Home › Stories › Tai Sui › Ding-Chou
The Ding-Chou Tai Sui: General Wang Wen
A plain-spoken official who spent three years fixing the river nobody else would touch.
- Guardian of
- People born in a Ding-Chou year, the Year of the Ox
- Born between
- Feb 7, 1997 – Jan 27, 1998
- Past life (legend)
- Wang Wen, a local official of the Song dynasty from a poor family (folk legend)
- Symbol
- A heavy staff: responsibility gladly carried
If you were born between these dates, you were born in a Ding-Chou year, the Year of the Ox, and General Wang Wen watches over you.
(A new year starts on Lunar New Year’s Day.)
A candle in a winter field
Ding is yin fire, a small steady candle. Chou is the frozen field after winter, still holding spring inside, while the ox keeps plowing one step at a time. The candle makes that quiet effort visible.
General Wang Wen guards this year. People born in Ding-Chou years are often down to earth and dependable. They may not say much, but when they promise something, they carry it all the way.
A man of his word
He wears a dark green hat with a red mark, colorful armor and a bright yellow cloak. His square face, thick black brows and direct eyes say: this man does what he says.
His left hand is raised, palm forward, to stop chaos and unfairness in their tracks. His right hand holds a long staff with a heavy, rounded top, the weight of the duties he chose to carry.
Three years on the riverbanks
According to legend, he was Wang Wen, a Song dynasty official from a poor family who earned his post by studying hard. His county sat low by a river that flooded the fields almost every summer. Every magistrate had a plan, and none of them did it, because the work was slow and would not make them look good in time.
Wang Wen walked every stretch of the river with workers in his first year. For three years, he asked for funding, organized villagers in the off-season, built up the weakest banks and dug drainage ditches. Every section he promised by year's end was finished by year's end.
"You did this"
In the fourth summer came the heaviest rain in years. The river rose, but the banks held. The county was spared, while the next county was badly hit. When people came to kneel and thank him, he lifted them up and said, "You did this. You are the ones who work this land."
Heaven named him the Tai Sui of the Ding-Chou year. A staff in his hand and steady shoulders: that is his gift to everyone born in the Year of the Ox.
Questions people ask
Who is the Tai Sui for people born in 1997?
People born between Feb 7, 1997 and Jan 27, 1998 were born in a Ding-Chou year, the Year of the Ox. Their Tai Sui is General Wang Wen.
Who was General Wang Wen before becoming a Tai Sui?
Wang Wen, a local official of the Song dynasty from a poor family (folk legend).
What does General Wang Wen hold?
A heavy staff: responsibility gladly carried.
Stay for the next story
A new fortune poem and the old story behind it, every day on YouTube.