Guan Lu and Shi Ye: One Palace, Two Names
They are the same palace, called the Career Palace in English. The Complete Book of Ziwei Doushu (Ziwei Doushu Quanshu) uses Guan Lu, and Shi Ye is the modern name. It is one of the twelve palaces of a chart, and it shows how you work, the settings that suit you and where your career is heading.
Enter your birth time in the free Ziwei Doushu calculator and find the cell labelled 官祿; the chart labels are in Chinese. That cell is your Career Palace, and its major star roughly describes how you go about your work. Major stars are the chart's fourteen main stars, such as Ziwei.
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Generate your natal chart to discover which stars shape your destiny and how they interact across your twelve palaces.
Life, Wealth and Career: The Career Palace's Three Directions and Four Squares
Read this palace together with the Life, Wealth and Spouse palaces. These are its Three Directions and Four Squares (San Fang Si Zheng): the four palaces you read together for any one palace.
| Role | Palace | Covers |
|---|---|---|
| This palace | Career Palace | How you work, the fields that suit you and the shape of your career |
| Opposite | Spouse Palace | How you love, the partner you choose and married life |
| Trine | Life Palace | Temperament, working style and life direction |
| Trine | Wealth Palace | How you earn, spend and think about money |
One shows who you are, one your money, and this one your work. The three pull on one another.
The Spouse Palace sits directly opposite, and the two form the love-and-work axis. A packed work life often squeezes your love life, and your partner's views often sway your work choices.
The 14 Major Stars in the Career Palace: How You Work and Where You Thrive
The major star in this palace hints at how you work and where you do your best. When two major stars share the palace, read both rows together.
| Star | How you work | Where you thrive |
|---|---|---|
| Ziwei | Makes decisions, leads teams | Organizations with a ladder to climb |
| Tianji | Plans and analyzes, often adjusts course | Brainwork that changes fast |
| Taiyang | Gives freely, cares about reputation | Facing the public, being seen |
| Wuqu | Decisive, focused on delivery and results | Places run on numbers and targets |
| Tiantong | Gentle pace, values a good mood | Moderate pressure, friendly teams |
| Lianzhen | Ambitious, relies on expertise and contacts | Roles that need technical or people skills |
| Tianfu | Steady, good at keeping and managing | Large organizations with solid systems |
| Taiyin | Careful, good at planning | Quiet, behind-the-scenes roles |
| Tanlang | Many talents, good with people | Meeting people, room to branch out |
| Jumen | Works through speech and expertise | Explaining, research or analysis |
| Tianxiang | Coordinates, follows the rules, keeps their word | Supporting a boss, bridging between people |
| Tianliang | Looks after people, gives advice | Advisor or senior mentor roles |
| Qisha | Driven, willing to break new ground | Challenging roles you run on your own |
| Pojun | Wants change, willing to start over | Fast-moving places that need reform |
Three stars that seek change are known together as Sha Po Lang: Qisha, Pojun and Tanlang. They always sit four palaces apart, so they always land in the same trio of palaces. With Qisha here, your Life Palace always holds Tanlang and your Wealth Palace always holds Pojun.
All three palaces then lean toward change. So a switch of career path is more likely.
Employee or Founder: Which Palaces to Read Together
To tell whether a job or your own business suits you, read this palace with three others, not one cell alone. Each palace answers a different question:
| Palace | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Career Palace | Type of work: a role in a team, or running things on your own |
| Wealth Palace | Income: a fixed salary, or pay by results or by the job |
| Travel Palace | Chances out in the world: whether striking out on your own tends to go well |
| Fortune Palace | Stress and mindset: whether you can live with an uneven income |
If most stars in these four palaces seek change, as Qisha and Pojun do, you lean toward going it alone. If most seek stability, as Tianfu and Tianxiang do, you tend to do well inside an organization.
Empty Career Palace: Borrowing the Spouse Palace's Stars
With no major star, this palace borrows the major stars of the palace directly opposite, the Spouse Palace. Such an empty palace is common, and most charts have two to four of them.
- How manyThe palace opposite always holds two major stars, and you borrow them all.
- How to readTreat the borrowed stars as this palace's own and look them up in the star table.
- What it meansYour work choices tend to be shaped more by your partner or business partners.
The borrowing rule is the same as for an empty Life Palace.
The Four Transformations in the Career Palace
A transformation landing in this palace makes your work run smoother, stronger or more orderly, or it gets work stuck. The Four Transformations (Si Hua) are Hua Lu (wealth), Hua Quan (power), Hua Ke (fame) and Hua Ji (obstacle). Which stars they attach to depends on the Heavenly Stem. There are ten stems, and every year has one.
Only three kinds matter here, each active for a different span:
- Birth yearset by your birth year's stem, active for life.
- Decade Cycleset by that decade's stem, active only for those ten years.
- Annual Fortuneset by that year's stem, active only for that year.
| Transformation | Tendency in the Career Palace |
|---|---|
| Hua Lu | More openings at work; things go smoothly and efforts pay off |
| Hua Quan | Ambitious, wants control, often handed responsibility |
| Hua Ke | Orderly at work, easily recognized, builds a good name |
| Hua Ji | Demanding about work, prone to getting stuck on one thing, a heavy workload |
For example, a Bing stem gives Lianzhen Hua Ji. If Lianzhen sits in this palace and such a stem comes along, friction over people or rules at work becomes more likely.
