According to chinese calendar system, the Ten Celestial Stems (Shi Tiangan 十天干) are connected with the Five Elements or Phases (wuxing 五行) and their corresponding colors (see below picture)



Qin dynasty chose water as their element and black as their imperial color. That's why you will see that most of the Qin costumes (Emperor's cloths, Soldier's Clothings) and army flags are in black.

Han dynasty chose fire as their element and red as their imperial color. That's why you will see many of the han costumes (Soldier's clothings) and army flags are red.

Four of these colors and elements are likewise connected to the four seasons:

wood and green - the spring
fire and red - the summer
earth and yellow - the autumn
water and black - the winter

What are the elements (xing 行) and imperial colors of other dynasties? Are there any special reasons why they choose their elements and colors?

I don't think Qing has any uniform color. Look at their colorful hat and gowns. They have Ba Qi, every Qi has different color patterns. So gothic.

BTW, did Qin choose water because they originated in the west?

You should probably exchange the color green for blue. Blue is an original colour, while green is a combination taht Confucius eschews.

Qing has chosen black(water) initially, distancing from the Jurchen's white(metal) and conquering Ming's red(fire). But while sacrificing for ancestors, Qing emperors usually wear blue (wood) rather than the red and black worn by most dynasties more loyally following Huaxia rituals.

The yellow(earth) color for the emperor's everyday use started in the Xianbei Sui dynasty and was kept in most subsequent dynasties. Tang's Li Shi-Min (Tai Zong) is usually pictured wearing everyday attire in yellow. He is famous for comparing the people to water. Maybe his adherence to yellow (earth) is an attempt to enforce control over the people, since earth conquers water.

On the early ROC "five color flag":
Red -- Han
Yellow --- Manchu
Blue --- Mongol
White --- Muslims in general
Black --- Southwestern tribes including the Lolo

How did these colors come to represent what they are?
I'm just used to blue being water, green being wood/plants

so why was black picked for water, and blue for wood?

Quite hard to explain why the arbitrary association.

I recommend that you get an English translation of Sima Qian's "Shi Ji" (Record of the Historian), go to the part explaining the whole elements system.

Yes, there are specific reasons. Much of this has to do with the branch of Chinese philosophy often called the "School of the Yin and Yang" or the "Scholastics" in English. There is a great body of Chinese philosophy devoted to esoteric correspondences between colors, elements, stars and planets, dynasties, and much more, and I honestly don't know a lot of the details. However, one source is the excellent English-language introduction to classical Chinese philosophy, Graham's Disputers of the Tao. There's also a very brief overview of this school in Gernet's History of Chinese Civilization (the chapter on Han culture).

I believe the Sung dynasty's element was fire and their color was red. I'm not 100% sure though.

The element-colour system was quite complex, because each new dynasty had to take the colour that would succeed the previous dynasty's one in the cycle. In the Western Han, the Conquest Cycle (Xiangke) was used, in which earth (yellow) overcomes wood (blue), which overcomes metal (white), followed by fire (red) and water (black) and then earth again. Hence the sequence was:

Huangdi (Earth, yellow)
Xia (Wood, blue)
Shang (Metal, white)
Zhou (Fire, red)
Qin (Water, black)
Western Han (Earth, yellow) - however, Liu Bang is said to have personally preferred red, and had to be dissuaded from using red by his advisors.

However, Wang Mang reformulated this cycle into the Generation Cycle (Xiangsheng), in which Earth creates Metal, Metal creates Water, Water creates Wood, and Wood creates Earth. This was done so that he could identify himself with Yellow (earth), since he claimed to be a descendant of Huangdi. The sequence then became:

Huangdi (Earth, yellow)
Xia (Metal, white)
Shang (Water, black)
Zhou (Wood, blue)
[Qin not counted because Wang Mang considered it to be evil]
Western Han (Fire, red)
Xin (Earth, Yellow)

Liu Xiu, after founding the Eastern Han, adopted Wang Mang's system and also had prophecies produced identifying himself with fire, showing that he was the legitimate Han emperor. The sequence from then on was:

Eastern Han (Fire, red)
Cao-Wei (Earth, yellow)
Jin (Metal, white) - but for some reason its ruling house preferred red
Later Zhao, Liu-Song and Northern Wei after 492 (Water, black)
Southern Qi and Northern Qi (Wood, blue)
Liang and Sui (Fire, red)
Tang (Earth, Yellow)

By the Age of Fragmentation, the system was breaking down because of the proliferation of states and short-lived dynasties. For example, the Northern Zhou are said to have used black even though they should have succeeded Northern Wei as Wood (blue). The Chen dynasty is also said to have used blue despite succeeding Liang (red) - they should have used yellow. [This information comes from Liu Yonghua's Ancient Chinese Armour book] Furthermore, armies were no longer sticking to the colours of their dynasty, and were basing the colours of their armour and clothing more on fashion. Red and white were popular colours for soldiers throughout the Age of Fragmentation, regardless of the colour of the dynasty. We are also not clear about what colours the various northern Fragmentation states (other than Later Zhao) actually used.

The Northern Wei is an interesting case. They originally took yellow as their colour in 398 because they claimed to be descended from Huangdi. But in 491-492 there was a debate between two Wei ministers, Gao Lu and Li Biao, whether yellow or black should be the right colour.

Gao Lu said that the sequence from the Western Jin onwards should be:

Western Jin (Metal, white)
Later Zhao (Water, black)
Former Yan (Wood, blue)
Former Qin (Fire, red)
Northern Wei (Earth, yellow)

But Li Biao argued that all the states after Western Jin were not legitimate, and therefore Northern Wei should succceed Western Jin as Water (black). 12 other senior ministers supported Li Biao's argument, and the colour of the Northern Wei was changed from yellow to black in 492.

After the Tang dynasty, the element-colour system seems to have been abandoned. Officials were then classified or ranked according to the colour of their robes, rather than all wearing the colour of the dynasty.

Didn't Tang just basically adopted the Sui imperial system and dress code, which makes the golden yellow the imperial color?

As far as I know, Imperial Yellow was a Tang development. The Sui used red as their official colour, as the Sui Shu says.

Blackness probably refers to the darkness of deep oceans.

Blue for wood -- I think the greenness of trees have a hint of blue. Also, I think the ancient blue is not exactly the same as ours, and there are many forms of blueness. I think the blue for ancient Chinese is sky blue. (Is the hint of blue in tree's greeneness a hint of sky blue? I'm not sure.)

I've explained this before, a long time ago: in ancient Chinese, 'qing' could mean both light blue or light green - the most accurate word for it would be azure.

In the Smithsonian, I think they call it cerulean. Azure to me is still blue

Yes. Do the Chinese have seperate words for green and blue? Interestingly, the Maya also did not distinguish between green and blue.

I have a hard time distinguishing them sometimes (my sight is kinda wierd, one eye will see more blue, the other more green). Those colors are also fairly similiar to each other, so it's not suprising.
There's been wierder things.

Dark blue is known as 'lan 蓝' in Chinese, and dark green is known as 'lu 绿'.

It may not be just your eyesight. I seem to recall a physiological study that showed the reticular cones are slightly different for Asian populations, thus the differention of these particular shades is muted.

Interestingly, the Chinese character Qing (green in modern Chinese) means blue in Japanese and possibly in Korean (as evidenced in the name of their presidential structure, Qing Wa Tan).

Anyone familiar with the Chinese phrase 'qingtian' 青天, meaning 'blue sky'? When Centrist recently complained about some Chinese as being deluded about history in a way similar to believing the sky was green ("Green-sky believers" was his term), I could not help thinking of this.

How about Qing Tian Da Lao Ye such as Bao Gong? The impartial official. lol, how ironic?

I have just read an article dealing with this question. According to the sources:

Liu Yuan's Xiongnu Han state used red/fire, since it claimed to be a continuation of the Han.

Liu Yao changed the state's name to Zhao and positioned it as a successor to Western Jin (white/metal) - hence his colour was black/water.

Shi Le's rival Zhao state (Later Zhao) also used black/water.

Former Yan initially used black/water in the 350s, since it positioned itself as the successor to Western Jin and dismissed the two Zhaos as illegitimate. In the mid-360s, it changed to blue/wood, recognizing Later Zhao's legitimacy.

Former Qin also recognized Later Zhao's legitimacy (probably before Former Yan did) and used blue/wood.

Later Qin saw itself as a successor to Former Qin, and used red/fire.

Because water coming from China is indeed black color, check out waters from Heilongjiang River -China main source of water supply.

Actually, each elements has more than one colors represting them.

Like Red & Violet for Fire
Green & Blue for Wood
Yellow & Brown for Earth

I can't remember the rest at this point....>_<

Interesting! Sorry for the necro-posting, but I just found this thread via Google. Now, what might have been the situation for the individual states that were contemporaries of the Zhou during the ChunQiu and ZhanGuo periods, e.g. Qi, Yan, Wu, Chu, Yue, etc.?


WuZhuiQiu

I was going to ask a question about this very subject before I found this thread, but now that I've found this thread, I still have a few questions:

1) In the 2003 wuxia series Tian Long Ba Bu, set during the Song dynasty, the soldiers of the Liao are depicted as wearing yellow, the Xixia as blue (more indigo than light blue), and the Song as either red or orange, if I remember correctly. Are these colors attested in the historical record?

2) It seems to me that, using this system, two states claiming to be the legitimate successor to the previous state would both use the same color for the uniforms of their soldiers. I had assumed these colors were used primarily for the purpose of identifying friend from foe, but if two opposing states used the same color, wouldn't that purpose be defeated? Was perceived legitimacy regarded as more important than easy identification on the basis of color?

3) What colors were used by Ran Min's Wei state, and by the states of Later, Western, Southern, and Northern Yan? (I'll accept speculation if there's no direct evidence.)

青 qīng [1] blue; green;darkgray, black [2] green grass [3] not ripe [4] young; youth; youthful [5] the skin of bamboo [6] correct form of &#xthe white of an egg[i]{Ha Ha I wonder if this is where a mistranslation came up with "green eggs and ham" ?[/i] [7] short for Tsinghai province or Tsingtao [8] a Chinese family name [9] Kangxi radical 174

The idea of blue and green not being separated as two different colors was hard for me to accept at first, but being an artist, I understand that there is very little difference between some of the varying shades of blue as it turns to green.
what was more difficult was the idea that either green or blue could be also concidered black. Until I began to think about how sometimes black will give off a blue shine. There are some blues and greens like the deep forest green that can look black unless contrasted by a true black right next to it.

The book I have shows that what now is written like moon was at one time written like jing / well indicating the color of the water in a deep well, and the growth of new green sprouts from around the well.
look at the last character shown( bronze character b07735 ) and you will see the jing character in the original writing of qing.
http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterA...tton1=Etymology

There is evidence that Song identified itself with the Fire phase (i.e. red), but this does not seem to have been reflected in a standard colour for military uniforms.

We have no information for the phase used by Liao and Western Xia, if there was any.



The problem here is that we do not have any real proof that the uniforms of ancient Chinese armies were ever actually determined by the five phases system. For example, the armour and uniforms of the Qin terracotta soldiers were clearly multi-coloured rather than black, and while the uniforms of Han terracotta soldiers are often red or orange, there are other uniform colours too, such as green. By the Age of Fragmentation, uniform colours were very obviously no longer constrained by five phases requirements, and this is true of the Sui and Tang as well. Surviving textual descriptions or artistic representations of Liao, Song, and Western Xia uniforms show that these were coloured differently according to unit and rank, and not standardized according to the phase representing the regime.

That is not to say that flags and ceremonial court dress would not still reflect the colour of a regime. However we have no visual evidence to prove this either way - only evidence from written records.



Ran Min's colour is not known, but since Later Zhao used the colour black, it makes sense that he would use blue.

Which colour Later Yan and Western Yan used would depend on whether they accepted Former Qin as legitimate. If they did, they would use red rather than reverting to the Former Yan colour of blue. Southern Yan saw itself as a continuation of Later Yan, so it would not have changed its colour. Northern Yan would use yellow if Later Yan used red.

I've read that the Navajo language does not distinguish between blue and green, but uses the same word for both. I think the Chinese language is a different case, though. I looked up the character 綠 on that very useful site you linked to, and it appears it's been around since the oracle bone days. I'm not entirely certain that it meant "green" back then, but it seems to have been the case. On the other hand, 藍 is a bit more recent, and no doubt originally referred to the indigo plant, rather than the color. Nevertheless, it seems Chinese has long had at least two words that could be translated as "green", unlike (supposedly) the Navajo language. And English has words like "turquoise" and "aquamarine" that could be used to describe the sea or the sky, although they are never used to describe green vegetables or black cloth.

But there's really no reason to expect a one-to-one correspondence between color names in any two languages. Even in English, if you go back far enough, you'll find that the classification of colors used to be quite a bit different from what it is today. Many color names commonly used in contemporary English were borrowed from other languages, and it seems people in some industries are compelled to invent new colors (usually with compound names, though) all the time.



I had suspected that the uniform colors for the different states were for the benefit of a modern audience, but I wasn't entirely certain of that, which is why I my interest was piqued when I found this thread.



I assume a Chinese state's color was more than just an abstract symbol. You say the written evidence indicates it was probably used in flags and ceremonial court dress. Are there other areas where it was recorded to have been used?



Thanks for the information, Yun. I think I have it all figured out now (at least, for Yan and their neighbors):

Jin - white (but its ruling house preferred red)
Han - red (claiming to be a continuation of the original Han state)
Former Zhao - black (claiming to be the successor to Western Jin)
Later Zhao - black (claiming to be the successor to Western Jin)
Former Yan - black (claiming to be the successor to Western Jin) until the mid-360s, then blue (claiming to be the successor to Later Zhao)
(Ran) Wei - probably blue (claiming to be the successor to Later Zhao)
Former Qin - blue (claiming to be the successor to Later Zhao)
Later Qin - red (claiming to be the successor to Former Qin)
Western Yan - either blue (claiming to be a continuation of Former Yan) or red (claiming to be the successor to Former Qin)
Later Yan - either blue (claiming to be a continuation of Former Yan) or red (claiming to be the successor to Former Qin)
Southern Yan - either blue or red (claiming to be a continuation of Later Yan)
Northern Yan - either red or yellow (claiming to be the successor to Later Yan)

Do you suppose the possible red color of either Later or Northern Yan (or even Later Qin) would have influenced Northern Wei's initial decision to use yellow as its color, apart from the supposed connection to Huangdi?

I have some questions about uniform colors as well, but since those didn't depend on regime colors (at least in the Age of Fragmentation), perhaps I should start a thread on that somewhere else, if one doesn't exist already. (I notice there's already a thread on uniform colors, but it seems focused on the terra cotta soldiers.)

Contrary to my earlier post in 2005, I now suspect that the claim of descent from Huangdi did not even exist in 398, and was only taken up later, perhaps around 491 - when it is first raised by Gao Lu as a reason why Northern Wei should stick to Earth as its phase. The Monograph on Ritual in the Wei Shu says that in 398 "all the ministers recommended Earth as the phase because the state was an heir of Huangdi", but this argument is not mentioned in the reign chronicle for Tuoba Gui (where Cui Hong simply recommends Earth as the phase without any stated reason), and may be an embellishment by the Northern Wei official historians of the 490s. My reason for suspecting so is that the idea of descent from Huangdi plays no known role in any of Northern Wei's ideological competition for legitimacy with other regimes for nearly a century after 398.

The 491-492 debate is our only source of information on Northern Wei thinking on the five phases cycle. Gao Lu's argument was that Former Qin's real colour was red (Fire), since it was really a successor to Former Yan rather than to Later Zhao. Northern Wei was a successor to Former Qin, whereas Later Yan, Later Qin, and Western Yan were all illegitimate. Therefore Northern Wei's colour should be yellow. This is quite likely to have been the position held by the Northern Wei court since 398, without Huangdi being originally a part of the reasoning.

Gao Lu's argument was countered by Li Biao, who more radically asserted that the Tuoba chieftain had already received the Western Jin's Mandate in 316, and therefore all the other past and present successor states in north China and south China were equally illegitimate. As the successor of Western Jin, Northern Wei's colour was naturaly black (Water).

I understand about the dynastic colour being used for uniforms and flags, but how was it used for the flags? I assume it was used for the field, i.e. the background colour. But what else appeared on the flag? I assume it was a dragon, but was this always so, and did the dragon always look the same?

Actually, Chinese empires had no state flag until the late 19th century, when the example of the European and American powers led the Qing empire to adopt as its state flag a blue dragon and red sun on a yellow field. As for military standards, we have few surviving examples, but they seem to have varied from unit to unit. There were also coloured flags used by armies for signalling on the battlefield.

I am clearly a little confused. in your post #26 you mentioned flags, but I assume you were referring to military standards.

That all makes sense, because national flags took quite a while to come into existence in Europe as well.

That being the case, forgive what is perhaps an ignorant question. I assume the emperor had a personal standard to denote his position on the battlefield, or to signify when he was travelling on the road with a body of troops, or some other escort. Is this so? If so, what did the emperor's personal standard look like? That is what I am really interested in.

Many thanks,

William

That is indeed an interesting question. In the Cao-Wei empire of the Three Kingdoms, there were five imperial standards, each bearing one of the five cosmological beasts: the White Tiger of the west, the Blue Dragon of the east, the Vermillion Bird of the south, the Black Tortoise-snake of the north, and the Yellow Dragon of the center. But the subsequent Jin empire retained only the White Tiger standard, and used it to represent the emperor's authority over the army. Whoever carried a White Tiger standard was exercising direct military authority given by the emperor. This usage continued to the end of the Sui empire, and was apparently abandoned by the Tang because of the taboo on the word for 'tiger' (hu) due to it being the given name of the first Tang emperor's grandfather Li Hu.

The Jin empire had another very important imperial standard: the Zouyu 驺虞 standard. The Zouyu was a mythical tiger-like beast (inspired by a poem in the Classic of Poetry) that was absolutely peace-loving and never harmed or ate any living thing - some modern interpreters mistakenly identify it as the giant panda. So the Zouyu standard was used to convey the emperor's order to cease hostilities. Upon seeing it, all soldiers were required to lay down their arms.

I do not know of any later equivalents of the White Tiger and Zouyu standards - perhaps someone else here does?

Illuminating as usual.

You wouldn't happen to have any references I could follow up, would you?

Nothing in English. Would you like anything in Chinese?

Sure...if I could read it!

Thanks heaps anyway.

William

Hello everyone,

I wanted to point out that the Han color was not always Red and its "phase" not always Fire. In the early Han, Gaozu (Liu Bang) decided that the color of Han would be Black and its phase Water (yes, just like the Qin!). A few reformers under Wendi (r. 179-157) suggested he adopt the color Yellow and the phase Earth (because Earth conquers Water), but Wendi gave up the reforms after he realized that one of his courtiers had tricked him into beliving in celestial omens (one too many, actually). I posted all my evidence for these claims here.

As far as I know, Han Wudi was the one who officially adopted the color yellow and the phase Earth as representing the Han. Could it be that Red/Fire became the color/phase of Han only after the Wang Mang usurpation? Any thought?

One of the things that influenced some people to think early Han used red, I suspect, may have been the Shiji's description of Han Xin's victory over Zhao (204 BC?), when the portion of the Han army that manoeuvred into the Zhao rear all carried red flags. But according to your suggestions in the other thread, this might actually have been before Liu Bang had definitely decided on black.

Of course, the official name of the Western Xia state in their own Tangut language was "Great State of White and High". So they may have favoured white flags and emblems, even if they did so for reasons totally unconnected with the phase system.

See http://tinyurl.com/4ft858

cheers,
Duncan

haha.
I think red is most suitable for Ming Dynasty.
It's important the family name of Ming is Zhu, that meaning Bright Red.

But, if we arrange these colors for all dynasties, we'll find it's too hard, and confused.
We do that by Wood->Fire>Earth>Metal>Water?
Or Wood->Earth->Water->Fire->Metal?

The Discovery channel show "How It's Made" stated the original makers of the typical wooden pencil used Chinese graphite at one time. They colored it yellow in honor of the Chinese color of royalty. The color stuck. Though neat, I am not sure how accurate the info is.

There has been some renewed discussion of this issue among scholars in recent years. Basically, the earliest record of the change from Yellow/Earth (which you correctly point out was first adopted under Han Wudi) to Red/Fire occurs in the reign of Han Chengdi, where it's said that Liu Xiang and Liu Xin reworked the Five Phases cycle from the conquest cycle to the birth cycle and started it from Fuxi (whom they identified with Blue/Wood) instead of Huangdi. The new cycle led to Han as Red/Fire; at least in the final version developed by Liu Xin, it also omitted Qin from the cycle and identified the previous occupant of the Red/Fire phase as the sage-king Yao. This last point is significant because there was a growing belief at this time that the Han imperial clan was descended from Yao (this belief took two passages from the Zuozhuan as evidence), and this belief would eventually be manipulated by Wang Mang (with Liu Xin's support) to claim that like Yao abdicating to Shun, the Han emperor should now abdicate to a worthy descendant of Shun (which Wang Mang just happened to claim to be).

Now, I could get into the various theories made both in the past and recently about whether it was Liu Xiang and Liu Xin together who invented the new cycle, or whether it was Liu Xin alone, or whether Liu Xiang first invented one version of the new cycle but Liu Xin then modified it, or whether the new cycle had already been invented before them; or about where the ideas that Han was Red/Fire and descended from Yao came from and when they appeared, and whether they appeared together or were later merged into one. But that would make things really complicated. So the simple answer is: Red/Fire seems to have become the Han phase before Wang Mang's usurpation, but not that long before.

Thanks for the detailed answer. Now if you have time, could you point me to a good study of this problem? Thanks in advance!

Madalibi

The best single monograph I have seen on this topic - though some of its arguments are debatable - is a recent book by Yang Quan 杨权：

《新五德理论与两汉政治－“尧后火德”说考论》（中华书局，2006）

The book is based on Yang's doctoral dissertation, written at Zhongshan University from 1998 to 2005.