7;ng</i> cycles between <span class="nowrap">y<sub>z</sub></span> and the <i>zh&#257;ng</i> cycle the year y was in. The variable k in equation (6) is the number of years between year y and the beginning of its <i>zh&#257;ng</i> cycle. It can also be written as k = mod(y - <span class="nowrap">y<sub>z</sub></span>, 19), where mod(X,Y) denotes the remainder of X divided by Y. The last two terms in equation (8) is the accumulated number of months between the first month of <span class="nowrap">y<sub>z</sub></