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Huangdi Neijing · The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon
Suwen 58 · Qi Sites
Read in English. Switch to Original for word notes, or select text to ask a question.
The Yellow Emperor asked: “I have heard of three hundred sixty-five qi sites corresponding to a year. I do not know where they are and wish to hear the full account.”
Qi Bo bowed twice and touched his head to the ground: “How demanding the question! Who but a sage emperor could exhaust its Way? Allow me to unfold my intention and speak fully of their places.”
The Emperor held his hands together, withdrew respectfully and said: “You open the Way for me. My eyes have not yet seen the places and my ears have not heard the numbers, yet already my eyes are clear and ears keen.”
Qi Bo said: “This is what is meant by a sage being easy to instruct and a fine horse easy to guide.”
The Emperor said: “I am no sage easy to instruct. People say true numbers open understanding. I now ask after true numbers to dispel obscurity and resolve doubt, but am not yet fit to discourse on them. Still, I wish you to unfold your intent and explain their places fully so I understand. I shall store this in the Golden Chest and dare not bring it out again.”
Qi Bo bowed twice, rose and said: “I shall explain. When back and Heart pull painfully toward one another, treatment is at Tiantu, the tenth vertebra and the upper boundary. The upper boundary is the Stomach cavity; the lower boundary is Guanyuan. Harmful influence binds back and chest, yin and yang, left and right in this way.
Its illness causes front-and-back pain and roughness, chest and flank pain preventing breath or lying down, upward qi, shortness of qi and one-sided pain. The full vessel rises obliquely from the buttock vessel, networks through chest and flanks, supports Heart and passes through the diaphragm, rises over the shoulder to Tiantu, then descends obliquely across the shoulder to below the tenth vertebra.”
Zang transport sites: fifty. Fu transport sites: seventy-two. Heat transport sites: fifty-nine. Water transport sites: fifty-seven. Five rows on the head, five in each: five times five, twenty-five. Along both sides of the center, five each: ten. Above the great vertebra, one on each side: two. The eye’s pupil/Fubai sites: two. Within the divided hollows of the two hips: two. Dubi: two. Within the ears, where much is heard: two. Brow roots: two. Wangu: two. Center of the crown: one. Occipital bone: two.
Shangguan: two. Daying: two. Xiaguan: two. Tianzhu: two. Upper and lower Juxu/Xialian sites: four. Quya: two. Tiantu: one. Tianfu: two. Tianyou: two. Futu: two. Tianchuang: two. Shoulder divisions: two. Guanyuan: one. Weiyang: two. Jianzhen: two. Yinmen: one. Navel: one.
Chest transport sites: twelve. Back transport sites: two. Breast transport sites: twelve. Flesh divisions: two. Transverse sites above the ankles: two. Yin and yang qiao sites: four. Water transport sites lie in the various divisions; heat transport sites among the qi sites. Cold-and-heat transport sites lie within the two bone hollows: two. The great prohibitions number twenty-five, five cun below Tianfu.
In all, three hundred sixty-five sites: the routes by which needles proceed.
Reading note: The source’s names, group counts, repeated regions and declared total are preserved, without recalculating the list into a standardized modern catalog. Qiao names the historical heel vessels, not a single modern point.
The Emperor said: “I now know the qi sites and where needles travel. Do the fine networks and small and great valleys also have correspondences? I wish to hear them.”
Qi Bo said: “The fine networks have three hundred sixty-five site meetings, likewise corresponding to a year. They discharge extraordinary harmful influences and free nutritive and defensive qi. When these are delayed, defensive qi scatters and nutritive qi overflows; qi is exhausted and blood lodges. Outside this produces heat; inside scant qi. Drain swiftly without delay to free nutritive and defensive qi. Drain when the visible signs appear, without needing to ask at which meeting they occur.”
The Emperor said: “Good. I wish to hear about the meetings of the small and great valleys.”
Qi Bo said: “Great meetings of flesh are valleys, gu; small meetings are streams, xi. Between the divisions of flesh, their meetings conduct nutritive and defensive qi and gather the great qi.
Overflowing harmful influence and obstructed qi heat the vessels and damage flesh. Nutritive and defensive qi fail to move; pus must form, consuming bone marrow inside and breaking the great knee hollow outside. Lingering at joint interstices necessarily brings deterioration.
Accumulated cold lodges there, and nutritive and defensive qi do not remain. Flesh curls and sinews contract; ribs and elbows cannot extend. Inside there is bone obstruction; outside numbness. This is called insufficiency: great cold remains in the streams and valleys.
Their three hundred sixty-five site meetings likewise correspond to a year. Slight obstruction spreading and overflowing moves back and forth along the vessels. Where fine needles reach, the same method applies.”
The Emperor dismissed the attendants, rose and bowed twice: “Today obscurity is dispelled and doubt resolved. I shall store it in the Golden Chest and dare not bring it out again.” He stored it in the chamber of Golden Orchid and labeled it Locations of the Qi Sites.
Qi Bo said: “Fine network vessels branching from the channels, whose abundant blood should be drained, also number three hundred sixty-five. All pour into networks and transmit into the twelve network vessels, not only the fourteen networks. Ten vessels release and drain within the center.”
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