Huangji Jingshi: Yuan-Hui-Yun-Shi Cycles and the Annual Hexagram
Some systems read people; some read eras. Huangji Jingshi belongs to the second kind: it cuts time into layers of cycles and gives every year a hexagram, to show where that year stands and what image it takes.
What This Method Looks At
Time is divided as 1 yuan = 12 hui, 1 hui = 30 yun, 1 yun = 12 shi and 1 shi = 30 years. Each year then receives a governing hexagram from the xiantian sixty-four-hexagram circle, and wider stage hexagrams are derived above it — one covering sixty years, one covering ten, and larger stages beyond. What it reads is the shared condition of a year and a stage, not anyone's personal fortune.
What You Need to Prepare
- A target year (1–9999 CE), or a specific date and time.
- A question you care about (optional), to focus the reading.
- Supplementary tables (optional): the sound-and-pitch table or the animal-and-plant numbers table. These are appendices to classical material and take no part in the main chart calculation.
What It Is Good For
- Where a year sits in the yuan-hui-yun-shi cycles and how many years remain.
- What the annual, governing and ten-year hexagrams are, and what their judgements say.
- The shared image of a period, whether ten or sixty years.
- Understanding Shao Yong's calendar-and-hexagram framework itself.
What It Is Not Good For
- One person's fortune, relationships or career: there is no birth-data entry here and no personal chart is drawn.
- Whether or when a specific event will happen: it gives cycle position and image, not event forecasts.
- Short-term decisions: the granularity is measured in years and cannot answer next week.
- Applying an “era trend” directly to yourself.
What the Result Looks Like
- A yuan-hui-yun-shi table: the index, start and end years, and current progress for yuan, hui, yun, shi and year.
- The conversion rules: how many years each layer contains, for checking.
- Hexagrams: the annual, governing, yun, sixty-year and ten-year hexagrams, plus their mutual, opposite and reversed forms.
- The era trend: the count of yin and yang lines, the nature of the phase and a summary.
- Supplementary tables (if requested): categories, counts and rules from the classical table.
- A reading ordered as cycle position, then stage hexagram, then annual hexagram.
Its Limits
Editions of Huangji Jingshi differ in their calendar epoch and conversion methods; this method uses one fixed convention from the engine and states the epoch and conversions in the result. It describes the cycle position of shared conditions, makes no judgement about an individual and does not predict specific events.
Where to Start
If you want to know where a year sits in the cycles, go into the process here and give the year; to see the stages as well, give a specific date and time. In the Zhanbu Mizhi process the epoch and conversions are listed too, so you can check conventions across editions.
Disclaimer: This article covers traditional culture and folk custom. It is for entertainment and self-reflection only, and does not constitute medical, psychological, investment, legal or marital decision advice. Please do not submit sensitive personal information such as ID numbers or detailed addresses. If you experience persistent insomnia, anxiety or physical discomfort, please consult a doctor or a qualified professional.
Sources
- Huangji Jingshi (Supreme Principles Governing the World), Wikisource: https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/皇極經世 (accessed 2026-10-25)
- Siku Quanshu Zongmu Tiyao (Annotated General Catalogue of the Complete Library in Four Branches), juan 108 (Masters section, divination category, list of extant titles), Wikisource: https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/四庫全書總目提要/卷108 (accessed 2026-10-25)