Xun Kong and Jie Kong are two marks on a Zi Wei Dou Shu chart that people love to discuss and often over-read. This article covers their basic ideas, the doubts about where they come from, and how different schools treat them, so you can look at them on your own chart with a more balanced eye.

What Are Xun Kong and Jie Kong?

In practice, Jie Kong and Xun Kong work as a main and a secondary mark. They help tell apart how heavily two neighboring palaces are affected.

Jie Kong carries the sense of cutting off, breaking and dividing. It affects both helpful stars and harsh stars.

Xun Kong carries the sense of binding and holding back. It also affects both helpful and harsh stars.

How they are used: Xun Kong and Jie Kong can weaken the force of helpful and harsh stars, but they do not change a star's basic nature (they do not turn a harsh star into a helpful one, or the other way around).

Example 1: Xun Kong and Jie Kong can both restrain the Pioneer group (the Blade, the Disruptor and the Wolf), softening its strong push a little without changing its basic tendency toward change.

Example 2: Xun Kong and Jie Kong may reduce how much an Open Ego palace is swayed by outside circumstances, but they do not change the original nature of an Open Palace.

In short: Xun Kong and Jie Kong weaken the force of stars without changing whether a star is helpful or harsh. In practice they work as a main and a secondary mark, used to tell apart the weight on two neighboring palaces.

Doubts About Where They Come From

In ancient China, a "xun" was a unit of ten days, not a seven-day week. According to old texts, the idea of a seven-day week came from a divination method called Yan Qin Fa, which reached China from the Western Regions. Yan Qin Fa is a separate predictive method that uses the 28 lunar mansions, but it has no basis in the earthly branches or the Five Elements, and it has no connection to Zi Wei Dou Shu.

So some people question the idea: if Xun Kong is tied to the "week" of Yan Qin Fa, it would be cut off from the heavenly stems, earthly branches and Five Elements that Zi Wei Dou Shu is built on. This doubt comes back in the section on prejudices about Xun Kong and Jie Kong below.

Different Views on Xun Kong and Jie Kong

Zi Wei Dou Shu is generally described as coming down two lines. One is "orthodox Zi Wei Dou Shu," said to have been passed on from court astronomers in the Tang dynasty. The other is "folk Zi Wei Dou Shu," which grew as knowledge was lost and later added to by self-taught students. As a result, schools do not agree on methods or on the star system, and that includes Xun Kong and Jie Kong.

These are some of the views you often hear:

• Xun Kong and Jie Kong are stars with Five Elements (Jie Kong is Metal and Xun Kong is Fire). Jie Kong in a Metal palace is favorable and only blocks harsh stars; Xun Kong in a Fire palace likewise only blocks harsh stars.
• They are not stars at all, just yin-yang data standing for the opening and closing of a yin phase and a yang phase.
• They cancel each other out (a folk view).
• Jie Kong fades after age 30; Xun Kong is lighter but lingers and may affect a whole life (a folk view).
• A xun is a unit of time: ten stems must be matched with twelve branches, which leaves two branches without a stem. That is why it is also called "emptiness" (something missing).
• They stand for something unusual, not necessarily bad. They only reduce, and do not change the nature of a major star.
• They work as a main and a secondary mark. The main palace is affected more strongly and the secondary one more lightly.
• A weakened star (D-tier) that meets Xun Kong and Jie Kong may turn bright.

If you want to see which stars sit in each palace of your own chart, you can look at it on HOROS.

Beyond that, many schools that developed from orthodox Zi Wei Dou Shu rarely use Xun Kong and Jie Kong, and some almost never do. One example is the Qin Tian Four Transformations school. The Modern school, founded by Liu Wu Ju Shi and very influential in Taiwanese Zi Wei Dou Shu in recent years, does not use them at all.

Prejudices About Xun Kong and Jie Kong

Many people look only at Xun Kong and Jie Kong to make a judgment. They overlook the chart as a whole, or assume that seeing one of these marks is enough to decide a person's life and career. These are some common prejudices:

• Xun Kong or Jie Kong in the Career palace means a career that breaks off halfway and rarely reaches success.
• Xun Kong or Jie Kong in the Wealth palace means wealth is hard to gather and life is hard.
• Xun Kong or Jie Kong in the Love palace means a relationship will break down.

Overall, the effect of Xun Kong and Jie Kong cannot be denied, but in strength it does not take the lead, because their nature is only a qualitative marker and they do not change whether a pattern is helpful or harsh. When a chart shows career or relationship challenges, the cause may well be more than Xun Kong and Jie Kong. It often comes from the pattern of the chart itself sitting in a weak position.

The origin is also a big question mark. Yan Qin Fa does not use the Five Elements or the stems and branches. It can therefore be said to be not a very good fit for Zi Wei Dou Shu, where the Five Elements and the stems and branches are essential.

In short: the effect of Xun Kong and Jie Kong cannot be denied, but they do not lead a chart's helpful or harsh balance. Many career or relationship challenges may come from the pattern, not from these two marks alone.

The View of the Zhong Zhou Three Harmonies School

The major stars have the strongest influence. Under the influence of minor stars and the Four Transformations, the level of how helpful or harsh a chart is comes into view. Xun Kong and Jie Kong belong to the miscellaneous stars and are used only to add detail about qualities and events. They rarely affect how helpful or harsh a pattern is.

Note: most well-known Zi Wei Dou Shu researchers, such as Lu Binzhao and Wang Tingzhi, treat Xun Kong and Jie Kong at the same level as other miscellaneous stars. Although they are grouped with the void stars, their influence is less than that of the void stars.

Wrapping Up: A Balanced View of Xun Kong and Jie Kong

Xun Kong and Jie Kong are only qualitative markers. They do affect palaces, but they do not change the original nature of a star. They are not suited to deciding the outcome of a chart, and are better used to support an analysis. This view is also close to the "Three Harmonies school," a method with more than a thousand years of history.

A good way to use them is as a supporting reference when analyzing personality, working style, and how much a decade changes things, not as the main basis. To read your chart as a whole, you can try HOROS.