The 12 Earthly Branches · 十二地支

The twelve Earthly Branches (地支, dìzhī) form one of the two axes of the BaZi calendrical system, the other being the ten Heavenly Stems. Each branch carries an animal sign familiar from popular Chinese astrology — Rat, Ox, Tiger, and so on — but the practitioner reading is structural: each branch occupies a specific season, a two-hour window of the day, and a particular set of hidden stems (藏干) that determine how it interacts with the rest of a chart. This reference covers all twelve in detail.