Zuo Zongtang

A Bingwu (丙午) day pillar: Bing (丙) Fire sits on its Goat Blade, making for a fierce and unyielding temperament. Looking back over Zuo Zongtang’s life, known for being “fiery and willing to take on great tasks”: he marched to recover Xinjiang with a coffin carried behind him, and refused to yield an inch to Li Hongzhang in the debate over maritime versus frontier defense, all showing the never-say-die quality of the Goat Blade.

The Seven Killings revealed in the year pillar traditionally points to military office and to merit won by opening up and securing territory, which fits his half-life spent on campaign and his achievements as a frontier governor. When Seven Killings is controlled, it becomes real authority; the regret of his “unfinished ambitions” in old age can be viewed from the angle of “strong Killings met by a self able to bear them, and in the end put to good use.” Fierce Fire tempered in due measure by Metal and Water serves as a retrospective footnote to a structure balancing hardness and softness.