Geng 庚, the Yang Metal Day Master

Geng 庚 at a glance

The short version, before the pictures.

• Stem: 庚, the seventh of the ten heavenly stems, yang metal. Its yin counterpart is 辛.
• Names: Geng or 庚金 in Chinese; 경금 (Gyeong-geum) or 경금 일간 in Korean; かのえ in Japanese.
• Season: metal is the autumn element. In the twelve-stage cycle 庚 is at 建禄 (“steady self-reliance”) in 申 and at 帝旺 (“peak drive”) in 酉.
• Combination partner: 乙, your Direct Wealth.
• Day pillars: six, listed below; 庚辰 and 庚戌 carry the traditional label 魁罡.

Iron, edge and bell: the classical pictures

三命通會 opens its account of 庚 with weather and war. Yang metal “holds heaven and earth’s power of stern killing and governs the changes of arms among people”; in the sky it is “wind and frost,” on the ground “metal and iron.” The same passage describes the fire of 巳 as a smelting furnace that works 庚 into “bells and tripods that ring when struck” (叩之有聲), and notes that metal buried under water and earth “makes no sound” (三命通會, vol. 2).

The book’s fourth volume is blunter: 庚 is “gold, silver, copper and iron,” and “only when it meets 丁 fire to control it does it become a tool” (三命通會, vol. 4). 滴天髓 puts the idea in eight lines: “庚 metal carries a killing edge, hard and strong above the rest. With water it runs clear; with fire it turns sharp. Moist earth feeds it; dry earth leaves it brittle. It can beat its elder brother 甲 and loses to its younger sister 乙” (滴天髓).

The thread through all three texts is that 庚 is defined by what it goes through. Unworked, it is heavy and blunt; heated, it takes an edge; struck, it rings. That is the picture to hold, more than “sword” or “axe,” which are finished objects.

How a Geng Day Master tends to act

Turned into a temperament, the blunt metal reads as someone direct, decisive, loyal to a fault and happier fixing a problem than discussing it. Under pressure it tends to get calmer rather than louder, which is how 庚 people tend to end up holding the difficult job.

Feedback is where the picture gets practical. A 庚 Day Master usually gives it edge first and expects the same back, and can mistake a gentler style for evasion. The tradition’s vocabulary helps here: in the ten-god row below, the fire that “sharpens” 庚 is its Officer family (rules, deadlines, people with authority) and the water that “clears” it is its output, what it says and makes. Sharp and clear are different virtues, and the verse asks for both.

The shadow tends to be restlessness when nothing is being tested. A 庚 with no hard edge to work against can go looking for one: an argument with a colleague, a project that didn’t need rescuing. Calm is not a lesser state for metal.

Fire sharpens, water clears: the ten gods for 庚

Here is the full ten-god row for 庚, and the verse’s elements line up with it cleanly. Fire is the Officer family: 丙, your Seven Killings, and 丁, your Direct Officer, the stem 三命通會 says 庚 needs to become a tool. Water is output: 壬, your Eating God, and 癸, your Hurting Officer. Earth is support: 戊, your Indirect Resource, and 己, your Direct Resource.

The brother-and-sister line is about wood, 庚’s wealth. 甲, your Indirect Wealth, and the verse says 庚 can beat it. 乙, your Direct Wealth, and also 庚’s combination partner, which is why the 滴天髓 commentary says 庚 “combines with it and yields.” Metal fells the big tree and is disarmed by the vine.

The six 庚 days, and the two called 魁罡

庚 appears in six day pillars. Two of them, 庚辰 Metal Dragon and 庚戌 Metal Dog, belong to a small group the classical texts call 魁罡 (kuigang). 三命通會’s fourth volume goes through the six 庚 days one by one and sets these two apart; its verse reads “at 辰, the 魁 star: much honor and daring; at 戌, the 魁 lodge: a firm heart as well” (三命通會, vol. 4). The engine behind our readings flags both, and describes 魁罡 as a decisive edge with little patience for half-measures: a tendency, not a rank.

What sets each of the six apart:

• 庚申 Metal Monkey: metal on metal. 申 holds 庚 Friend, 壬 Eating God and 戊 Indirect Resource, and 庚 stands at 建禄 (“steady self-reliance”) on its home ground.
• 庚午 Metal Horse: iron at the forge. 午’s main stem 丁 is your Direct Officer, the controlling fire the handbook asks for.
• 庚寅 Metal Tiger: 庚 at 絶 (“sudden switches”) over a wood branch that holds 甲 Indirect Wealth, 丙 Seven Killings and 戊 Indirect Resource.
• 庚子 Metal Rat: 三命通會’s “metal sunk to the bottom of the water.” 子 holds only 癸 Hurting Officer, and 庚 stands at 死 there; the book’s note says the metal “does not show its shape.” Read it as a quiet, inward pillar, not a fate.
• 庚辰 Metal Dragon and 庚戌 Metal Dog: the 魁罡 pair. 辰 holds 戊 Indirect Resource, 乙 Direct Wealth and 癸 Hurting Officer; 戌 holds 戊 Indirect Resource, 辛 Rob Wealth and 丁 Direct Officer.

2027 (丁未) for a 庚 Day Master

丁未 brings 庚 the fire the handbooks keep asking for. The year stem 丁 is your Direct Officer, the same 丁 三命通會 says turns raw metal into a tool. 未’s main hidden stem is 己, your Direct Resource, and 乙, your Direct Wealth, sits beside it as your combination partner. The twelve stage of 庚 in 未 is 冠帯 (“wanting to look right”).

As habits rather than events: an Officer year tends to put roles, rules and other people’s expectations in the foreground, and a Resource stem underneath tends to mean training, credentials or someone who backs you. What 庚 tends to do with that is accept structure before checking whether it is yours: the extra responsibility, the committee seat, the standard you inherited without reading it. The texts’ image is fire shaping metal; the useful question is what shape you want. The characters don’t promise a promotion or warn of a problem.

Born on a 庚午 Metal Horse day? Then the year’s 未 combines with your day branch, one of the six branch combinations (六合). The 2027 page lays the same year against every Day Master.

About this page

Written with AI (Claude) from the sources listed and our calculation engine. Horan and Kachi are fictional characters, and nothing here predicts events. The rules behind every chart: how we calculate.