Compass School (理氣派)
The Compass School (Li Qi Pai) is the calculation-oriented branch of Yang Gong Feng Shui. While the Form School reads the landscape visually, the Compass School translates directions, time, and space into numerical models using the luopan compass.
Core Components
- Heavenly Stems & Earthly Branches (天干地支): The 10 stems and 12 branches mapped onto the luopan create the 24 Mountains (二十四山), each occupying 15° of the compass.
- Eight Trigrams (八卦): Both Early Heaven (先天) and Later Heaven (後天) arrangements provide overlapping assessment layers.
- Nine Stars (九星): The nine flying stars represent different types of qi that move through the nine palaces according to mathematical sequences.
- Five Elements (五行): All compass directions, trigrams, and stars are assigned elemental qualities, enabling production/destruction cycle analysis.
The Three Plates
The San He luopan uses three 24-mountain plates with different offsets:
- Earth Plate (地盤, Di Pan): 0° offset — the reference plate for sitting direction.
- Heaven Plate (天盤, Tian Pan): +7.5° offset — used for water assessment.
- Human Plate (人盤, Ren Pan): −7.5° offset — used for sand assessment.