In Traditional Chinese Medicine, Metal is yang within yin in character, its motion is going inwards and its energy is contracting.
In Chinese astrology, metal is included in the 10 heavenly stems (the five elements in their yin and yang forms), which combine with the 12 Earthly Branches (or Chinese signs of the zodiac), to form the 60-year cycle.
Metal governs the Chinese zodiac signs Monkey and Rooster.
In the conquest cycle, fire overcomes metal as love melts the coldest heart or "can only be melted and forged" by flame or heat; Metal adds minerals to wood for it to grow healthy and straight or overcomes wood as the metal axe is able to topple the tallest tree.
[2] However, the Cycle of Wu Xing also states that excessive volumes of wood may defeat small volumes of metal, Wood by excessively wanting to grow undermines its integrity and becomes a weed and not a tree or as an axe would be broken or dulled after trying to chop down a forest.