The Fourteen Major Stars

The chart is populated first by the fourteen major stars, the principal actors whose character colours whatever palace they occupy. They fall into two families drawn from two celestial dippers, with the two great luminaries counted alongside them.

The Zi Wei group (Northern Dipper)

• Zi Wei, the Purple Star, the emperor and pole star: dignified, authoritative and stabilising.
• Tian Ji, the strategist: quick, clever, restless and given to planning and change.
• Tai Yang, the Sun: radiant, giving, public-spirited and outward, a luminary on the middle axis.
• Wu Qu, the general of wealth: decisive, hard-working, blunt and money-minded.
• Tian Tong, the child: gentle, contented, easygoing and pleasure-loving.
• Lian Zhen, the disciplinarian: principled and controlled, but prone to conflict and passion.

The Tian Fu group (Southern Dipper)

• Tian Fu, the treasury: generous, stabilising, cautious and conserving.
• Tai Yin, the Moon: receptive, nurturing, private and refined, the other luminary on the middle axis.
• Tan Lang, the peach-blossom star of desire: sociable, ambitious, sensual and versatile.
• Ju Men, the great gate: eloquent, sceptical, probing and argumentative.
• Tian Xiang, the minister: loyal, dignified, fair-minded and service-oriented.
• Tian Liang, the elder: protective, moral, cautious and inclined to counsel.
• Qi Sha, the seven killings: forceful, independent, decisive and pioneering.
• Po Jun, the breaker of armies: disruptive, bold, and given to sweeping change.

A star is never read by its nature alone. Its brightness in the palace it sits in, from brilliant through bright to dim, strengthens or weakens what it brings, and its meaning shifts again with the companion stars beside it and with the palace's place in the chart.