Bazi Chart
Free Four Pillars, Five Elements, Ten Gods and luck pillars, with an AI reading
About Bazi charts
A Bazi chart (八字) converts your birth year, month, day and hour into four pillars — year, month, day and hour — each made of one heavenly stem and one earthly branch, together called the Four Pillars. The year pillar turns at the Start of Spring, the month pillar turns at each solar term, and the hour pillar follows the two-hour double-hours. Once the chart is drawn you can read the Day Master, the strength of the Five Elements (五行), the Ten Gods (十神) relationships, hidden stems, Na Yin (纳音) and the run of your luck pillars (大运).
Wenzhendao (问真岛) offers a free online Bazi chart with a choice of solar or lunar calendar, leap months included. Fill in your birthplace and the system applies true solar time correction automatically, using the city's longitude and that day's equation of time — there is no switch to toggle. The birthplace field searches more than 700 cities nationwide, and popular cities can be picked in one click. The basic chart needs no sign-in: the four pillars come from the perpetual calendar and the stem-branch algorithm, and your last successful entry is remembered, so the form is filled in again next time you open the page. For births close to the Zi hour or to a solar-term boundary, just enter the clock time — the late-Zi day change is handled for you.
How to use it
- 1
Choose the solar or lunar calendar and enter your birth date, hour and gender. The name is optional and only labels this chart — it takes no part in the calculation. Search for your birthplace in the field (700+ cities) or pick it from the popular cities; true solar time is corrected as soon as you fill it in. If you do not know the hour, choose "Unknown hour"; births after 23:00 are handled by the late-Zi day change, so just enter the clock time.
- 2
Start the chart and check the four pillars, Day Master, Five Elements distribution, Ten Gods and luck pillars in the "Simple" view. Switch to "Full detail" for solar terms, life palace and life gua, spiritual stars (神煞), natal relationships, annual fortune (流年), monthly fortune and the year-and-luck overview.
- 3
When the chart looks right, work through the reading guide below and the related articles item by item. Your last entry is remembered automatically — refresh or come back later and the form is filled in again; edit it when you are charting someone else.
Four steps to read the chart
- 1
Day Master
The heavenly stem of the day pillar stands for you yourself — the centre of the whole chart. Work out which stem your Day Master is first; the Five Elements and the Ten Gods all turn around it.
How to read the day pillar and the Day Master - 2
Month Command
The earthly branch of the month pillar is your birth season, and it decides whether the Day Master has the season's support. Judge strength from the month command, from whether the branches have roots and from whether the stems are supported — not from counting how many of each element you have.
- 3
Four Pillars
The year pillar leans towards early life and family background, the month pillar towards youth and the foundation of your career, the day branch towards yourself and your partner, and the hour pillar towards later years and output. Read the eight characters together; the zodiac animal or the year on its own tells you very little.
What does Bazi mean? - 4
Luck Pillars
The natal chart is the base colour; a luck pillar governs a decade of momentum and an annual fortune governs what that year sets off. Start with whether the luck pillar you are in supports or presses the Day Master, then look at whether the year activates wealth, authority, resource or output.
How to read luck pillars and annual fortune
Concepts you will meet while reading a chart
- Five Elements
How metal, wood, water, fire and earth rise, fall and flow — not a shopping list of what you happen to lack.
- Ten Gods
The relationships around the Day Master: authority and pressure, wealth, resource, output and peers.
- Favourable Elements
The force that makes the chart flow — not the same thing as the element you are missing.
- Parents
Year and month are the palaces; wealth and resource are the stars. Read affinity and support there, rather than turning every clash into "hurts the father, hurts the mother".
- Pattern
A summary of the chart's overall structure — judge strength first, talk about a completed pattern second.
- How the birth moment is worked out
Solar terms set the month, double-hours set the hour. Get either of them wrong and the whole chart shifts.
Common questions
The four pillars, the Day Master, hidden stems, Na Yin, the Five Elements distribution, the Ten Gods and the luck pillars. Switch to "Full detail" for solar terms, the seasonal command, fetal origin, life and body palace, life gua, spiritual stars, natal relationships, annual fortune, monthly fortune and the year-and-luck overview. The chart works with both solar and lunar calendars; fill in your birthplace and true solar time is corrected automatically, with the time before and after the correction and the difference in minutes shown in the result. The basic chart needs no sign-in.
Switch to the lunar calendar and enter the year, month and day. In a year with a leap month, the month list gains an extra "leap month" option. The system converts the lunar date to the matching solar moment before charting, so you do not have to convert it yourself.
Related reading
Get these basics first and the tool makes more sense.
Family
Reading parents in a Bazi chart
Your own chart shows your affinity with your parents, the support they give and the family style of your early years; it does not show their lifespan. Year and month are the palaces, wealth and resource are the stars. Reading both layers together is more useful than a stock line about "clashing with the father".
Hour and day boundary
Early Zi hour and late Zi hour
The Zi hour straddles midnight: 23:00 to 01:00. The question is not the name of the hour but whether the day pillar is counted as that day or the next. Shift the day pillar by one and both the Day Master and the Ten Gods change.
Chart correction
Should true solar time be switched on?
True solar time does not make a chart more mystical; it simply restores your birth moment to where the sun actually stood. Charts here are already corrected from your birthplace. Understanding the principle and its limits helps you judge whether a result at an hour boundary should be taken at face value.
Calculation
How to work out your birth pillars
Working out your birth pillars is not about memorising a formula; it is about converting a solar-calendar birthday accurately into the year, month, day and hour pillars — especially without slipping on the solar terms or the double-hours.