses the selected 23:00 boundary, changing both the Day and Hour Pillars. Saying only that Jixi is about 44 minutes east of the reference meridian is incomplete because the date-dependent equation of time also contributes.

Case 3: fixed chart and luck-cycle baseline

Four Pillars: Wu-Chen, Geng-Shen, Bing-Shen, Ji-Chou (戊辰 庚申 丙申 己丑).

Luck-cycle start: 9 years, 10 months, 21 days, and 12 hours; Gregorian start at 1998-06-30 13:53. Mainland China observed daylight-saving time in 1988, so the recorded clock time is resolved to one instant before the adjacent-solar-term interval is calculated. The first complete major cycle is Xin-You, followed by Ren-Xu, Gui-Hai, Jia-Zi, Yi-Chou, and so on.

Why not 14:53?

Mainland China used UTC+09:00 daylight saving at birth in 1988 but had returned to UTC+08:00 by the 1998 start. The page resolves one birth instant, adds the converted duration, and then displays civil time in effect at the later date. The one-hour difference is therefore a civil-time change, not an extra luck-cycle adjustment.

Reproducible conclusion: this case checks the Four Pillars, forward direction, following adjacent jie, start age, first start time, and major-cycle sequence.

Case 4: an unknown hour must remain unknown

Expected: the Year Pillar is Wu-Chen and the Month Pillar Geng-Shen. The Day Pillar is normally Bing-Shen, but a later-confirmed birth at 23:00–23:59 under the early-Zi boundary also requires checking the next day, Ding-You. The Hour Pillar remains unknown; precise true-solar correction, starting age, and first start time are withheld.

Reproducible conclusion: reducing output when evidence is missing is more reliable than inventing a complete chart with noon, Zi hour, or another hidden default.

Case 5: Beijing and New York cross Li Chun at the same instant

The Li Chun instant used here is 02-04 16:27 Beijing time, corresponding to 02-04 03:27 in New York. Beijing uses UTC+08:00; New York uses EST, UTC−05:00. True solar time is Off, and this case checks the Year and Month Pillars only. Compare these pairs representing the same instants:

Reproducible conclusion: an overseas local clock reading must first be resolved through its historical timezone to a birth instant, then compared with the solar-term instant. Comparing New York 03:30 directly with the Beijing wall-clock number 16:27 is wrong. Year and Month Pillars should agree for the same instant, while Day and Hour Pillars still follow the selected local-time convention.

Why another calculator may disagree

Check, in order:

1. Gregorian versus lunar input and the leap-month flag;
2. whether the recorded time is local civil time, Beijing time relayed by family, or an already corrected solar time;
3. historical timezone and daylight-saving rules for overseas births;
4. whether “true solar time” includes both longitude and the equation of time;
5. whether the Day Pillar changes at 23:00 or midnight;
6. exact solar-term timing for the Month Pillar;
7. the luck-cycle starting convention;
8. calendar convention and luck-cycle school.

Different declared options can legitimately produce different results. Read How Yuanzi Calculates a Bazi Chart, then inspect each correction with the True Solar Time Calculator.

Verification record

If a published charting convention changes, the corresponding case and expected result should be revised together, with the affected fields identified.