This is the most misunderstood chapter in the book, because it refuses to answer the question beginners want answered. It never says whether the killer star is good or bad. It says the star has no fixed valence at all, and that the only thing worth judging is whether something controls it — and then, in the same breath, warns that over-controlling destroys it just as thoroughly as leaving it wild. It is a chapter about governance, written as a chapter about stars.
Text: 淵海子平 (Yuan Hai Zi Ping), juan 15 (卷十五), second of two treatises in the same source file.
Chinese source: https://www.xmcsl.cn/project/yuanhai-ziping/vol15.html · retrieved 2026-10-25
Provenance: Chinese source text: Wikisource (維基文庫), public domain. English translation and all commentary on this page are original to xmcsl.cn. The Chinese text is reproduced character-for-character as it stands in the source file, including that file's own simplified-character orthography, its punctuation and its occasional stray markup. Traditional forms appear in this page's headings and terminology table by convention, not as a claim about the source's script.
Scope of this page: This page translates the 論偏官 treatise in full: all 13 prose passages and all 8 verse couplets. The 正官論 treatise that precedes it in the same source file is translated separately and is linked at the foot of this page.
Classical BaZi terms have competing English renderings. The choices below are stated explicitly so that the translation can be checked against them, and so that a reader coming from another translation can map the terms across.
| Chinese | Pinyin | Rendering | What it denotes here |
|---|---|---|---|
| 偏官 | piānguān | Indirect Officer | The controlling star that matches the Day Master in polarity (甲 with 庚). Called "indirect" because the polarity match means the pair is 不成配偶 — not a proper couple — so the control arrives unmediated. Its form when tamed. |
| 七殺 | qīshā | Seven Killings | The same star in its uncontrolled form. Not a different star: 有制伏則為偏官，無制伏則為七殺. "Seven" is a fixed classical epithet, not a count of occurrences. |
| 制伏 | zhìfú | control, taming | The operation that converts 七殺 into 偏官. Classically by 食神 (the star the Day Master generates, which restrains the killer) or by 印 (which absorbs it). Not suppression by force but bringing it under command. |
| 食神 | shíshén | Eating God | The Day Master's own output in matching polarity (丙 for 甲). The classical instrument of control over a killer star, because the killer generates the output's restraint. |
| 陽刃 | yángrèn | Yang Blade | The Day Master's peak branch (卯 for 甲, 午 for 丙). In this chapter it appears as one of the aggravating factors when it sits on the day or hour. |
| 三刑 | sānxíng | the three punishments | The classical punishment combinations among branches. 三刑俱全 — all of them present — is cited here as a marker of severity, not a separate doctrine. |
| 魁罡 | kuígāng | Kui Gang | Four specific day pillars (庚辰, 庚戌, 壬辰, 戊戌) read as hard and unyielding. A clash involving them is treated here as an aggravation of the killer star. |
| 身旺 | shēnwàng | strong Day Master | Root, season or support enough to withstand the load applied. In this chapter strength is what allows the killer to be converted rather than suffered: 身旺化之，得為偏官. |
| 假殺為權 | jiǎshā wéi quán | borrowing the killer as authority | The condition where the self is strong and the killer is shallow, so the killer can be used as a source of power rather than being a threat. The fourth verse's 假殺為權刃 is the same idea with the blade added. |
| 中和 | zhōnghé | centred harmony | The book's standard, restated here as the goal of control: 不可太甚，亦不可不及 — neither too much nor too little. |
Each Chinese passage is given as it stands in the source, followed by its translation. The passages run in source order and are not abridged.
夫偏官者，盖甲木见庚金之类；阳见阳，阴见阴，乃谓之偏官，不成配偶，犹如经言：『二女不能同居，二男不可并处』是也。
The Indirect Officer is of the kind where 甲 wood sees 庚 metal. Yang meeting yang, yin meeting yin — this is what is called the Indirect Officer: it does not form a spouse-pair, just as the classic says, "Two women cannot dwell together; two men cannot be placed side by side."
偏官即七杀，要制伏，盖偏官七杀即小人；小人无知，多凶暴，无忌惮，乃能劳力以养君子，而服役护御君子者。小人也，惟是不惩不戒，无术以控制之，则不能驯伏而为用；故，杨子曰：『御得其道，则驯伏或作使；御失其道，则狙诈或作敌。』小人者，狙诈也，要控御得其道矣；一失控御，小人得权，则祸立见矣！
The Indirect Officer is the Seven Killings, and it requires control — for the Indirect Officer and the Seven Killings are the petty man. The petty man is without understanding, mostly fierce and violent, without restraint; yet he is the one who can labour to feed the gentleman, and who serves and guards the gentleman. He is a petty man: only, if he is neither disciplined nor cautioned, and there is no art by which to control him, then he cannot be tamed into usefulness. Hence Yangzi said: "Govern him by the right way, and being tamed he may be employed; govern him by the wrong way, and being cunning he may become an enemy." The petty man is the cunning one; one must control and govern him by the right way. Once control is lost and the petty man obtains power, calamity appears at once.
经曰：『人有偏官，如抱虎而眠，虽借其威，足以摄群畜；稍失关防，必为其噬脐，不可不虑也。』如遇三刑俱全、阳刃在日及时、又有六害；复遇魁罡相冲，如是人之凶不可具述。
The classic says: "A person who has the Indirect Officer is like one who sleeps embracing a tiger — though one borrows its might, enough to overawe the whole herd, if the guard is slackened even slightly one will certainly be bitten at the navel. This cannot be left unconsidered." If one meets all three punishments complete, the Yang Blade on the day and the hour, and additionally the six harms, and then meets a clash of Kui Gang — the misfortune of such a person cannot be fully described.
制伏得位，运复经行制伏之乡，此大贵之命也。
When the control is in its proper position, and the luck cycle additionally passes through the region of control — this is the destiny of great nobility.
茍于前者，凶神俱聚，运游杀旺之乡，凶害有不可言者可知也。
If, in the former case, the inauspicious spirits are all gathered together and the cycle wanders into the region where the killings flourish, then the harm is beyond words — this much can be known.
如有一杀，而制伏有二三，复行制伏之运，反不作福。何以言之？盖尽法无法，虽猛如狼，不能制伏矣！是又不可专言制伏，要须轻重得所；不可太甚，亦不可不及。须仔细审详而言，则祸福如影响矣！
If there is one killer, but two or three things controlling it, and the cycle further runs to the region of control — this in turn does not produce blessing. Why say so? Because when the law is exhausted there is no law: fierce as a wolf though it be, it cannot be controlled at all. So one must not speak only of control; the weight must be in the right place — neither too much nor too little. One must examine carefully and speak in detail, and then fortune and misfortune follow like shadow to form.
又云，有制伏则为偏官，无制伏则为七杀；譬诸小人，御之得其道则可使，失其道则难敌，在吾控御之道何如耳！
It also says: with control it is the Indirect Officer, without control it is the Seven Killings. To use the analogy of the petty man — governed by the right way he can be employed, governed by the wrong way he is hard to oppose. It rests entirely on what one's own way of governing is.
凡见此杀，勿便言凶，殊不知带此杀者，多有贵命。如遇三刑六害、或阳刃魁罡相冲，如是之凶，不可谓之制伏；但运行制伏，此贵人命也。茍如前凶神俱聚，其运复行杀旺之乡，祸不可言。
On seeing this killer, do not at once pronounce it inauspicious — one does not realise that those who carry this killer frequently hold noble destinies. If one meets the three punishments and six harms, or the Yang Blade and Kui Gang clashing, such severity cannot be called control; but when the cycle runs to control, this is the destiny of a noble person. If, as before, the inauspicious spirits are all gathered and the cycle again runs to the region where the killings flourish, the calamity is beyond speech.
大抵偏官七杀，最喜身旺、有制伏为妙。元有制伏，可行杀旺之方；元无制伏，可行制伏之运。
Broadly, the Indirect Officer and the Seven Killings most delight in a strong Day Master and in the presence of control. If control is present from the start, one may travel to the direction where the killings flourish; if control is absent from the start, one may travel in a luck cycle of control.
身旺化之，得为偏官；身弱无制伏，则为七杀。
With a strong self it is transformed, and becomes the Indirect Officer; with a weak self and no control, it is the Seven Killings.
制伏复行制伏运，谓之大运，则为偏官无餘烬矣！
When control is met again by a cycle of control — this is what is meant by an overrun luck cycle — then even the Indirect Officer has no embers left.
月中之气，怕冲与阳刃。其本身弱，若杀强则难制；如身强杀浅，则是假杀为权刃。
The qi within the month fears clash and the Yang Blade. If the self itself is weak and the killings are strong, they are hard to control; if the self is strong and the killings are shallow, then one borrows the killings as authority, as a blade.
如曰七杀不怕刑冲。宜详之！
As for the saying that the Seven Killings do not fear punishment and clash — examine it carefully.
The treatise closes with mnemonic couplets. They are translated in full, in source order.
偏官如虎怕冲多，运旺身强岂奈何；身弱虎强成祸患，身强制伏贵中和。
The Indirect Officer is like a tiger that fears much clashing; / when the cycle is strong and the self is strong, what can it do? / With a weak self and a strong tiger, calamity results; / with a strong self and control, nobility lies in centred harmony.
偏官偏印最难明，上下相生有利名；四库坐财宜向贵，等闲平步出公卿。
Indirect Officer with Indirect Seal is hardest to read aright; / when above and below generate each other, there is profit and name. / With the four storehouses seating wealth, one should head toward rank; / without effort, at a level pace, one leaves the ranks of ministers.
戊己若逢见官杀，局中金水更加临；当生有火宜逢火，火退愁金怕木侵。
If 戊 or 己 should meet officer or killer stars, / and in the chart metal and water further arrive, / then where fire was present at birth, one should meet fire; / when fire withdraws, one grieves at metal and fears wood's invasion.
偏官有制化为权，唾手登云发少年；岁运若行身旺地，功名大用福双全。
The Indirect Officer, once controlled, transforms into authority; / one climbs the clouds with a flick of the hand and rises young. / If the year's luck runs to a place where the self is strong, / merit, name and great employment — blessing complete on both counts.
偏官不可例言凶，有制还他衣禄丰；干上食神支又合，儿孙满眼福无穷。
The Indirect Officer is not to be called inauspicious by rule; / with control, return to him ample clothing and stipend. / With the Eating God on the stem and a combination in the branch, / children and grandchildren fill the eye, blessing without end.
阴癸多逢己字伤，杀星须用木来降；虽然名利能高显，争奈平生寿不长。
Yin 癸 meeting 己 in abundance is wounded; / the killer star must then use wood to bring it down. / Though name and profit may rise high and shine, / what can be done about a life that is not long?
六丙生人亥子多，杀星拘印返中和；东方行去兴名利，运到西方事转磨。
For one born on a 丙 day with much 亥 and 子, / the killer star binds the Seal and returns to centred harmony. / Travelling east, name and profit rise; / when the cycle reaches west, affairs turn to grinding.
春木无金不是奇，金多犹恐反遭危；格中取得中和气，福寿康寧百事宜。
Spring wood without metal is nothing remarkable; / with too much metal one fears the reverse — danger. / If the configuration obtains the qi of centred harmony, / blessing, longevity, health and peace — all things accord.
Defects observed in the source file, and what was done about them. Nothing in this list was silently corrected: where the source is broken the translation shows it broken, and says so.
| Observed in the source | How this page handles it |
|---|---|
| The treatise heading in the source is written 「论偏官》」 — an unmatched closing bracket, indicating lost opening markup. | Reproduced as found in the source; the English heading supplies the missing opening bracket only in the page title, not inside the quoted text. |
| Two competing classical metaphors are quoted inside the treatise (Yangzi on governing the petty man, and a classic on embracing a tiger) without any indication of which Yangzi or which classic. | Left unattributed rather than guessed. The commentary discusses them as received metaphors, not as cited authorities. |
| The source paragraph 「制伏复行制伏运，谓之大运」 uses 大运 in a sense that clashes with its ordinary meaning (the ten-year luck pillar). | Translated literally as 「an overrun luck cycle」 and flagged here, because a reader who takes 大运 in its usual sense gets the opposite instruction. |
| Verse couplets are each preceded by a bare 「《诗诀》」 marker on the same line as the verse, and the final verse line is followed by the Wikisource attribution on the same line. | Both stripped from the quoted text; the attribution is disclosed in the source box instead. |
The following reading is original to this page. It is interpretation, and is labelled as such: the section above is the source, this section is what the source is doing.
The long passage about the petty man (小人) is not a moral aside. It is the chapter's actual argument, and the star is only its illustration. A person with no understanding and no restraint is dangerous when uncontrolled and productive when commanded — and, crucially, is the one who does the labour the gentleman will not do. This is why the book insists the killer star is not to be pronounced inauspicious on sight. The question it poses is administrative: is there an instrument that keeps this force under command? Everything else in the chapter is an answer to that.
有制伏則為偏官，無制伏則為七殺 is the sentence most often quoted and most often skipped past. It says the two names are not two stars. They are two states of one star, and the state is decided by whether control is present — not by which stem appears, not by a count, not by a fixed list of "bad" pillars. The consequence for practice is immediate: a chart cannot be judged by naming the star. It can only be judged by asking what, if anything, is doing the controlling, and whether that control is positioned where it can act.
如抱虎而眠 — sleeping while embracing a tiger — is precise about what the killer star actually offers. It lends might enough to overawe the whole herd (足以攝群畜), and that might is real and usable. The risk is not that the tiger is weak; it is that the guard is a continuous requirement. 稍失關防，必為其噬臍: slacken the perimeter even slightly and it bites. This is the chapter's warning against the common error of reading a well-controlled killer star as a permanent asset. It is an asset held on condition, and the condition is maintained, not acquired.
Having spent half the treatise demanding control, the book then forbids excess: 如有一殺，而制伏有二三，復行制伏之運，反不作福. One killer with two or three things controlling it, plus a cycle of more control, does not produce blessing. The reasoning is 盡法無法 — when the law is exhausted there is no law. A force controlled past the point of use has nothing left to be used for, and the 貴 that depended on it evaporates. This is the same 中和 standard the Direct Officer chapter applies to surplus officer, applied here in the opposite direction: the failure mode of a "good" arrangement is doing it too well.
身旺化之，得為偏官；身弱無制伏，則為七殺 states the conversion condition directly. 化 is not suppression; it is transformation — the Day Master has to be substantial enough to take the force and turn it into usable authority. On a weak self, the same star remains 七殺 no matter how many controlling elements are nominally present, because the subject cannot absorb what is being converted. Conversely 身強殺淺，則是假殺為權刃: when the self is strong and the killer is shallow, the killer becomes an authority to borrow. Both readings require the strength check to come first; the controlling-element check comes second.
The treatise ends not with a rule but with a warning: 如曰七殺不怕刑沖。宜詳之 — "as for the saying that the Seven Killings do not fear punishment and clash, examine it carefully." That is the book declining to close the question. Some traditions do hold that a killer star tolerates what would ruin an officer star, and the chapter neither endorses nor refutes it; it instructs the reader to check. Treat that as a methodological instruction rather than a hedge: where the sources disagree, the chart decides, and a reader who has already chosen a doctrine has stopped reading the chart.
Take a 甲 wood Day Master born in the seventh month, with 庚 metal exposed on the month stem and 丙 fire on the hour stem. (1) Identify the star: 庚 and 甲 share polarity, so this is the Indirect Officer — 偏官, raw form. (2) Find the control: 丙 fire is the Eating God, and the Eating God restrains metal (fire melts metal), so there is an instrument, and it sits on the hour where it can act. Per 有制伏則為偏官, the star is now read as 偏官 rather than 七殺. (3) Check the control's position: is 丙 rootless and exposed, or does it have support? A rootless 丙 that is also clashed does not control anything, and the reading reverts to 七殺. (4) Check the self: does 甲 have season or root? Without it, 身弱無制伏 applies and no amount of nominal control rescues the chart. (5) Check for over-control: is there also 丁, or a second fire, or a cycle arriving with more fire? Two or three controllers plus a controlling cycle is the 反不作福 case — the metal is destroyed and the configuration loses what it was built on. (6) Check the aggravations the chapter lists: all three punishments, Yang Blade on day and hour, six harms, Kui Gang clash. Any of these is not control and must be counted separately from it. The output is a status for the star — controlled, over-controlled, or uncontrolled — plus the specific condition that would change it.
七殺 is a bad star and 偏官 is a good one.
They are the same star in two states. The book's own rule is 有制伏則為偏官，無制伏則為七殺 — with control it is the Indirect Officer, without control the Seven Killings. Treating the names as two different stars makes it impossible to read any chart that contains 庚 opposite 甲.
If a killer star is controlled, more control is better.
This is the chapter's explicit prohibition: one killer with two or three controllers, plus a controlling cycle, 反不作福 — in turn does not produce blessing. 盡法無法: when the law is exhausted there is no law. Control has to be weighed, not maximised.
A killer star means danger, so the chart is unsafe.
凡見此殺，勿便言凶 — on seeing this killer, do not at once pronounce it inauspicious; those who carry it frequently hold noble destinies. The chapter's own summary is that a controlled killer star under a strong Day Master is the basis of high office, not of harm.
What is Qisha in BaZi?
Qisha (七殺, the Seven Killings) is the controlling star that matches the Day Master in polarity — 甲 wood seeing 庚 metal, for example. It is the uncontrolled form of the Indirect Officer 偏官. Yuan Hai Zi Ping's rule is that the same star is called 偏官 when something controls it and 七殺 when nothing does, so Qisha is a state rather than a separate star.
How is a killer star controlled in classical BaZi?
The chapter's instrument is 制伏 — control by the Eating God 食神, which restrains the killer (fire melting metal in the 甲/庚 case), or by the Seal, which absorbs it. The requirement is that the control be positioned where it can act and be of the right weight: 不可太甚，亦不可不及, neither too much nor too little.
Why does too much control ruin a killer star chart?
Because the configuration depends on the killer being usable. 如有一殺，而制伏有二三，復行制伏之運，反不作福 — one killer with two or three controllers plus a controlling cycle does not produce blessing, on the principle 盡法無法, when the law is exhausted there is no law. The force is destroyed along with its threat, and the authority that was to be derived from it goes with it.