The Geng-Yin Tai Sui: General Wu Huan

A blade sharpened in the forest

Geng is yang metal, a sword that stays in its sheath until the moment it is needed. Yin is the tiger gathering all its strength in the stillness before dawn. Like a sword sharpened for years in the mountains, the edge gets keener and wiser.

General Wu Huan guards this year. People born in Geng-Yin years are often calm when everyone else panics, seem wise beyond their years, and under pressure get clearer instead of cracking.

An old soldier at peace

His head is completely bald, which makes his face look open and bright rather than old. He has a few thin white whiskers and the calm eyes of someone who has seen every kind of storm.

He wears blue armor and a heavy red cloak and holds a small object as lightly as a flower. He has nothing left to prove.

"Let me go instead"

According to legend, he was Wu Huan, a Song dynasty general who had retired to his home village in his sixties. His old wounds ached on rainy days, but he never mentioned it. He just helped his neighbors with the heavy work.

Then war broke out on the border, and the government ordered the young men of the village to the army. The village wept. Wu Huan sat up all night. In the morning he told the elders, "Let me go in place of the boys. I know how the battlefield works. They don't."

They said he was too old. He laughed and tapped his head: "Battles aren't won only with young legs."

Everyone came home

He convinced the officials to spare several families who had only one son. He went as an advisor and helped young officers avoid mistakes that could have cost many lives. He brought every soldier back alive.

Heaven named him the Tai Sui of the Geng-Yin year. An old soldier's calm and lasting strength: that is his gift to everyone born in the Year of the Tiger.