The 'Red Horse, Red Sheep Calamity': A Saying with a Sixty-Year Cycle, Its Method of Calculation, and Its Problems

Origin and Calculation of the Saying

The method for calculating the 'Red Horse, Red Sheep Calamity' is not mysterious. It directly stems from the traditional Chinese ganzhi (干支, stems and branches) year-keeping system. In the sixty-year cycle (六十甲子), 'Bingwu' (丙午) and 'Dingwei' (丁未) are two adjacent, fixed combinations.

Broken down:

• Bing, Ding (丙、丁): The third and fourth positions among the heavenly stems (天干). In the five phases (五行) theory, both Bing and Ding belong to 'Fire' (火). According to the theory that corresponds the five phases to five colors, the color of fire is red (赤 or 紅).
• Wu, Wei (午、未): The seventh and eighth positions among the earthly branches (地支). In the twelve Chinese zodiac animals, Wu corresponds to the Horse (馬) and Wei corresponds to the Sheep (羊).

Combining these two parts, Bingwu becomes 'Red Horse' (赤馬) and Dingwei becomes 'Red Sheep' (紅羊). Thus, the core of this saying is merely re-describing two specific years from the ganzhi table using the terminology of the five phases and the zodiac.

Since the ganzhi year cycle repeats every sixty years, Bingwu and Dingwei appear once every sixty years. For example, the previous cycle was 1966 (Bingwu) and 1967 (Dingwei), and the next cycle is the upcoming 2026 (Bingwu) and 2027 (Dingwei). Anyone with a complete ganzhi table can easily list every 'Red Horse, Red Sheep' year over the past several millennia. This is a purely arithmetic result and carries no inherent predictive quality.

Classical Records and the Link to 'Major Events'

In classical texts, there are indeed sayings that link the years Bingwu and Dingwei to disasters or major upheavals. However, the events cited and the texts referenced by different sources are inconsistent. Some sayings trace back to the Han Dynasty, while others point to the Tang and Song periods. This discrepancy in records precisely illustrates that the 'Red Horse, Red Sheep Calamity' has never been a system with a clear definition and consensus. Narrators from different eras, based on their own historical contexts, selectively place certain events within these two years, thereby 'verifying' the saying.

Fundamental Problem in Methodology

The biggest problem with this saying lies in the logical fallacy of its verification method. Those who claim this saying is accurate typically first adopt the conclusion that 'major events must occur in Bingwu and Dingwei years,' and then look back into history to find matching events. This method is known as 'post hoc rationalization' or 'confirmation bias.'

The issue is this: if one presupposes that 'major events' will occur in any given pair of years, one can almost always find events in any two-year period that could be labeled 'major.' Whether it's war, political coups, natural disasters, epidemics, or significant cultural or technological events, history has never seen two completely peaceful years. When you decide in advance what you're looking for, you can always find it within a sufficiently large database. This is not prediction; it is selective example-gathering.

In other words, the ganzhi year cycle is a continuous, uniform counting mechanism. Returning to the same set of stems and branches every sixty years is an arithmetic result of the calendar system, not a cyclical causal mechanism. Linking historical events to specific ganzhi combinations and attributing the meaning of 'calamity' (劫) to them is essentially post-hoc interpretation, not prophecy made in advance. This interpretive method is methodologically invalid because it cannot offer a clear, falsifiable prediction.

Understanding the Saying

When we encounter discussions about the 'Red Horse, Red Sheep Calamity' online, we can separate the calculation method itself from the subsequent predictions of fortune or misfortune. The calculation method is clear: it represents two fixed points on the ganzhi table that appear once every sixty years, and 2026 and 2027 happen to be the next occurrence. This part is fact.

As for the claims linking these two years to disasters or major upheavals, they lack a verifiable logical foundation. They rely on finding examples after the fact, not on making testable predictions. As a cultural timekeeping tool, the continuous cycle of the ganzhi year system is mathematical, not metaphysical. Understanding this helps us view such online claims with a clearer perspective. The Chinese Almanac page on this site lists the year, month, and day stems and branches for any given day, and the charting page lists the Four Pillars (四柱) — to confirm whether a particular year is Bingwu, simply check the year pillar for any day of that year.