For a Gui 癸 (Guǐ) day pillar, this bazi hour stem table for Gui day gives you the final pillar. Gui is yin Water — dew, mist, rain, the quiet water that soaks in rather than sweeps through. It pairs with Wu under the Five Rats rule, so its day opens on the Rat hour 壬子.
The 12 hour pillars for a Gui 癸 day
| Hour (branch) | Time range | Hour pillar |
|---|---|---|
| Rat 子 | 23:00–00:59 | 壬子 (Rén Zǐ) |
| Ox 丑 | 01:00–02:59 | 癸丑 (Guǐ Chǒu) |
| Tiger 寅 | 03:00–04:59 | 甲寅 (Jiǎ Yín) |
| Rabbit 卯 | 05:00–06:59 | 乙卯 (Yǐ Mǎo) |
| Dragon 辰 | 07:00–08:59 | 丙辰 (Bǐng Chén) |
| Snake 巳 | 09:00–10:59 | 丁巳 (Dīng Sì) |
| Horse 午 | 11:00–12:59 | 戊午 (Wù Wǔ) |
| Goat 未 | 13:00–14:59 | 己未 (Jǐ Wèi) |
| Monkey 申 | 15:00–16:59 | 庚申 (Gēng Shēn) |
| Rooster 酉 | 17:00–18:59 | 辛酉 (Xīn Yǒu) |
| Dog 戌 | 19:00–20:59 | 壬戌 (Rén Xū) |
| Pig 亥 | 21:00–22:59 | 癸亥 (Guǐ Hài) |
Worked example
Take a Gui day birth at 22:30 — the Pig hour (亥, 21:00–22:59). The hour pillar is 癸亥 (Guǐ Hài). Both stem and branch are Water, and the stem 癸 repeats the Day Master exactly: a doubled-Water destination pillar. For a Gui chart this is powerful reinforcement, and a reader would immediately check whether the rest of the chart can absorb that much Water or is flooded by it.
The hidden stems (藏干 cánggān) tell the finer story. Hài 亥 (Pig) conceals Rén 壬 (Yang Water) and Jiǎ 甲 (Yang Wood): against a Gui Day Master, Rob Wealth (劫财 jiécái) and Hurting Officer (伤官 shāngguān). So beneath the visible Friend (比肩 bǐjiān) on the stem sit a bigger companion and, usefully, an outlet — the 甲 is the seedling that can drink some of this water. The Pig hour page reads the branch on its own terms.
What each hour seats against Gui
The hour pillar is the ten-god seat of the destination palace — children, output, later life. Row by row, the Ten God (十神 shíshén) each hour stem plays against a Gui Day Master:
| Hour | Hour stem | Ten God for Gui 癸 |
|---|---|---|
| Rat 子 | 壬 | Rob Wealth 劫财 |
| Ox 丑 | 癸 | Friend 比肩 |
| Tiger 寅 | 甲 | Hurting Officer 伤官 |
| Rabbit 卯 | 乙 | Eating God 食神 |
| Dragon 辰 | 丙 | Direct Wealth 正财 |
| Snake 巳 | 丁 | Indirect Wealth 偏财 |
| Horse 午 | 戊 | Direct Officer 正官 |
| Goat 未 | 己 | Seven Killings 七杀 |
| Monkey 申 | 庚 | Direct Resource 正印 |
| Rooster 酉 | 辛 | Indirect Resource 偏印 |
| Dog 戌 | 壬 | Rob Wealth 劫财 |
| Pig 亥 | 癸 | Friend 比肩 |
Mist reads company differently from a river: a thin Gui welcomes the night hours’ companions and the Monkey hour’s Resource, while a saturated one does better with the daytime Wealth and Officer hours that give the water work to do. The Gui Water Day Master profile and the strength guide settle which you are.
Reading the pattern, and reading the clock
Two things are worth noticing before you lift a pillar off this table. First, the pattern itself: as you move down the hours the branch stays fixed by the clock, but the stem climbs one step of the ten-stem sequence at every hour, looping from 癸 back to 甲 when it reaches the end. That single motion is the whole Five Rats rule at work, and it is why the Gui-day column begins on 壬子 and closes twelve steps later on 癸亥.
Second, the clock. The times above are true solar times, tied to the sun’s real position rather than the figure on a birth certificate. Two corrections can push a birth across an hour line. One is the longitude gap between the birth city and the meridian its time zone is officially set to — in Singapore, where clocks run on UTC+8 while the island lies nearer 104°E, civil time can lead solar time by close to half an hour. The other is the equation of time, a seasonal drift of up to about a quarter-hour either way. For a Gui-day birth logged near a boundary such as 20:57, those few minutes decide which row above is genuinely yours. The calculator linked below applies both corrections for you, which is why its result can differ from a hand count taken off raw clock time.
The late Zi (子) note for Gui days
The Rat hour is 23:00–00:59, across midnight. A birth from 23:00–23:59 on a Gui day takes the next day stem’s Zi pillar for the hour, while the day pillar stays Gui. This is the late-Zi (晚子時 wǎn zǐshí) convention, one of the few genuinely disputed points in the craft — see the birth hour and hour pillar page.
Tracing it in your own chart
- Confirm the day pillar’s upper character is 癸 — the same character as your Day Master.
- Correct the recorded birth time toward solar time; the worked example above shows how a 22:30 birth sits safely inside the Pig hour, but a 22:50 record might not survive the correction.
- Match the corrected time to its double-hour and lift the pillar from the first table, then the destination god from the second.
If the birth time is unknown, do not force one. The year, month and day still carry the season, the Day Master and the spouse palace, so most of the reading stands; the destination palace simply stays open. Family memory or old paperwork often narrows the window — “born before the last bus” is genuinely useful — and each surviving candidate hour proposes a specific pillar above that can be tested against the life already lived. A guessed hour is worse than a missing one, because it installs a specific god with no evidence behind it.
What the hour pillar governs
The hour is the destination pillar — children, output, ambition, later life. It is the derived pillar, generated by the Five Rats rule (五鼠遁 wǔshǔdùn) that the master hour stem table shows in full. Its yang-Water sibling, the Ren day hour table, opens its Rat hour on 庚子 rather than Gui’s 壬子.
Let the calculator do the work — plot your Gui-day chart free and read the hour pillar to the minute.