For a Ji 己 (Jǐ) day pillar, this bazi hour stem table for Ji day finishes the chart. Ji is yin Earth — the garden soil, the field, the receptive ground that grows things. It pairs with Jia under the Five Rats rule, so its day opens on the same Rat hour 甲子 that a Jia day does.
The 12 hour pillars for a Ji 己 day
| Hour (branch) | Time range | Hour pillar |
|---|---|---|
| Rat 子 | 23:00–00:59 | 甲子 (Jiǎ Zǐ) |
| Ox 丑 | 01:00–02:59 | 乙丑 (Yǐ Chǒu) |
| Tiger 寅 | 03:00–04:59 | 丙寅 (Bǐng Yín) |
| Rabbit 卯 | 05:00–06:59 | 丁卯 (Dīng Mǎo) |
| Dragon 辰 | 07:00–08:59 | 戊辰 (Wù Chén) |
| Snake 巳 | 09:00–10:59 | 己巳 (Jǐ Sì) |
| Horse 午 | 11:00–12:59 | 庚午 (Gēng Wǔ) |
| Goat 未 | 13:00–14:59 | 辛未 (Xīn Wèi) |
| Monkey 申 | 15:00–16:59 | 壬申 (Rén Shēn) |
| Rooster 酉 | 17:00–18:59 | 癸酉 (Guǐ Yǒu) |
| Dog 戌 | 19:00–20:59 | 甲戌 (Jiǎ Xū) |
| Pig 亥 | 21:00–22:59 | 乙亥 (Yǐ Hài) |
Worked example
Take a Ji day birth at 09:45 — the Snake hour (巳, 09:00–10:59). The hour pillar is 己巳 (Jǐ Sì). The stem 己 repeats the Day Master and the branch 巳 is Fire that generates Earth, so this is a warm, well-supported final pillar — Earth reinforced at its destination. That is generally read as strength late in life, provided the chart is not already over-heavy with Earth.
Open the branch and the support shows its texture. The hidden stems (藏干 cánggān) of Sì 巳 (Snake) are Bǐng 丙 (Yang Fire), Wù 戊 (Yang Earth) and Gēng 庚 (Yang Metal) — for a Ji Day Master, Direct Resource (正印 zhèngyìn), Rob Wealth (劫财 jiécái) and Hurting Officer (伤官 shāngguān). Warmth, company and an outlet all buried in one branch: the 庚 in particular gives this hour a productive edge, garden soil that yields tools as well as crops. The Snake hour page reads the branch in its own right.
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 Ji-day column begins on 甲子 and closes twelve steps later on 乙亥 — the same run as a Jia day, since the two share a column.
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 Ji-day birth logged near a boundary such as 18:57, 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.
Same pillars as Jia, different gods
Sharing a column with Jia means a Ji day produces identical hour pillars — but the Ten God (十神 shíshén) each stem plays is entirely Ji’s own, because the god is measured against the Day Master. Hour by hour, the destination seat of a Ji chart holds:
| Hour | Hour stem | Ten God for Ji 己 |
|---|---|---|
| Rat 子 | 甲 | Direct Officer 正官 |
| Ox 丑 | 乙 | Seven Killings 七杀 |
| Tiger 寅 | 丙 | Direct Resource 正印 |
| Rabbit 卯 | 丁 | Indirect Resource 偏印 |
| Dragon 辰 | 戊 | Rob Wealth 劫财 |
| Snake 巳 | 己 | Friend 比肩 |
| Horse 午 | 庚 | Hurting Officer 伤官 |
| Goat 未 | 辛 | Eating God 食神 |
| Monkey 申 | 壬 | Direct Wealth 正财 |
| Rooster 酉 | 癸 | Indirect Wealth 偏财 |
| Dog 戌 | 甲 | Direct Officer 正官 |
| Pig 亥 | 乙 | Seven Killings 七杀 |
Where Jia’s Rat hour seats a Friend, Ji’s identical 甲子 seats Direct Officer — the clearest possible proof that the pillar is only half the reading. The other half is the Day Master, profiled on the Ji Earth Day Master page.
The late Zi (子) note for Ji days
The Rat hour is 23:00–00:59, spanning midnight. A birth from 23:00–23:59 on a Ji day takes the next day stem’s Zi pillar for the hour, while the day pillar stays Ji. This is the late-Zi (晚子時 wǎn zǐshí) convention, and it is genuinely disputed between schools — see the birth hour and hour pillar page.
Checking it in your own chart
- Find the day pillar and confirm its upper character is 己 — that character is also your Day Master.
- Correct the birth time toward solar time; treat anything within twenty minutes of an hour line as unresolved until you do.
- Match the corrected time to its double-hour, lift the pillar from the first table, then the god from the second.
If no birth time survives
Read what the six known characters give — season, Day Master, spouse palace — and keep destination-palace conclusions in pencil. Old records and family memory often recover more than expected; failing that, a shortlist of candidate double-hours can be tested one pillar at a time against the life already lived. Writing in a default hour is the only real mistake here, because it installs a specific Officer, Wealth or Killings that no evidence supports.
What the hour pillar governs
The hour is the destination pillar — children, output, ambition, later life. It is the derived pillar, produced by the Five Rats rule (五鼠遁 wǔshǔdùn) that the master hour stem table shows in full. Because Ji shares its column with Jia, comparing the Jia day hour table is instructive — the pillars are identical, which is exactly what the “five” in Five Rats means.
Rather not memorise the grid? Plot your Ji-day chart free with the calculator and read your hour pillar to the minute.