Gu Yanwu
Gu Yanwu
Late Ming–Early Qing Thinker · Scholar
1613-07-15（41st year of the Wanli reign (Ming), 5th lunar month, day 28）～ 1682-02-15
Born in Kunshan, Jiangsu
Three-Pillar ChartBirth hour unknown — three pillars only
Year Pillar
癸丑
Element Water · Earth
NaYin Mulberry Wood
Ten Gods Indirect Resource
Month Pillar
己未
Element Earth · Earth
NaYin Heavenly Fire
Ten Gods Indirect Wealth
Day Pillar
乙酉
Element Wood · Metal
NaYin Spring Water
Ten Gods Day Master
Hour Pillar
？？
Hour unknown
Not cast
Day Master
乙Wood
Element distribution (three-pillar count)
Earth 3, Wood 1, Metal 1, Water 1, Fire 0
Chart computed by the MoZhu engine (lunar-javascript); without the hour pillar, luck pillars and yearly cycles can't fully unfold.
Case Review
Original writing · hindsight review · anchored in known history, viewed through chart structure
Yi (乙) Wood is the Wood of flowers and grasses, signifying pliant resilience, with Indirect Resource and Indirect Wealth revealed in the year and month and Earth appearing three times. Looking back on the life of Gu Yanwu, associated with the maxim “the rise and fall of the realm is the responsibility of every common man”: after the fall of the Ming he refused to serve a second dynasty and spent over twenty years traveling the north and writing, mirroring Yi Wood’s quality of “bending without breaking.” Indirect Resource signifies evidential scholarship, as seen in the Record of Daily Knowledge and Five Books on Phonology.
Heavy Earth exhausts Wood: his lifetime of travel, his family fortune spent, and “wherever my footsteps went year after year, I never stayed three months” can be observed in hindsight through the structure of “heavy Earth, broken Wood, roots hard to set.” Yet Earth also carries Wood, and his learning of “practical statecraft” opened the way for Qing evidential scholarship, a footnote to thick Earth ultimately nurturing a fine tree.
This is a cultural retrospective at the level of three pillars, not a fatalistic judgment.
Birth date source:Chinese Wikipedia: “Gu Yanwu”(cross-checked with public records; bio is an original summary)
This case is for traditional-culture study only, not a judgment of any historical figure; schools of interpretation differ, and these conclusions claim no exclusive truth.