The Jia-Zi Tai Sui: General Jin Bian

Where the cycle begins

Jia is the first of the ten Heavenly Stems. Zi is the first of the twelve Earthly Branches. Put them together and you get the very first year of the sixty-year cycle, a fresh start for everything.

The general who guards this year is Jin Bian. In Chinese tradition he is the most senior of all sixty Tai Sui, and when a Jiazi year comes around, he watches over everyone born in it.

Hands in his eyes, eyes in his hands

He wears a black official hat, a deep blue robe, green armor and a bright red cape. His left hand is raised, palm out, to send protection and to tell evil to stop. His right hand holds a round, rosy peach of immortality.

What people remember most are his eyes. According to legend, a small hand grows out of each eye, and each palm has an eye of its own. With four eyes he can look up to heaven and down to the underworld, and nobody can hide a lie from him.

The minister who spoke up

In the novel Investiture of the Gods, he starts life as Yang Ren, an official at the court of King Zhou, the last cruel ruler of the Shang dynasty. The king was taking people's money to build a grand tower. Yang Ren told him to stop and think of his people.

The king had Yang Ren's eyes torn out, and he died. A Taoist immortal passing on a cloud took pity on him, planted golden elixir pills in the empty sockets, and brought him back. That is how he got his hands in his eyes and eyes in his hands.

He went on to help the general Jiang Ziya. With a magic fire fan and his four eyes, he broke a plague formation and spotted an enemy hiding underground. He finally fell in battle, and was named the Tai Sui of the Jiazi year.

Born again as a good official

Folk tradition adds one more chapter. It says he was born again as Jin Lian, a real official of the Ming dynasty from Shanyang. Sent to guard the dry northwest frontier in Ningxia, he had five old canals cleared, and more than 1,300 qing of farmland came back to life.

He also set up a reward system so people would donate grain, and the border granaries filled up again. He was fair, honest and never used his post for himself.

A peach in his hand and a wish for long, lucky years: that is his gift to everyone born in the Year of the Rat.

Born in 1984

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