The Ren-Chen Tai Sui: General Peng Tai

A dragon in the open sea

Ren is yang water, the vast ocean. Chen is the dragon rising with spring thunder. Dragons live in water, so the ocean gives the dragon a sky-wide stage, and the dragon gives the ocean life. It is one of the most powerful pairings in the cycle.

General Peng Tai guards this year. People born in Ren-Chen years often have rich, complicated inner worlds, and once they find their direction, they move with amazing force.

Soft face, deep strength

He surprises people. His face is fine and gentle with soft lines and full lips, not what anyone expects from a great general. But behind that softness is a depth like still water that draws you in.

He wears dark, finely made armor and a heavy red cloak. In his right hand rests a round golden pearl, like a drop of moonlight, the dragon's pearl of protection.

Seven years on the riverbank

According to legend, he was Peng Tai, an engineer at the end of the Eastern Han dynasty, handsome as jade and iron-willed. Floods destroyed farms and homes south of the Yangtze almost every summer. He was put in charge of a huge flood-control project with very little money or material.

He told the workers, "We are helping the water go back where it belongs and giving the land its order back. Not one hour of your work will be wasted." That gave them the strength to keep going.

For seven years he hardly left the site, leading crews himself on the most dangerous stretches. In the end a long embankment wound along the main river, and the floods grew far less severe.

"It finally went home"

On the day it was finished, he stood on the new embankment, looked out at the water, and said only, "It finally went home."

Heaven named him the Tai Sui of the Ren-Chen year. A dragon's pearl in his palm and deep, quiet strength: that is his gift to everyone born in the Year of the Dragon.