Every Qi Men Dun Jia (奇门遁甲 qí mén dùn jiǎ) chart is built in layers, and the bottom layer — the one everything else rides over — is the Earth Plate (地盘 dì pán). On it sit the ten Heavenly Stems, arranged by the chart’s formation number. Those ten stems split into two families with very different characters: the three wonders six yi (三奇六仪 sān qí liù yí). Understanding this split is the first real step from “Qi Men looks complicated” to “I can read a plate.”
If you have met the stems before in Ba Zi (八字 bāzì), they are the same ten characters. The Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches that describe a person’s destiny are the same alphabet Qi Men lays across its board — only here they map terrain for a decision rather than a life.
The Earth Plate: where the three wonders six yi live
The board itself is the Nine Palaces (九宫 jiǔ gōng), a 3×3 Luo Shu (洛书 luò shū) grid. The Earth Plate distributes the stems across those palaces according to the Ju number (局 jú), the formation index fixed by the moment’s solar term and yuan (元 yuán). That distribution is deterministic — computed by rule, never guessed — so this article explains the cast of characters, not any specific dated plate.
Of the ten stems, only nine appear on the Earth Plate. Nine, not ten, because 甲 Jia (jiǎ) does not show its face. That absence is the whole point of the system’s name, and we come back to it below. The nine that do appear divide neatly: three Wonders and six Yi.
八字 · Four Pillars
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The Three Wonders are the auspicious, resourceful stems — the useful, generative energy on the board. There are three of them, each carrying a celestial title:
Stem
Wonder
Title
乙 Yi (yǐ)
Moon Wonder
月奇 yuè qí
丙 Bing (bǐng)
Sun Wonder
日奇 rì qí
丁 Ding (dīng)
Star Wonder
星奇 xīng qí
Sun, Moon, and Star — the three lights of the sky. When a Wonder lands in a palace that already carries an auspicious gate and star, that palace becomes a place of opportunity and support. In practice we treat 乙丙丁 as the “good ingredients” you hope to find sitting near whatever symbol represents your question.
The Six Yi (六仪): the screens that veil Jia
The other six stems are the Six Yi: 戊 己 庚 辛 壬 癸 (wù jǐ gēng xīn rén guǐ). “Yi” here means a screen or ceremonial cover. Their job in the three wonders six yi scheme is structural — they are the six screens that veil the hidden general 甲. Each of the six pairs with 甲 in the ten-day cycle and stands guard over one of its concealed positions.
The Six Yi are not “bad” the way the Three Wonders are “good.” They are the ordinary terrain — neutral until you read what gate, star, and deity share their palace, and how their element sits for the season. One of the six, though, carries a sharp edge of its own, and it deserves its own section.
Why 甲 hides and 戊 stands for it
The name Qi Men Dun Jia means “Mysterious Gates, Hiding the Jia.” The Dun Jia part — 遁甲, “escaping Jia” — is literal. 甲 Jia is the hidden general, the commander who never appears on the Earth Plate directly. It escapes into concealment, and the first of the Six Yi, 戊 Wu (wù), stands as its public symbol.
So when you locate the palace that holds 戊 on the Earth Plate, you are really looking at where 甲 is hiding for that formation. The general commands from behind a screen; the screen is what you can see. This is not decoration — the relationships that drive Qi Men’s classic formations are read against where 甲 sits concealed, using 戊 and the other Yi as its markers.
庚 Geng: the sword stem
Among the Six Yi, 庚 Geng (gēng) is the pivotal one — the adversarial stem, the “sword.” Its relationship to the other stems drives a great many of the classic formations. When 庚 sits over 癸 Gui, or 庚 sits over the Chief (值符 zhí fú, the commanding deity and star), the practitioner reads obstruction, confrontation, or a blade turned against the plan.
You do not need to memorise every 庚 combination to start. What matters is the instinct: when you scan a plate, notice where 庚 falls relative to the symbol representing your question. A Wonder near your symbol is a resource; 庚 pressing on it is a warning. That single contrast — 乙丙丁 supporting, 庚 cutting — is most of what the Earth Plate is telling you before the upper layers even speak.
Where this fits in the chart
The Earth Plate is only layer one. Above it the Heaven Plate rotates its stars, the Eight Gates open and close, and the Eight Deities colour the whole. How those layers get set in motion depends on whether the chart is Yang Dun (阳遁 yáng dùn) or Yin Dun (阴遁 yīn dùn) — the casting split that decides whether the board ascends or descends. But it all rests on the three wonders six yi beneath. Read the bottom layer first, and the rest has somewhere to stand.
The same ten stems anchor your Ba Zi chart, where they describe temperament and destiny rather than terrain. See how they fall in your own four pillars — plot your chart free with the calculator, and you will recognise the very characters Qi Men hides and reveals.
