Ministers need to wear court uniforms after entering the court to show respect for the imperial power. In Chinese history, the official uniforms of many dynasties were of many colors. Some people even described the official uniforms of some dynasty officials as The flowers are red and the willows are green. It can be seen that at that time, the clothes worn by officials when they went to court were determined according to their grades. In this way, the grade of the officials could be distinguished by combining different colors. But after the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, the court uniforms of Qing Dynasty officials were all azurite. What's going on?
In fact, in different historical periods, when determining the color of court clothes, not only the factor of aesthetics will be taken into consideration, but also the five elements will be combined.
Because in traditional Chinese culture, the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth are integrated in different fields. For example, Feng Shui pays great attention to these. Secondly, when formulating some customs, you can also notice that the five elements are included in them. important role played.
Before the Qing Dynasty, there was the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty determined the color of officials' court uniforms based on their grades. For example, the court uniforms worn by officials from the first to fourth grades were all crimson, while those from the fifth grade were in crimson. The court uniforms worn by rank officials to the eighth rank are all cyan. In addition, there were blessing officials in the Ming Dynasty. These officials wore red court uniforms when they went to court every day, which expressed happiness and also contained the vision for the beautiful development of the Ming Dynasty. So it can be imagined that at that time, officials in the Ming Dynasty would show a colorful scene when they went to court every day. However, after the Qing Dynasty, officials all wore azure court uniforms to go to court.
Before the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, that is, during the post-Jin regime, Nurhachi did not have any deliberate requirements for clothing. This meant that officials and concubines could dress and serve according to their own preferences. But after Huang Taiji ascended the throne, he wanted to make the Jin Kingdom develop better and dominate the Central Plains. To do this, he needed to learn from the culture of various dynasties in the Central Plains and lay the foundation for the Jin Kingdom. Later Huang Taiji also changed the Kingdom of Jin to the Qing Dynasty. In fact, this change was related to the Five Elements. The five elements of the Ming Dynasty belong to fire. If the Jin Dynasty continued to use the word gold, then it would be guilty of the saying that fire overcomes metal. However, the five elements of the Qing Dynasty belong to water, which means that water extinguishes fire. The meaning of the Qing Dynasty destroying the Ming Dynasty is very obvious.
So the color of the court uniforms of officials in the Qing Dynasty also had this meaning. Later, after the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, the colors of the official court uniforms were mainly blue or black. However, when Kangxi ascended the throne, the colors of the court uniforms of officials had not yet formed unified regulations. Although they were mainly blue and black, the colors were still relatively messy. Even Kangxi himself mostly wore blue to serve.
After Emperor Qianlong ascended the throne, he began to regulate the court uniforms. From then on, the color of official court uniforms was unified into azure.