The five elements belong to fire and earth character.

The five elements are fire characters: stir-fry, ash, smoke, lamp, stir-fry, burn, can, charcoal, disaster, burn, cannon, flame, inflammation, stew, coal, dazzle, stove, roast, burn, dry, kang, moxibustion, candle, refining, extinguishing and annoying.

The Taoist theory of five elements was the earliest, aiming at describing the movement form and transformation relationship of things. The theory of five elements is an analogy theory in ancient China. It is not the five elements, but all things belong to five elements according to the nature of moistening, inflammation, straightness, culture and cultivation. It is different from the theory of earth, water, fire and wind in ancient western countries, and it is a theory that integrates philosophy, divination, fortune telling, calendar, traditional Chinese medicine and sociology.

The five elements mean that the ancients divided everything in the universe into five things: wood, fire, earth, gold and water, which are called "five elements". As early as "Shang Shu Hong Fan", it was recorded: "Five elements: water, fire, wood, gold and earth. Water is moist, fire is inflamed, wood is straight (curved and loose), gold is leather (dense and well divided), and soil is fertilizer (meaning sowing and harvesting).

Moisten the bottom to make it salty, make it bitter on the inflammation, make it sour on the straight, make it pungent on the leather and make it sweet on the crops. "Here, not only the universe is classified, but also the nature and characteristics of each category are defined. According to the understanding of the five elements, later generations established the theory of mutual generation and mutual resistance of the five elements, mainly based on the law of "mutual generation and mutual resistance of the five elements".

Mutual development refers to the relationship between two things with different attributes that help and promote each other; Specifically: wood fire, fire produces soil, native gold, gold produces water, aquatic wood.

Mutual restraint, on the contrary, means that the relationship between two things with different attributes of the five elements is restrained; Specifically: Mu, Tuke water, water, Huo, Jin Kemu.