Ba Zi Hidden Stems Chart: All 12 Branches (藏干 Reference)

The twelve earthly branches (地支 dìzhī) are not solid blocks. Each one carries one to three heavenly stems folded inside it, and those buried stems are what we call the bazi hidden stems (藏干 cánggān). When a practitioner reads a chart, half the real information lives here, out of plain sight. This page is the master reference: every branch, every stem it conceals, in the order that matters.

The first stem listed for each branch is the main qi (本气 běnqì), the branch’s dominant energy. Any stems after it are the middle qi and residual qi, weaker but still active. A single-stem branch is called pure, because nothing dilutes its main qi.

The full bazi hidden stems chart

Read each row from left to right in descending strength. The main qi carries the branch; the middle and residual qi add texture, timing and the occasional buried resource or officer.

Main, middle and residual qi

The main qi is the branch’s headline element. When you see the Rooster in a chart, you are essentially looking at Yin Metal, because 酉 holds only Xīn 辛. The Rat, Rabbit and Rooster are the three pure branches, each carrying a single stem and nothing else.

The middle qi is the second-strongest tenant, often the sign of a combination or seasonal transition. The residual qi is a faint remainder, usually the leftover of a previous season stored in an earth branch. The four earth branches, Chǒu 丑, Chén 辰, Wèi 未 and Xū 戌, each store three stems and act as the storehouses of the chart.

Why the hidden stems change a reading

Hidden stems are how a branch speaks to your day master (日主 rìzhǔ). A branch that looks neutral on the surface can conceal your wealth, your resource, or a hidden officer. Until you open the branch, you cannot assign the ten gods (十神 shíshén) correctly, and you cannot judge strength honestly.

The mechanism is a comparison, not a lookup: each hidden stem is set against the day master by element and polarity, and that relationship names the star. This is why the same branch produces a completely different cast of hidden ten gods in every chart — the branch does not change, the day master it is being compared to does.

Consider the Snake. On the surface it is Fire, but 巳 also stores Gēng 庚 Yang Metal in its residual position. For a Wood day master, that buried metal is a hidden officer that only activates under the right combination or clash. Miss it, and you misread the whole pillar. Make the example concrete with a Jiǎ 甲 (Yang Wood) day master: the Snake’s Bǐng 丙 reads as the Eating God (食神 shíshén), its Wù 戊 as the Indirect Wealth (偏财 piāncái), and its Gēng 庚 as the Seven Killings (七杀 qīshā) — output, opportunity and pressure stacked inside one branch that a surface reading would call “just fire”.

Rooting: the second job of hidden stems

Beyond hidden ten gods, this table settles rooting (通根 tōnggēn). A stem visible at the top of a pillar is only as strong as the matching qi buried in the branches beneath it: a day master standing over its own main qi is firmly planted, a root through middle qi is moderate, a residual or storehouse root is thin, and a stem with no root at all floats. Two charts can show identical stems on the surface and read entirely differently because one is rooted through this table and the other is not — which is why rooting sits at the centre of every strength verdict, as unpacked in strong versus weak Day Master.

What opens a branch: clashes, combinations, frames

Buried stems do not stay buried. The fixed branch relationships are the keys, and they are worth keeping beside this table. The Six Clashes (六冲): 子↔午, 丑↔未, 寅↔申, 卯↔酉, 辰↔戌, 巳↔亥 — a clash shakes a branch and, on the storehouses, pries the vault open. The Six Combinations (六合): 子+丑→Earth, 寅+亥→Wood, 卯+戌→Fire, 辰+酉→Metal, 巳+申→Water, 午+未→Fire/Earth — a combination can bind a branch or pull a hidden stem into a new role. The Three Harmonies (三合): 申子辰→Water frame, 寅午戌→Fire frame, 巳酉丑→Metal frame, 亥卯未→Wood frame — a completed frame amplifies the relevant hidden stem across all three branches at once.

Palace position then decides what the released stem touches: a branch in the year pillar speaks to ancestry and early life, the month branch doubles as the season gate that sets day master strength, the day branch is the spouse palace, and the hour branch governs children and the later years. The same Ox opened in the day branch and in the hour branch tells two different stories.

If you want the branches and stems themselves before diving into what they hide, start with the twenty-two characters in our guide to the heavenly stems and earthly branches. From there you can drill into individual branches, such as the water-heavy Zi branch and what the Rat conceals or the fire-cored Wu branch of the Horse. The pure branches continue with the Rabbit’s single wood stem and the Rooster’s undiluted metal, while the storehouses reward a closer look — the Ox’s metal treasury, the Dragon’s water vault and the Dog’s stored ember.

Using this chart in practice

Keep this table beside your chart while you learn. For each of your four branches, note the main qi first, then check whether any middle or residual stem creates a ten god you would otherwise miss. Combinations and clashes can lift a hidden stem out of storage and put it to work, which is often where a year suddenly turns active.

A simple working sequence: identify your day master; write out your four branches; open each one using the table above; convert every hidden stem into its ten god; mark which stems root your visible stems; then check the clash, combination and frame lists for anything that could open or bind each branch. That is the bulk of a structural reading, done with one table.

See what the four branches in your own chart are hiding. Plot your full set of hidden stems free with the Butcher Boy calculator, then read each branch against your day master.