Li Xuzhong, courtesy name Changrong, was a native of Tang Wei County (now Hebei Province) and his ancestral home was Longxi (now southwestern Longxi, Gansu Province). He was born in 761 AD and died in 813 AD. The eighth grandson of Li Chong, the servant of the Northern Wei Dynasty, and the star of the Tang Dynasty. In the eleventh year of Zhenyuan, he passed the rank of Jinshi. He was awarded the rank of Jinshi by examination, supplemented the secretary's orthographic characters, and was later awarded the title of censor. He moved to the palace to serve as the censor.
Believing in the art of immortality and understanding the Five Elements Book, one can calculate a person’s lifespan, death, nobleness, and status based on the person’s birth year, month, day, day, day, stem, and branches. This is regarded as a belief by future generations of our country (note: this was the view at the time). The ancestor of the Xingming Family. Regarding his cultivation in numerology, Han Yu said in "Li Xuzhong's Epitaph" that he "failed to miss even one hundred points", which shows how accurate he is. But it is a pity that Li Xuzhong has no writings. The "Li Xuzhong Mingshu" passed down by later generations is signed "Gu Zi" and "Xuzhong" is annotated. It is actually a fake book written by someone from the Song Dynasty.
The use of "four pillars and eight characters" to tell fortunes, which can be verified so far, is that of Li Xuzhong in the Tang Dynasty. "·On Years, Months, Days and Hours": "Li Xuzhong of the Tang Dynasty only focused on the day stem, but he used the combination of the years, months, and hours to see the restraint of life, and established the pattern of exaltation and rest. This method has not been developed by previous sages, so today's technique Jia Zongzhi's "Yuanhai Ziping·On the Day as the Main": "I have read in the Tang Dynasty that there is a person named Li Xuzhong who discussed the merits of life based on the year, month, day and hour of a person's birth. It’s been detailed!” These two classics clearly record that the Bazi technique originated from Li Xuzhong. The book "Birth Time and Destiny" published by the University of Science and Technology also talks about Li Xuzhong. It is believed that Li Xuzhong is one of the masters of eight-character fortune telling. His discussion of birth time and destiny should be relatively authoritative. This is a scientific book. Rigorous numerology books brought fortune telling to the forefront of academic circles for the first time.
Zixia Yun said, "Life and death are determined by fate, and wealth and honor are in heaven." Although people have believed in fate for a long time, it is not easy to know destiny and predict it in a serious way. It is unknown when the art of fortune-telling originated. Lian of Ming Dynasty and Song Dynasty said in "Lu Ming Bian" that "Guxu's technique is covered with five elements of armor to push people away from fault, and his technique has been practiced for a long time." "Through later generations, Lin Xiaogong has "Lu Ming Shu" and Tao Hongjing has "Chao Lue". Lin Xiaogong and Tao Hongjing were both from the Northern and Southern Dynasties. However, the system of these fortune-telling techniques was somewhat incomplete, and the practice soon died out. It was not until the middle of the Tang Dynasty that the appearance of a master-level figure in the Kaisect pushed the fortune-telling technique into a new historical era, and gradually formed the four-pillar and eight-character fortune-telling technique that became the mainstream in later generations. This person is Li Xuzhong.
In fact, the so-called horoscope predicts destiny. It is to use the stems and branches of the year, month, day and time when a person was born to calculate the person's wealth, wealth, wealth and good fortune. The ancients used the heavenly stems and earthly branches to measure time. For example, eight o'clock in the evening on February 22, 2008 can be expressed as the year of Wuzi, the month of Jiayin, the day of Renchen, and the hour of Gengxu using the stems and branches. If a person is born at this time, his horoscopes are Wuzi, Jiayin, Renchen, and Gengxu. In ancient times, the heavenly stems and earthly branches corresponded to the five elements respectively. By examining the mutual restraint of the five elements represented by the eight characters, we could infer the high and low of human life. Han Yu said that Li Xuzhong "considers the year, month and day of a person's birth, and then directs the branches of the sun and the hour", which was understood by later generations as only considering the stems and branches of the year, month and day without using the hour. This formula is six characters, that is It is different from the fortune-telling technique of later generations. Li Xuzhong once wrote "The Book of Fate", but unfortunately it has been lost. Although the "Dadian" contains three volumes of "Xu Zhong Ming Shu", in which the eight characters are used to judge fate, this book is suspected to be a forgery written by a Song Dynasty person, so this doubt is difficult to resolve after all. However, Ji Xiaolan, a native of the Qing Dynasty, put forward a new point of view in "Notes on Yuewei Thatched Cottage". He said that the reason for this is that people cut off Han Yu's words in the wrong sentence, that is, they should not be cut off before "the direct sun". Rather, "the four characters 'Suozhi Richen' should be connected with the year, month and day to form a sentence, and later generations mistakenly added the following sentence to form a sentence." In this way, the "chen" in "Suozhi Richen" refers to the hour, so he It is advocated that Li Xuzhong is a horoscope judger of fate.
After Li Xuzhong died of illness, Li He invited Han Yu to write an epitaph for Li Xuzhong: "The Epitaph of Li Jun, the Censor in the Palace".
: Weizhou Academy