From Six Cun to Twenty-Two Zhang, Three Chi, Six Cun: How Qi Completes One Circuit

After establishing “six cun in one breath,” the Mirror Classic of Bian Que does not stop at a single respiratory cycle. It immediately accumulates the small scale upward.

The text says:

In ten breaths, the pulse moves fifty times and qi travels six chi. In twenty breaths, the pulse moves one hundred times and qi travels one zhang and two chi; this is one complete unit of qi.

This is a straightforward proportional extension. If a normal person has five pulse movements and six cun of qi travel per breath, ten breaths yield fifty movements and six chi; twenty breaths yield one hundred movements and one zhang two chi.

Building a longer time scale from one breath

The principle is simple but important: once the ratio of the smallest cycle is stable, repeated accumulation can describe a larger circuit.

The Mirror Classic calls twenty breaths “one complete unit of qi” and continues the accumulation through eighteen such units. It then states:

Ying and Wei qi travel one circuit around the body, twenty-two zhang, three chi, and six cun.

It also estimates the number of breaths and pulse movements required for one circuit.

The earlier six cun now takes on a new meaning. It is not merely the local distance of a single breath, but the elementary step in a whole-body circulation model.

Why is twenty-two zhang, three chi, six cun important?

The same number appears later in the Mirror Classic, but it is reached by a different route.

In “Kuidu,” the author starts from bodily geometry, adds the lengths of the six hand-yang, six hand-yin, six foot-yang, six foot-yin pathways and the Chong, Ren, Du, Qiao, Wei, and Dai vessels, and again obtains:

Altogether, twenty-two zhang, three chi, and six cun.

This creates an important internal closure:

Method A: start with six cun of qi travel per breath and accumulate over time to one full-body circuit.

Method B: start with the proportional lengths of the channel tunnels and sum them spatially to the whole-body total.

The two paths converge on the same overall scale.

One time axis and one spatial axis

This is one of the core features of the Mirror Classic.

If we have only channel length, we know space but not time. If we have only breathing and pulse, we know time but not space. The author attempts to bind the two together into a model of “how much channel distance qi traverses within how many breaths.”

This is also the prerequisite for the later role of lü: lü is not only a tone name, but an intermediary linking length, speed, and cycle.

Do not immediately equate this with modern circulation

The text does not say that “one circuit of Ying and Wei” is identical to one circuit of modern blood circulation. Directly replacing classical Ying, Wei, true qi, or pulse pathways with a single modern physiological variable would erase the book’s own layered model.

A safer reading is that the author establishes a whole-body model of “proceeding along pathways” and seeks to constrain it jointly through breathing and bone measure.

The most important point, therefore, is not memorizing twenty-two zhang, three chi, six cun. It is recognizing a method: small cycles can accumulate into large circuits, and local scales must cross-check whole-body scales.

The next article places this bodily circuit inside a full day and asks why the Mirror Classic must also discuss the twelve double-hours, one hundred ke, and fifty Ying circuits.