The bazi six clashes (六冲 liùchōng) are the six pairs of Earthly Branches that sit directly opposite each other and pull against one another when they meet in a chart. A clash is not a curse. It is friction and change — two branches that want different things, forcing movement where there might otherwise be none. Read calmly, the six clashes are one of the most useful signals in a chart, because they tell you where a life tends to shift rather than settle.
This page is the reference for the whole set. Each pair also has its own detailed write-up, linked below, because the character of a clash depends on which hidden stems (藏干 cánggān) are actually fighting inside the two branches.
The full list of the six clashes
The twelve branches form a ring, and each clash joins two branches exactly opposite each other, six positions apart. That opposition is the whole idea: peak Water faces peak Fire, peak Wood faces peak Metal, and the four Earth storehouses face across the ring in two pairs.
| Clash | Branches | Animals | Core tension |
|---|---|---|---|
| 子↔午 | Zǐ – Wǔ | Rat – Horse | Water against Fire |
| 丑↔未 | Chǒu – Wèi | Ox – Goat | Earth storehouses, stored stems clashing |
| 寅↔申 | Yín – Shēn | Tiger – Monkey | Wood against Metal, both restless |
| 卯↔酉 | Mǎo – Yǒu | Rabbit – Rooster | Wood against Metal, single clean cut |
| 辰↔戌 | Chén – Xū | Dragon – Dog | Earth storehouses, stored stems clashing |
| 巳↔亥 | Sì – Hài | Snake – Pig | Fire against Water, both on the move |
Memorise the six pairs and you have the backbone of branch dynamics. Everything else — harms, combinations, harmonies — reads more clearly once the clashes are fixed in mind.
Why the bazi six clashes actually clash
The surface animals are only shorthand. The real event happens among the hidden stems each branch stores. A branch is not a single note; it is a chord, and a clash is two chords struck against each other so that specific stems inside them fight.
Take Zǐ and Wǔ. Zǐ stores Guǐ 癸 (Yin Water); Wǔ stores Dīng 丁 (Yin Fire) and Jǐ 己 (Yin Earth). When they clash, Water attacks Fire directly. In the storehouse clashes like Chǒu against Wèi, the surface Earths are alike, so the fight moves inward to the stored Metal, Water, Wood and Fire — which is why practitioners describe those clashes as “opening the storehouses”. The individual pages make each of these fights concrete pair by pair, and the complete stem inventory for all twelve branches is on the hidden stems table.
Where a clash lands: reading by position
A clash means different things depending on which two pillars hold it. The four positions each colour a different part of life.
Year
The year pillar speaks to ancestry, early environment and elders. A clash here often shows early moves, a background in flux, or distance from where one started.
Month
The month pillar is the weightiest gate — career, and the parents’ household. A clash to the month tends to be the most keenly felt, because it touches livelihood and the structure a person is built on.
Day
The day pillar is the self, and the day branch is the spouse palace (夫妻宫 fūqīgōng). A clash here points to instability or repeated change around the closest relationship, which is why it is read carefully rather than dramatically.
Hour
The hour pillar covers children, later life and private ambitions. A clash here can show restlessness in one’s own projects or a moving picture in the later years.
Natal clashes and triggered clashes
There are two ways to meet a clash, and they read differently. A natal clash — both branches present in the birth chart — is a standing theme, a place where life keeps moving. A triggered clash needs only one branch natally; the opposite branch then arrives from a ten-year luck pillar (大运 dàyùn) or the annual pillar (流年 liúnián) and switches the clash on for exactly as long as it stays. A Wu luck pillar clashing a natal Zi is a decade-long condition; a single Horse year clashing that same Zi is one year of weather. This is why a chart cannot be judged from the natal eight characters alone — the luck pillars decide when each fault line is actually under load.
A quick worked example
Suppose a chart has Zi in the day branch and the annual pillar brings Wu. The day branch is the spouse palace, so the clash lands on partnership for that year: the Gui Water inside Zi takes pressure from the arriving Ding Fire inside Wu. Nothing in this predicts a breakup. It flags a year when the relationship is asked to move — a relocation, a renegotiation of roles, a decision that ends a long ambiguity. The same two branches meeting in the month instead would route that pressure through career and parents. Position, not the pair itself, sets the subject matter.
How to read the six clashes without fatalism
The classic mistake is to treat a clash as a verdict. It is not. A clash is a description of pressure and motion, and pressure can be productive — many people with a prominent clash simply live lives that move, relocate, change fields, and renew themselves on a shorter cycle than average.
Three things temper any clash. Whether the clashing branches are favourable or unfavourable for the Day Master changes the whole reading. A nearby combination or harmony can bind a branch and soften the clash. And the luck pillars and annual branch switch clashes on and off over time, so a clash that is quiet in the natal chart can be triggered for a particular decade or year. This is where the branch-relationship system connects to the rest of the chart, including the counterweight of the six combinations, the pooled strength of the three harmony frames, and the quieter friction of the six harms.
Equally, be clear about what a clash is not. It is not an omen of a named disaster, not a compatibility ban between two animal years, and not something that can be bought off. It is structural information about where movement concentrates.
The six clash pages in detail
Each pair gets its own treatment of hidden stems, positions and calm guidance. Start with the water-fire axis in the Zi–Wu clash, or the clean single-stem cut of the Mao–You clash. The two storehouse pairs are covered in the Chou–Wei clash and the Chen–Xu clash, and the two travelling axes in the Yin–Shen clash and the Si–Hai clash. To see how branches store their stems in the first place, the primer on Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches is the place to go.
Clashes are easiest to understand once you can see your own. Find which of the six clashes sit in your chart — plot it free with the Ba Zi calculator and you will see exactly which branches face off and where.