The Nine Palaces divide the celestial palace into Qian Palace, Kan Palace, Gen Palace, Zhen Palace, Zhong (Central) Palace, Xun Palace, Li Palace, Kun Palace, and Dui Palace. Among them, Qian, Kan, Gen, and Zhen belong to the four yang palaces; Xun, Li, Kun, and Dui belong to the four yin palaces. Together with the Zhong Palace, they form the Nine Palaces.
In Qimen Dunjia, the Nine Palaces represent the earth, the great land, serving as the foundation of Qimen Dunjia and remaining immovable. Qimen Dunjia consists of four plates: heaven, earth, human, and deity. Among the four plates, only the earth plate is immovable, acting as the "sitting mountain."
Xu Yue of the Han Dynasty wrote in Shushu Jiyi (Records of Forgotten Mathematical Arts): "The Nine Palaces calculation, with parameters of the Five Elements, is like a cycle." Zhen Luan of the Northern Zhou Dynasty annotated: "The Nine Palaces are arranged such that two and four are the shoulders, six and eight are the feet, three is on the left and seven on the right, nine is on the top and one at the bottom, with five in the center."
The "Nine Palaces" method was applied in multiple fields. During the Han Dynasty, there were applications in divination, techniques, calculation, medicine, divination and apocrypha, construction, etc., such as "Nine Palaces divination," "Nine Palaces techniques," "Nine Palaces calculation," "Nine Palaces and eight winds," "Taiyi traveling through the Nine Palaces," and "Taiyi altar."
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