Home › Stories › Tai Sui › Bing-Zi
The Bing-Zi Tai Sui: General Guo Jia
The brilliant strategist who always saw the next move first.
- Guardian of
- People born in a Bing-Zi year, the Year of the Rat
- Born between
- Feb 19, 1996 – Feb 6, 1997
- Past life (legend)
- Guo Jia, chief advisor to Cao Cao in the Three Kingdoms era
- Symbol
- A dark blue jewel in his hair: a quick, bright mind
If you were born between these dates, you were born in a Bing-Zi year, the Year of the Rat, and General Guo Jia watches over you.
(A new year starts on Lunar New Year’s Day.)
Sunlight on deep water
Bing is yang fire, the noon sun. Zi is midnight water, deep and quiet, and the Rat is famous for its memory and for finding the way in the dark. Fire shining on deep water makes that hidden wisdom easy to see.
General Guo Jia guards this year. People born in Bing-Zi years often think fast and see further. While others ask "what is it?", they are already asking "what's next?"
Calm and already ahead
His hair is tied in a neat high knot with a dark blue jewel. His face is fine and gentle, with the calm look of someone who has already decided. He wears an olive green robe and a bright red cape.
He holds a small object lightly in his right hand, as if it were the whole board of a game he has already played out.
"This is the man"
Guo Jia was a real strategist at the end of the Eastern Han dynasty. He first went to serve the warlord Yuan Shao, but soon left, saying Yuan Shao made many plans and could never decide. He then joined Cao Cao, and the two talked through the night. Cao Cao is said to have declared, "This is the man who will help me do great things."
He is remembered for steadying Cao Cao's army before the Battle of Guandu, where a smaller force won. Later, against everyone's advice, he urged a fast, light march far beyond the northern frontier to defeat the Wuhuan, and it worked. His plans often made sense only afterward, when people realized he had seen it all coming.
A comet's life
He had been frail since childhood. On the way home from that northern campaign, he fell ill and died at just thirty-eight. Cao Cao is said to have wept openly in front of his court.
Heaven named him the Tai Sui of the Bing-Zi year. A blue jewel in his hair and a mind that moves fast: that is his gift to everyone born in the Year of the Rat.
Questions people ask
Who is the Tai Sui for people born in 1996?
People born between Feb 19, 1996 and Feb 6, 1997 were born in a Bing-Zi year, the Year of the Rat. Their Tai Sui is General Guo Jia.
Who was General Guo Jia before becoming a Tai Sui?
Guo Jia, chief advisor to Cao Cao in the Three Kingdoms era.
What does General Guo Jia hold?
A dark blue jewel in his hair: a quick, bright mind.
Stay for the next story
A new fortune poem and the old story behind it, every day on YouTube.