Yan Fu
Yan Fu
Modern Enlightenment Thinker · Translator
1854-01-08（3rd year of the Xianfeng reign (Qing), 12th lunar month, day 10）～ 1921-10-27
Born in Houguan, Fujian (today Fuzhou)
Three-Pillar ChartBirth hour unknown — three pillars only
Year Pillar
癸丑
Element Water · Earth
NaYin Mulberry Wood
Ten Gods Hurting Officer
Month Pillar
乙丑
Element Wood · Earth
NaYin Sea Metal
Ten Gods Direct Wealth
Day Pillar
庚辰
Element Metal · Earth
NaYin White Wax Metal
Ten Gods Day Master
Hour Pillar
？？
Hour unknown
Not cast
Day Master
庚Metal
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
Geng (庚) Metal is the Metal of axes and halberds, signifying transformation and critique, with Hurting Officer and Direct Wealth revealed in the year and month and Earth appearing three times. Looking back on the life of Yan Fu, “China’s foremost scholar of Western learning”: his “Eight Translations” and his rendering of Evolution and Ethics with its “struggle for existence, natural selection” mirror the Hurting Officer rebelling against old learning and enlightening minds. Direct Wealth signifies the practical standard of “faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance” in translation.
Heavy Earth generates Metal; his drift toward conservatism in later years (from reform to supporting Yuan Shikai and promoting Confucianism as a religion) can be observed in hindsight from the angle of “heavy Earth burying Metal, its edge gradually dulled.” Yet the sharpness of Geng Metal had already opened the ethos of a generation, and the name Yan Fu became a banner of the new learning, a footnote to Metal buried in Earth whose ring still carries far.
This is a cultural retrospective at the level of three pillars, not a fatalistic judgment.
Birth date source:Chinese Wikipedia: “Yan Fu”(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.