Pressure (Seven Killings)
七杀 · qī shā · one of the Ten Gods
Auspice ·
- Chinese
- 七杀（also 偏官）
- Our name
- Pressure
- Literal name
- Seven Killings
- Relation
- 克我 · it controls you
- Polarity
- same as yours
- Its pair
- Structure
Pressure — literally Seven Killings (七杀, qī shā) — is the Ten God for the element that controls your Day Master, in the same polarity. For a 甲 Day Master it is 庚 (Gēng, Yang Metal).
What governs you, forcefully: pressure and authority. Carried well it is power; carried badly it is exhaustion.
Every Ten God is defined relative to the Day Master, the stem of your day of birth — that page explains the reference point; this one goes deeper on a single relation. The tables and the example below are computed at build time by the engine behind our free BaZi calculator, not written by hand.
Why is it called Seven Killings?
Seven Killings sounds like a threat and is mostly an index. Count along the ten stems from your Day Master, counting it as the first, and the stem you reach at seven is this one — for a 甲 day, 庚. The count holds for every Day Master, as the table below shows. 杀 is control without a buffer: an element that controls yours in the same polarity, with nothing in the pairing to soften it. The texts also call it 偏官, the oblique officer. We call it Pressure, which is what it feels like from inside. It checks Peer — the stem it controls is one identical to you — and it is checked by Output.
Among the Ten Gods, Pressure checks Peer and feeds Insight; it is checked by Output and fed by Windfall. These follow from the same element cycles, in the same polarity, and hold for every Day Master.
How is Pressure worked out?
Start from your Day Master’s element and find the element that controls it in the controlling cycle. That element has a yang stem and a yin stem. The one whose polarity matches your Day Master’s is Pressure; the other is Structure.
| Day Master element | Pressure element |
|---|---|
| Wood (木) | Metal (金) |
| Fire (火) | Water (水) |
| Earth (土) | Wood (木) |
| Metal (金) | Fire (火) |
| Water (水) | Earth (土) |
Count along the ten stems from the Day Master, counting it as the first, and Pressure is always the seventh stem, whichever Day Master you start from.
Which stem is Pressure for each Day Master?
| Day Master | Pressure stem | Count | Hidden in branches |
|---|---|---|---|
| 甲 (Jiǎ, Yang Wood) | 庚 (Gēng, Yang Metal) | seventh | 申 main qi, 巳 middle qi |
| 乙 (Yǐ, Yin Wood) | 辛 (Xīn, Yin Metal) | seventh | 酉 main qi, 戌 middle qi, 丑 residual qi |
| 丙 (Bǐng, Yang Fire) | 壬 (Rén, Yang Water) | seventh | 亥 main qi, 申 middle qi |
| 丁 (Dīng, Yin Fire) | 癸 (Guǐ, Yin Water) | seventh | 子 main qi, 丑 middle qi, 辰 residual qi |
| 戊 (Wù, Yang Earth) | 甲 (Jiǎ, Yang Wood) | seventh | 寅 main qi, 亥 middle qi |
| 己 (Jǐ, Yin Earth) | 乙 (Yǐ, Yin Wood) | seventh | 卯 main qi, 辰 middle qi, 未 residual qi |
| 庚 (Gēng, Yang Metal) | 丙 (Bǐng, Yang Fire) | seventh | 巳 main qi, 寅 middle qi |
| 辛 (Xīn, Yin Metal) | 丁 (Dīng, Yin Fire) | seventh | 午 main qi, 未 middle qi, 戌 residual qi |
| 壬 (Rén, Yang Water) | 戊 (Wù, Yang Earth) | seventh | 辰 main qi, 戌 main qi, 寅 residual qi, 巳 residual qi, 申 residual qi |
| 癸 (Guǐ, Yin Water) | 己 (Jǐ, Yin Earth) | seventh | 丑 main qi, 未 main qi, 午 middle qi |
A Ten God shows up in two places: as a visible stem on top of a pillar, and as a hidden stem stored inside a branch. The last column lists every branch that stores this stem and at which layer; the main qi counts for most. Hidden-stem tables follow our published conventions.
What does Pressure look like in a real chart?
Take the chart we publish for Bruce Lee (1940–1973), cast by the same engine from the recorded birth time. The Day Master is 甲 (Jiǎ, Yang Wood). Pressure appears once: the year stem, 庚 (Gēng, Yang Metal). Against a Yang Wood Day Master, 庚 (Yang Metal) reads as Pressure: Metal controls Wood, both yang.
| Year | Month | Day | Hour | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stem | 庚 · Pressure | 丁 · Edge | 甲 · Day Master | 戊 · Windfall |
| Branch · hidden | 辰戊 Windfall乙 Rival癸 Support | 亥壬 Insight甲 Peer | 戌戊 Windfall辛 Structure丁 Edge | 辰戊 Windfall乙 Rival癸 Support |
Where the birth time comes from, and how strong that source is, is set out on the Bruce Lee case page. Finding Pressure in a well-known chart explains nothing about why the person became known; each case page has a section on where the chart does not fit the life.
How do you read Pressure?
Some people are calmest in a crisis and uneasy on a quiet Sunday. When everyone else is alarmed their voice steadies; when nothing is asked of them they pace. Pressure is the chart’s name for a force that presses on you without a rulebook — the deadline no one agreed to, the situation nobody trained you for. The manuals do not pretend it is harmless. They say it has to be carried, and that carried well it becomes authority. Read as a mirror, it asks something plainer: when there is no load, do you rest, or go looking for one? The chart cannot tell you whether the pressure in your life is too much. It can point out that some engines idle rough, and that for them the answer may be a load they chose rather than an empty week.
Pressure and the other nine
Its pair is Structure: the same element relation, the other polarity. The full set, in order:
Peer · Rival · Output · Edge · Windfall · Steady Wealth · Pressure · Structure · Insight · Support
All ten on one page: the Ten Gods. The reference point they are all measured from: the Day Master. To see where Pressure sits in your own chart, use the free BaZi calculator — no account needed. Auspice is for reflection, not prediction.