Ten Evils, Great Defeat (Shi E Da Bai): the ten day pillars and what they really mean
Ten Evils, Great Defeat (Shi E Da Bai) is a spirit star (a traditional marker read from a table, not a force in the chart) that looks only at the day pillar. It counts when the day pillar is one of these ten: Jia Chen, Yi Si, Bing Shen, Ding Hai, Wu Xu, Ji Chou, Geng Chen, Xin Si, Ren Shen or Gui Hai. A match in the year, month or hour pillar does not count. The traditional reason is that on these ten days the day stem's Lu (the branch where the day stem is at full strength, its own element) falls inside the Void of that ten-day cycle (the two branches the day pillar's ten-day cycle skips), so they are also called “days without Lu.” The name is harsh; the operation is a table lookup. Our site lists it in the “Symbolic Stars lookup” section, as an image only, outside strength and favorability.
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At a glance
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Day pillars that count | Jia Chen, Yi Si, Bing Shen, Ding Hai, Wu Xu, Ji Chou, Geng Chen, Xin Si, Ren Shen, Gui Hai |
| Pillars checked | Day pillar only; a match in the year, month or hour pillar does not count |
| Why “without Lu” | The day stem's Lu falls in the Void of that ten-day cycle |
| Where to find it | The “Symbolic Stars lookup” section of the chart result |
| What it changes | Nothing in strength or favorability; it is read as an image |
- Ten Evils, Great Defeat (Shi E Da Bai)
- A day-pillar spirit star with ten qualifying day pillars
- Lu
- The branch where the day stem is at full strength, its own element
- Void (Xun Kong)
- The two branches the day pillar's ten-day cycle skips
- Spirit star
- A traditional marker read from a table, not a force in the chart
- Narrow year-and-day version
- A stricter claim that also requires the year pillar to strike the day pillar (stems controlling, branches clashing)
Common mistakes
- A Ten Evils, Great Defeat day means a disastrous life: it is a day-pillar lookup; 16.2% of charts had it, close to the 16.7% expected, and strength was almost identical with and without it.
- These days mean money cannot be kept: Wealth was favorable 45.7% against 48.2% and unfavorable 36.7% against 38.2%; the difference is under 3 points.
- The label needs a ritual, a new name or a different birth date: it stays outside strength and favorability, and 12.3% of the charts also had Heavenly or Monthly Virtue without needing a remedy.
- The ten days are rare: they are one in six days, so about one-sixth of people are born on one.
The rule is small: ten day pillars, day pillar only
Ten Evils, Great Defeat is a lookup on the day pillar and nothing else. The qualifying days are Jia Chen, Yi Si, Bing Shen, Ding Hai, Wu Xu, Ji Chou, Geng Chen, Xin Si, Ren Shen and Gui Hai. If one of these appears in the year, month or hour pillar instead of the day, it does not count.
The name suggests a judgment about a person; the rule only identifies a day. There is no calculation of strength, no weighing of elements and no inspection of the other pillars. That is why we file it under spirit stars and show it in the “Symbolic Stars lookup” section rather than in the balance of the chart.
Where the “without Lu” name comes from
Each of the ten days has its day stem's Lu sitting in that cycle's Void. Lu is the branch where the day stem is at full strength: Jia at Yin, Yi at Mao, Bing and Wu at Si, Ding and Ji at Wu, Geng at Shen, Xin at You, Ren at Hai, Gui at Zi. The ten-day cycle of the day pillar leaves two branches unused, the Void, and on these particular days the Lu is one of the two.
Take Ren Shen: it belongs to the Jia Zi cycle, which runs from Jia Zi to Gui You and leaves Xu and Hai as its Void. Ren's Lu is Hai, and Hai is exactly the branch that is skipped, so Ren Shen is a “day without Lu.” The same pattern holds for the other nine days. The label describes a table position, not a moral quality.
One day in six, so it cannot be a rare misfortune
The ten day pillars are spread evenly through the sixty-day cycle: one in six days qualifies. In the 2,000 charts we cast, 324 had it, 16.2%, against the 16.7% you would expect from the cycle. The small gap is random fluctuation.
A stricter version also requires the year pillar to strike the day pillar, with the stems in a controlling pair and the branches clashing, for example a Geng Xu year with a Jia Chen day. Only 6 charts in the set met that, 0.3%. If the scary version needs such an extra condition to stay rare, the basic day-pillar label is clearly common. About one-sixth of the people you meet were born on one of these days.
It does not enter strength, wealth or favorability
We keep Ten Evils, Great Defeat outside the strength score and outside the favorable and unfavorable lists. The chart is still read from the four pillars and the luck cycles. A spirit star can add an image to a reading; it cannot move the balance of the elements.
The data bears that out: 46% of the 324 were strong and 53.7% weak, against 46.8% strong and 53% weak among the other 1,676 charts. The two groups are almost identical. The day pillar's name did not make either group stronger, weaker, richer or poorer.
Money is decided by the wealth balance, not by the label
The traditional claim that these days mean money does not stay is not supported by the Wealth element's favorability. In the 324 charts, the Wealth element was useful or favorable in 45.7% and unfavorable in 36.7%; in the other charts it was 48.2% and 38.2%. The gap is under 3 percentage points either way.
Wealth appeared on a stem in 53.1% of the Ten Evils charts and 48.6% of the rest, again a small difference. And 12.3% of the 324 also carried Heavenly Virtue or Monthly Virtue, traditional “remedies,” but we do not think there is anything to remedy. If a chart has a real money problem, it will show in the strength and Wealth balance and in the luck cycles.
Two real charts
Wu Xu (戊戌) · Ren Xu (壬戌) · Ren Shen (壬申) · Gui Mao (癸卯) (male, Oct 22, 1958, 05:15, Beijing)
This is a Ten Evils, Great Defeat day, and its Wealth is actually favorable. True solar time was 05:16. The day pillar is Ren Shen, which belongs to the Jia Zi cycle (Jia Zi through Gui You); that cycle's Void is Xu and Hai, and Ren's Lu is Hai. Since Hai is void, the day is “without Lu.” The Day Master is Ren Water, born in a Xu month; the main qi of Xu is Wu Earth, Seven Killings.
The stems are Wu Seven Killings, Ren Companion and Gui Rob Wealth; the branches are Xu Seven Killings, Xu Seven Killings, Shen Indirect Resource and Mao Hurting Officer. The scoring gives Companions 2.3, Officer/Killings 2.1, Resource 1.35, Output 1 and Wealth 0.25, and the chart is strong (support 3.65, pressure 3.35). Useful element Wood, favorable Earth and Fire, unfavorable Water and Metal.
Wealth is Fire and it sits in the favorable column, so the “no money” claim is reversed in this chart. The real issue is that Wealth is tiny, only 0.25, and any extra Fire has to come from luck cycles and years. That is a strength-and-wealth reading, unrelated to the day pillar's name. The year and month branches Xu also fall in the Void, which belongs to the Void topic rather than this one.
Ding You (丁酉) · Yi Si (乙巳) · Xin Si (辛巳) · Ren Chen (壬辰) (female, May 9, 1957, 08:00, Beijing)
This is also a Ten Evils, Great Defeat day, and its Wealth is unfavorable for ordinary support-and-drain reasons. True solar time was 07:49. The day pillar is Xin Si, which belongs to the Jia Xu cycle (Jia Xu through Gui Wei); that cycle's Void is Shen and You, and Xin's Lu is You, so the day qualifies. The year branch happens to be You as well.
The Day Master is Xin Metal, born in a Si month; the main qi of Si is Bing Fire, Direct Officer. The stems are Ding Seven Killings, Yi Indirect Wealth and Ren Hurting Officer. The branches are You Companion, Si Direct Officer, Si Direct Officer and Chen Direct Resource. The scoring gives Officer/Killings 2.3, Companions 1.4, Wealth 1.3, Output 1.1 and Resource 0.9, and the chart is weak (support 2.3, pressure 4.7). Useful element Metal (Companions), favorable Earth, unfavorable Wood and Fire.
Wealth is Wood and it is unfavorable because a weak Day Master cannot carry much Wealth, and Wealth also feeds the Officer/Killings pressure. That is a support-and-drain conclusion, not something the Ten Evils label produced. Put the same structure on another day pillar and the conclusion does not change. The chart starts its luck cycles at about nine; Bing Wu and Ding Wei bring Fire and are unfavorable, while the third cycle, Wu Shen, turns toward Earth and Metal.
Data: how common the ten days are, and what changes
Of the 2,000 charts we cast, 324 landed on a Ten Evils, Great Defeat day, 16.2%. The sixty-day cycle predicts 16.7%, one day in six. The lookup on our site uses exactly these ten day pillars.
Strength was almost the same in both groups: 46% strong and 53.7% weak with the label, against 46.8% strong and 53% weak without it. The difference is small enough to be noise.
The Wealth element was useful or favorable in 45.7% of the 324 and unfavorable in 36.7%; among the other 1,676 charts it was 48.2% and 38.2%. Wealth on a stem appeared in 53.1% against 48.6%. No gap reaches 3 percentage points, so the label does not decide the money picture.
In 12.3% of the 324 charts, Heavenly Virtue or Monthly Virtue was also present, and we still would not call for a remedy. The counts by day pillar were Gui Hai 42, Ji Chou 37, Ding Hai 33, Jia Chen 32, Xin Si 31, Ren Shen 31, Geng Chen 30, Yi Si 30, Wu Xu 29 and Bing Shen 29; the spread is random. The stricter year-strikes-day version appeared in only 6 charts, 0.3%.
Simulated charts: our BaZi calculator generated 2,000 random birth times (birth years 1950–2010 uniformly random, random birth time, half male/half female, Beijing true solar time), cast each chart and judged strength and the Useful element by traditional rules, then counted the results. These are simulated results, not a survey of real people and not a measure of prediction accuracy. Ten Evils, Great Defeat was counted from the day pillar against the ten qualifying days only; strength, Wealth favorability, Virtue overlap and per-day counts were compared with the rest of the set. A narrower version, where the year pillar strikes the day pillar, was also tallied. Calculation version: our BaZi calculator after the Oct 15, 2026 update (the same rules the site uses now; rechecked with site version v73 on Oct 20, 2026), random seed 20261014. To reproduce: rerun the same version with the same seed and the results match exactly; you can check any single chart by entering the same birth time in our BaZi calculator.
Common view vs. our view
| Common view | Our view | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Being born on a Ten Evils, Great Defeat day is a disaster | It is a day-pillar table lookup, nothing more | 16.2% of the 2,000 charts had it, close to the 16.7% the sixty-day cycle predicts |
| Ten Evils, Great Defeat means money never stays | Wealth favorability is almost the same with and without it | 45.7% against 48.2% favorable, and 36.7% against 38.2% unfavorable; the gap is under 3 points |
| You need a ritual, a name change or a chosen C-section date to fix it | There is nothing to fix | It does not enter strength or favorability; 12.3% also carried Heavenly or Monthly Virtue, and we still would not move a birth date for it |
| The ten days are much rarer than ordinary days | They are exactly one day in six | 324 charts, 16.2%, against 16.7% expected from the sixty-day cycle |
FAQ
I was born on a Ten Evils, Great Defeat day. Should I worry?
No. It is a day-pillar table lookup with a frightening name. In the 2,000 charts we cast, 16.2% had it, close to the 16.7% expected from the sixty-day cycle, and the strong-weak split was almost the same as in charts without it. It does not enter strength or favorability. Read your chart from the four pillars and luck cycles, not from this one label.
How do I resolve Ten Evils, Great Defeat? Do I need to change my name?
There is no ritual to perform, and a name change is not a fix for a spirit star. The label is read as an image and does not move the balance of the chart. If something in the chart genuinely needs attention, such as a weak Day Master or an unfavorable Wealth element, work with the whole chart and the luck cycles. A new name does not change those.
Should a C-section avoid a Ten Evils, Great Defeat day?
No. We would not move a birth date for a spirit star. The health of the mother and baby and the doctor's advice come first. A date chosen to dodge a label can create real medical risks for a symbolic gain. Let the medical team set the timing.
Are people born on these days suited to business?
That cannot be answered from the day pillar. Business depends on the whole chart, especially the strength balance, Wealth and Officer/Killings, and on skills, capital and conditions. Since about one in six people has this day pillar, they clearly appear in every kind of work. Do not let a label decide a career.