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First of all, imagine that you put up a row of 60 chairs and you number them starting from 1 to number 60.

The First Chair has a number of 1 on it. The third chair has a number of 3 on it. The tenth chair has a number of 10 on it. And the last chair has a number of 60 on it.

Now imagine you make another 60 new chairs with different colour and you also number them starting from 1 to number 60. And you arrange this 60 new chair following the first 60 new chairs.

The sixty first chair will have a Number of 1 on it. The seventieth chair will have a number 10 on it.

The chair number 90 will have a number of 30 on it. The number 120 will have a number of 60 on it.

Now using the table above, you have to prepare 60 new sticker (2 sets) with Jia Zi, Yi Chou until Gui Hai on each sticker.

Now you paste Jia Zi sticker on the chairs with number 1 and number 61. Yi Chou stickers on the chair number 2 and 62 until each chair with a number and a sticker with Jia Zi pillars.

Familiarize number with the 60 Jia Zi.

We know that there are only 10 stems and they are very to remember, that is Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Wu, Ji, Geng, Xin, Ren, Gui, that is following the order of wood grow fire, fire grow earth, earth grow metal and metal grow water.

From the table above, you can see 1, 11, 21, 31, 41 and 51 have a Jia stem.
From the table above, you can see 2, 12, 22, 32, 42 and 52 have a Yi stem.

To simplify, number ending with 1 is Jia,
number ending with 2 is Yi
number ending with 3 is Bing
number ending with 4 is Ding
number ending with 5 is Wu
number ending with 6 is Ji
number ending with 7 is Geng
number ending with 8 is Xin
number ending with 9 is Ren
number ending with 0 is Gui.

Now, just do some testing, chair with number 25 has a day stem of Wu.
Chair with number of 56 has a day stem of Ji earth.

Once you have familiarize yourself to determine the day stem by any of this 60 number.

We will proceed to find the earthly branch of this 60 numbers.

Method To Determine The Earthly Branch Of A Day Pillar

1 Zi
2 Chou
3 Yin
4 Mao
5 Chen
6 Si
7 Wu
8 Wei
9 Shen
10 You
11 Xu
12 Hai

In order for you to work out the earthly branch of any day without looking at the calendar, you have to remember the number assign to each number in this table.
1 is for Zi, 2 is for Chou in sequence until 12 if for Hai.

Out of the 60 number (1 to 60), let says you take 49, you just have to remove any multiple of 12 and the balance is 1 (after taking off 4 x 12), 1 is Zi, so 49 is Zi.

Another number, let says 35, after minus 2 x 12=24, you have 11, 11 means Xu.
For stem 35, 5 means Wu.

So 35 is Wu Xu.

So you have to make yourself very confidence by changing any number from 1 to 60 to get the stem and branch frequently.

NEXT WE LOOK AT THE CALENDAR

We know that there are 365 days in a year but there are 366 days in years of 1996, 2000 and 2004 etc.

Let says when there are 365 days in a year and when we consider there are 365 chairs in a row, there are 6 times of 60 Jia Zi and we can take away the 360 chair with only 5 chair remains for a year with 365 days.

Let says when there are 366 days in a year and when we consider there are 366 chairs in a row, there are 6 times of 60 Jia Zi and we can take away the 360 chair with only 6 chair remains for a year with 366 days.

Now we look at the calendar below, Jan 1, 1969 the first day of 1969 has the chair with the number of 13 that is day of Bing Zi.

To work out the first day of 1970, there are 365 days in 1969, after taking away 360, there are only five chairs in 1969, first chair is No. 13, second chair is No. 14, third chair is number 15, fourth chair is number 16, fifth chair is number 17. There is only 5 chair in year of 1969. So the last day of 1969, i.e 31 December 1969 is number 17 which is Geng Chen.

The next chair number 18 is the first day of 1970. So the day pillar for Jan 1, 1970 is Chair No. 18 which is Xin Si Day.

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Knowing that in years of 1972, 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004 etc there are 366 days, you will have 6 chairs in this years.

By adding 5 to first day of previous year, we will get the first day (first chair) of Jan 1 of every year.

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From the table above 1 Jan 2001 has a chair number 1, this means the day pillar for 1 Jan 2001 is Jia Zi.

From the table above 1 Jan 2000 has a chair number 55, this means the day pillar for 1 Jan 2000 is Wu Wu.

You have to familiarize yourself to get the number for the first day of every year, and also you must be able to convert the number to the day pillar using the previous 2 sessions.

You just have to memorise 1 number for only the first day of a particular year, you can work out the rest of the number by fingers arithmatics.

Let me rearrange the number of first chair in every year in the above manner.

Let me explain again, for example Jan 1, 1988, the first chair is number 52, from the table above or the above formula for stem and branch, 52 is day of Yi Mao.

When we arrange the above start date of a year in this manner, when you check horizontally, that is every change of 12 years, for example 1972 to 1984, the number change from 28 to 31, there is an increase of 3. or another example from 1984 to 1996, the number change from 31 to 34, there is an increase of 3 also.

This will fasten your hand calculation to work out the day pillar for first day of each year.

CALCULATION THE DAY PILLAR OF ANY DAY

For the above work out, we have to know the number of days in each and every month.

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Those number at the add or minus is the short cut method.

Let us consider March 1 2003, we know that the chair number for Jan 1, 2003 is 11,
There are 31 chairs in Jan 2003 and 28 chairs in Feb 2003, that is a total of 59 chairs in Jan and Feb 2003. March 1, 2003 is the number 60 chair. If the first chair has number 1, the number 60 chairs will have number 60.

But now the first chair is 11, the number 60 chairs will be 70 that is 10. So March 1 2003 is a 10 identity, that is day of Gui You.

For the quick method

1 Jan 2003 that is 11
1 March 2003 is 11 +(-1) that is 10 (day of Gui You)

For example for the quick method for 1 September 2003

1 Jan 2003 that is 11
1 September 2003 is 11 +(+3) that is 14 (day of Ding Chou)

For example for the quick method for 1 November 2003

1 Jan 2003 that is 11
1 November 2003 is 11 +(+4) that is 15 (day of Wu Yin)

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