Guo Pu: The Founding Father of Feng Shui Who Calculated His Own Life into an Eternal Legend

When it comes to Guo Pu, many people’s first thought is "the founder of feng shui". But what you may not know is that this man was not only skilled at choosing burial sites for the dead and predicting prospects for the living — he even calculated his own date of death with perfect clarity. What’s more, he faced death calmly, a bearing that ordinary sorcerers could never match.

Guo Pu lived in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, an era when everyone from the emperor to common people was obsessed with the *I Ching* (Book of Changes). *A New Account of the Tales of the World* records many amusing stories about him, the most interesting of which is the anecdote of the "Dragon Ear Tomb".

At that time, Emperor Ming of Jin was also a feng shui enthusiast. When he heard that Guo Pu had chosen a burial site for someone, curiosity got the better of him and he went to inspect the site in plain clothes. He panicked as soon as he saw it, grabbed the family members of the deceased and said: "Why did you bury the person on the dragon’s horn? This is a burial method that will bring destruction to the entire clan!"

The family members looked completely calm: "Mr. Guo said this is not a dragon’s horn, but a dragon’s ear. Within three years, it will attract the emperor to come and inquire."

Emperor Ming was stunned on the spot — so *he* was the emperor who had been drawn here? Guo Pu was truly operating on a whole other level.

If choosing tombs for others was impressive, choosing a burial site for his own mother was even more "reckless". He picked a low-lying area extremely close to the Yangtze River, and all his relatives and friends came to scold him: "Are you crazy? What if a flood washes the tomb away?" Guo Pu only replied slowly: "Don’t worry, this place will become dry land in the future."

Within a few years, the river changed its course and silt accumulated, turning the original waterside lowland into a thousand acres of fertile farmland. Guo Pu even wrote a poem specifically to show off: "The northern hills rise steeply, the great sea surges endlessly. Three graves stand side by side, holding only my mother and brother." In plain terms: Look at how good the place I chose is — my mother and brother’s graves are here, perfectly secure.

But the most remarkable thing about Guo Pu was his prediction of his own fate.

Later, he served as a military secretary under Wang Dun. When Wang Dun planned to rebel, he asked Guo Pu to cast a hexagram to see if it would succeed. Guo Pu said directly: "It will not succeed." Wang Dun then asked how long he would live, and Guo Pu answered even more bluntly: "If you, sir, raise an army, disaster will befall you soon. If you stay in Wuchang, your lifespan will be immeasurable." — If you start a rebellion, you’ll be finished quickly; if you stay honestly in Wuchang, you’ll live a long life.

Wang Dun would not listen. Enraged, he laughed instead: "Then calculate how long *you* will live?"

Guo Pu’s answer sent chills down the spines of everyone present: "My life will end at noon today."

Wang Dun did not stand on ceremony, and had him escorted to South Hill to be executed that same day. On the way, Guo Pu asked the executioners where they were going, and they said South Hill. He nodded: "It must be under two cypress trees." When they arrived, it was exactly as he said. He added that there was a large magpie nest in the tree. Everyone looked up for a long time but couldn’t find it; he told them to carefully part the branches and leaves, and sure enough, a nest was hidden there.

Even more mysterious is that he had said in his early years, "The one who kills me will be Shan Zong (Mountain Ancestor)". Later, it turned out that a man surnamed Chong had slandered him in front of Wang Dun, leading to his death — and the character "Chong" splits apart into "Shan" (mountain) and "Zong" (ancestor), after all.

Two months after Wang Dun raised his army, he was defeated and died of illness, just as Guo Pu had predicted.

Later generations say that the *Book of Burial* may not have been written by Guo Pu, but that does not prevent him from being revered as the grandmaster of feng shui. After all, this man lived his entire life mastering the *I Ching* to the point of "doing what he knew he could not" — he clearly knew that persuading Wang Dun would lead to his death, but he still did it; he clearly knew his own fate, but he still faced it calmly.

At the end of the day, what Guo Pu practiced in feng shui was geography, human nature, and the deduction of general trends. As for those fantastical stories, whether true or false, they have become footnotes to his legendary life.