Shao Yong 邵雍 — The Creator
Shao Yong (邵雍, 1011–1077), also known by his posthumous name Shao Kangjie (邵康节), was a philosopher, cosmologist, poet, and one of the Five Great Scholars of the Northern Song Dynasty (北宋五子). He is regarded as one of the most original thinkers in the history of Chinese metaphysics — a man who saw the universe as a vast mathematical structure and who devoted his life to decoding its patterns.
Born in Fanyang (modern-day Hebei province), Shao Yong showed extraordinary intellectual gifts from childhood. As a young man, he traveled widely, studying under several masters and immersing himself in the classical texts. He eventually settled in Luoyang, where he lived a life of scholarly contemplation, earning the respect and admiration of the leading intellectuals of his day, including the great statesman Sima Guang (司马光) and the Cheng brothers (程颢, 程颐), founders of Neo-Confucianism.
Shao Yong's most important work is the Imperial World-Encompassing Classic (皇极经世, Huáng Jí Jīng Shì), a monumental cosmological treatise that maps the cycles of heaven, earth, and humanity through a system of numbers and trigrams. In this work, he developed a binary ordering of the sixty-four hexagrams that anticipated Leibniz's binary number system by some six centuries. He also created a grand cosmological calendar that assigned numerical values to the cycles of history, attempting to show that the rise and fall of civilizations followed the same mathematical patterns as the turning of the seasons — a vision that resonates with the cyclical worldview found throughout the I Ching and Taoist philosophy.
But Shao Yong was not merely an abstract thinker. He was deeply engaged with the everyday world, known for his love of nature, his poetry, and his extraordinary sensitivity to the patterns unfolding around him. It was this combination of cosmic vision and earthly awareness that gave birth to Plum Blossom Numerology — a method that, like the form school of Feng Shui, reads meaning directly from the natural landscape.
The Legend of the Plum Blossom
The origin story of the method's name is one of the most celebrated tales in Chinese divination lore, recorded in the Plum Blossom Numerology text itself:
One winter evening, Shao Yong was walking in his garden near a plum tree (梅花树). He noticed a single plum blossom perched on a branch in a particular position. As he watched, two sparrows (雀) alighted nearby and began fighting over the blossom, causing it to fall to the ground.
Shao Yong paused and contemplated the scene. He reasoned: the plum blossom was in a certain position on the branch, and two birds arrived at a specific moment. These numbers contained a hidden hexagram. Using the numbers he observed, he derived a reading:
Shao Yong's Reading
The next day, the prediction came true exactly as stated. A neighbor's daughter climbed the plum tree to pick fruit, fell, and injured her leg. From that time forward, the method of deriving hexagrams from spontaneous observations of the world became known as "Plum Blossom Numerology" (梅花易数) — a name that honors both the specific event and the broader principle: that the universe is constantly revealing its patterns to those who know how to look.
This story illustrates several key features of the method:
- The divination arises spontaneously from observation, not from deliberate consultation
- Numbers are extracted from the natural world — position, count, timing
- The reading addresses a specific, concrete situation
- The prediction proved accurate, validating the method
- The practitioner's state of awareness is the key — Shao Yong was in a receptive, contemplative state
Theoretical Foundations — Number & Image
Plum Blossom Numerology rests on Shao Yong's profound insight that numbers (数, shù) and images (象, xiàng) are two faces of the same reality. This principle, known as the Number-Image Theory (象数之学), is the philosophical bedrock of the entire system — and the same principle underlies the core concepts of the I Ching.
In Shao Yong's cosmology, the universe unfolds through a process of numerical doubling:
Supreme Ultimate 太极
The undifferentiated source — the unity before division. From the Supreme Ultimate, all differentiation arises.
Two Modes 两仪
Yin and Yang — the first division. The fundamental polarity that generates all further complexity.
Four Images 四象
Greater Yang, Lesser Yang, Greater Yin, Lesser Yin — the four phases of change, corresponding to the four seasons.
Eight Trigrams 八卦
The eight fundamental forces of nature: Heaven, Earth, Water, Fire, Mountain, Lake, Wind, Thunder. Each trigram is a three-line symbol encoding a specific pattern of Yin and Yang.
Sixty-Four Hexagrams 六十四卦
The complete set of six-line symbols, representing every possible combination of the eight trigrams. This is the full symbolic vocabulary of the I Ching — and of Plum Blossom Numerology.
Shao Yong's key insight was that this numerical progression is not merely abstract — it is embedded in the world. Every phenomenon has a number, every number maps to a trigram, and every trigram combination produces a hexagram. The world is a living oracle.
Transmission Through the Ages
Song Dynasty (960–1279) — The Origin
Shao Yong creates the method and practices it privately. The system is transmitted orally among his disciples and close associates. The cosmological foundations are laid in the Imperial World-Encompassing Classic.
Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) — Secret Transmission
During the Mongol conquest, the method is preserved within small lineages of scholars. Commentaries begin to appear, expanding the original system with additional techniques for deriving hexagrams from characters and environmental observations — techniques that parallel the symbolic reading methods found in Qi Men Dun Jia.
Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) — Systematization
Scholars such as Liu Ji (刘基) and others systematize the method, creating comprehensive guides and expanding the interpretive framework. The Plum Blossom Numerology text (梅花易数) as we know it begins to take shape, though its exact authorship remains debated. Liu Ji, also associated with the military strategy tradition, brought a practical and strategic sensibility to the method.
Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) — Wider Dissemination
Numerous commentaries and practical guides are published. The method enters the mainstream of Chinese divination practice alongside the coin and yarrow stalk methods. Regional variations develop, with different schools emphasizing different aspects of the system.
Modern Era (20th–21st Century) — Global Spread
Plum Blossom Numerology becomes one of the most widely practiced forms of I Ching divination in China. With the global spread of Chinese metaphysics, the method is increasingly studied and practiced in Southeast Asia, the West, and online communities. Modern practitioners combine traditional techniques with contemporary applications.
Shao Yong's Broader Legacy
Plum Blossom Numerology is just one facet of Shao Yong's extraordinary intellectual legacy. His cosmological vision influenced generations of scholars across all Five Arts of Chinese metaphysics. His other contributions include:
Binary Hexagram Ordering
Shao Yong's arrangement of the 64 hexagrams in binary order (000000 to 111111) anticipated Leibniz's binary arithmetic by six centuries. When Leibniz encountered this sequence through Jesuit missionaries, he recognized it as a binary number system.
Cosmological Calendar
The Imperial World-Encompassing Classic maps the cycles of history through a system of "yuan" (eras), "hui" (cycles), "yun" (periods), and "shi" (generations) — a grand framework connecting cosmic time to human events.
Earlier Heaven Sequence
Shao Yong's interpretation and elaboration of Fu Xi's Earlier Heaven arrangement of the eight trigrams, which he saw as expressing the cosmological order of creation, as opposed to King Wen's Later Heaven sequence expressing the order of the manifested world.
Poetry & Contemplation
Shao Yong was also a celebrated poet. His collection Beating the Earth (击壤集) contains poems of philosophical reflection, nature observation, and quiet joy — embodying the same awareness that made his divination method so powerful.
Next: The Methods
Now that you know the history, learn how to derive hexagrams using the four principal methods of Plum Blossom Numerology.
Explore the Methods