Re-examination and Judgment of the Leap Month in the Ninth Year of Tiansheng
In the early part of the leap ninth month of the Xinwei year, the ninth year of Tiansheng, Commander Li's household was robbed — gold and silver valuables were stolen from a hall in the back garden. On a Xinsi day, Yuan Zhen was invited to divine about it, with the Mao officer and Wei hour.
Qing · Gou · He · Zhu
Chou · Yin · Mao · Chen Xuan · Qing · Gou · Gui Official Ghost · Ren-Wu Gui
Kong-Zi Si-Teng You · Chou · Yin · Wu Wife/Wealth · Wu-Yin Gou
Hu-Hai Wu-Gui Chou · Si · Wu · Xin Parents · Jia-Xu Chang
Xu · You · Shen · Wei
Chang · Xuan · Yin · Hou
Yuan Zhen judged: The thieves are five; one should be a woman around fifty years of age, formerly a servant girl, with an ailment in one eye, living among graves fifty li northeast of the outskirts — arrest them according to this and none will escape capture. Li again requested a divination. Yuan Zhen said: There is no need to divine again — one can only infer from the previous lesson. On a Bingding day, order the constables to exit the east gate and turn north to wait; two women in crimson clothes carrying firewood will come — question them and you will surely get the trail of the thieves. As predicted, on the Ding day the constables waited until noon; sure enough, two women in red skirts came carrying firewood. When the constables approached, the women panicked and tried to flee. They were seized and searched; gold and silver hairpins and bracelets were found on them. Upon close questioning, they said the neighboring woman was formerly an old servant girl of Commander Li's household; recently, due to poverty, she and her husband and son — five people in all — went to Li's house to commit theft. The two women were discovered, and so hairpins and bracelets were distributed to them. The constables then escorted the two women fifty li northeast, behind the tomb of Chancellor Su, where they apprehended the actual thieves with the real loot. The woman indeed had an eye ailment.
Detailed examination of 1031, that is, the ninth year of Tiansheng — the solar-term transitions according to the Julian calendar are as follows:
September 19, 1031, 19:39
October 19, 1031, 08:33
November 17, 1031, 20:52
However, the Minor Snow solar term:
November 17, 1031, 04:09
This falls between October 19, 1031, 08:33 and November 17, 1031, 20:52.
And September 19, 1031, 19:39 belongs to the ninth lunar month.
Because the Minor Snow solar term is earlier than the Chinese lunar month's new-moon time, if we distinguish according to the fixed-qi method: although the zhongqi of the 17th is earlier, yet because it is the same day as the first day of the month, the 17th's zhongqi should be attributed to the following month. Thus we can hold that from October 19 to before November 17 of that year there is no zhongqi in between — so a leap ninth month can be established beginning October 19, 1031.
Taking this into account, the so-called "leap ninth month, early part, Xinsi day" is actually October 25 on the Julian calendar; and it can be inferred that the original case was in fact on the seventh day of the tenth month of the ninth year of Tiansheng, the Xinsi day.
It should be noted that in the Song dynasty, solar terms used the equal-qi method; under the equal-qi method, the Minor Snow solar term was not on November 17, so no leap month occurred here — which is why the Song History has no record of a leap ninth month in the ninth year of Tiansheng.
Moreover, China officially adopted the fixed-qi method in the late Ming Chongzhen Calendar. This shows that this case must have been compiled after the late Ming, or possibly even compiled by people in the Qing dynasty; the dates left behind in the existing cases may not be sufficiently clear, so someone must have used the fixed-qi method to re-derive the original dates.