What are clashes and combinations (刑冲合害)?
刑冲合害 · 地支关系
Clash, combination, harm and punishment are the four named interaction types between the Earthly Branches of a BaZi chart. A clash (冲) knocks apart, a combination (合) ties together, a harm (害) undoes a bond from the side, a punishment (刑) catches and binds. None is inherently good or bad.
The four mechanisms, told apart
| Relation | What it is |
|---|---|
| 六冲 clash | Twelve branches make a circle; the two facing each other across it clash. Opposite directions, opposing elements — move one and both move. |
| 六合 combination | Two branches tie to each other, and each pulls in its own edges. Note that a combination binds; it does not necessarily transform. Whether it does is a matter of school, so we say only that the two are bound. |
| 六害 harm | It clashes with the branch mine was tied to. Not a head-on collision — a bond undone from the side, which is why it is also called a piercing. |
| 三刑 punishment | Three branches catching on one another. A punishment is not a clash: a clash knocks apart, this binds up. All three must be present — the two-branch “half punishment” is contested enough that we leave it out. |
| 相刑 punishment | The 子–卯 pair stands on its own at two branches, and we keep it named apart from the three-branch punishments. |
| 自刑 self-punishment | The same branch appearing twice on the chart — the thing catching on itself. |
| 三合 trine | Birth, Prime, and Vault — the three stations of one element, all present. Its rising, its peak, and its keeping are each on the chart, which is why this counts as a full formation. |
| 半合 half-trine | A trine missing one corner. It counts only if the pair includes the cardinal branch — without the Prime station there is nothing for the formation to stand on. |
| 三会 directional trine | Three consecutive branches of one direction, so a whole season’s air arrives at once. More direct than a trine: a trine gathers like with like, this gathers one stretch of the year. |
| 天干五合 stem combination | Lay the ten stems out and the two five apart combine. Same rule as with branches: we record the combination, not a transformation. |
This only reports which table these characters fall into, not whether that is good or bad. A clash is not necessarily bad, nor a combination good — that layer belongs to the reading.
Why these are constantly confused
Clash, combination, harm and punishment get flattened into a single idea — "branch interactions" — and then sorted into good and bad. That is the mistake. They are four different mechanisms, and they are not variations in intensity of the same thing.
A clash (冲) is opposition: two branches sitting directly across the circle from each other, opposite in direction and in element. A combination (合) is attachment: two branches tied together, each pulling in its edges. A harm (害) is neither — it works sideways, clashing with the branch yours was tied to, undoing a bond rather than striking it. A punishment (刑) binds up rather than knocking apart: branches catching on one another.
Knock apart, tie together, undo someone else's tie, catch. Once the four verbs are distinct, most of the confusion in the popular sources dissolves.
Combination does not mean transformation
This is the single most consequential misreading. A combination binds two branches; whether the pair then transforms into a new element (化) is a separate claim, and the schools disagree about when it happens and whether it happens at all in a given chart.
Many readings quietly slide from "these two combine" to "these two have become Fire," and everything downstream — strength, favourable element, the whole verdict — changes on the strength of an assumption that was never stated. We record the combination and stop there. Transformation is outside our stated scope, and we would rather leave a question open than answer it silently.
What we list, and four things we deliberately leave out
We check the whole chart for branch clashes, combinations, harms, trines and half-trines, directional trines, punishments and self-punishments, and stem combinations — reporting which pillars take part and how far apart they sit.
Four omissions are deliberate, and each is a place where sources differ. Half-trines count only when the pair includes a cardinal branch (子午卯酉); pairs like 申–辰 or 寅–戌 without one are not listed. Punishments require all three branches — the two-branch "half punishment" is too contested. The 子–卯 pair is listed separately as its own relation rather than folded in with the three-branch punishments. And among stems we record only the five combinations; stem clashes are used inconsistently enough that we leave them out.
Listing less is not caution for its own sake. Every one of those four is a case where writing the rule into software would mean deciding a dispute on the tradition's behalf.
Does a combination cancel a clash?
You will read that it does — that a nearby combination "resolves" a clash, or that a clash "breaks" a combination. Both are stated as rules in different sources, and they are not compatible.
What is reasonably agreed is narrower: the two relations interact, distance between the pillars matters, and a relation involving the month branch carries more weight than one out at the edges. Beyond that, the resolution rules are lineage-specific. We list every relation we find along with its pillars and distance, and leave the arbitration to a reading that can say which school it is following.
Is a clash bad?
No. A clash is movement, and whether movement helps depends entirely on what was sitting still. A clash that dislodges an element the chart has too much of is doing useful work; a clash on the one branch supporting a weak Day Master is not.
The same holds in reverse for combinations. Binding is not inherently favourable — a combination that ties up the element your chart most needs to stay active is a loss, not a gift. Neither the mechanism nor the label carries a verdict; only the chart around it does.
Branch relations sit above the symbolic-star layer and below chart structure. For what the branches themselves carry, see hidden stems; for the balance these relations disturb, see the favourable element. What we list and deliberately omit is written out in charting conventions. Or calculate your chart — every relation found is listed with its pillars and distance.