Hello everyone, I am learning from history.
South Korea, as China's close neighbor in Northeast Asia and a member of the Greater Chinese traditional cultural circle, should have maintained good relations with China, but in recent years, the reputation of China and South Korea in both sides of the people is not very good, because Koreans "borrow" Chinese culture for their own use, the traditional costumes of the Korean people as Hanbok, seize the translation of Chinese kimchi, etc., Chinese netizens even call South Korea "stealing the country".
Some netizens directly pointed out that the Chinese tai chi and gossip elements used on the Korean flag were also stolen. But at this point, I want to talk to you about it, the design of the Korean flag is really not stolen! Instead Chinese and the British helped the Koreans with their design ideas, and the Koreans adopted them.
In this issue, @Take History as a Lesson, let's talk about the origin of the Korean flag.
At the time of the Qing Dynasty, there was no Korea, and the eastern peninsula only had the vassal state of the Qing Dynasty, Korea.
At that time, neither the Qing Dynasty nor North Korea had the concept of a state or a national flag; in the eyes of the literati and officials at that time, the world was still a feudal dynasty with one family and one surname.
But soon, with the invasion of Western powers, both the Qing Dynasty and North Korea were forced to face this great change that had not been seen in a thousand years.
In 1862, because the British warship shelled our ship under the pretext that the Chinese ships did not fly the national flag, Zeng Guofan and Yi Bi discussed the use of the Yellow Dragon Flag to represent the Qing Dynasty Royal Family, but Zeng Guofan designed the Yellow Dragon Flag as a triangle in order to avoid suspicion.
Ten years later, in 1872, Beijing Premier Yamen sent a note to the world to determine the triangular flag of the Qing Dynasty, and the "Declaration" of December 3 at that time directly published a note: Beijing Premier Yamen sent a note to the officials of various Western countries, saying that the Qingguo new flag was shaped like a triangle, the color was yellow, the Chinese painting dragon, and the blue. At this time, the Yellow Dragon Flag is shaped like a triangle, the color is yellow, the middle painting dragon, and the blue color.
In 1888, when Li Hongzhang visited abroad, he found that all countries had national flags, but only the Qing court did not have a national flag, so he reported it to Cixi, who ordered Li Hongzhang to collect patterns.
After many solicitations and screenings, Li Hongzhang submitted to Cixi a variety of plans such as the Bagua Banner, the Yellow Dragon Banner, the Qilin Banner, and the Tiger and Leopard Banner, and finally decided to adopt Guo Songtao's opinion and use the Yellow Dragon Banner as the national flag of the Great Qing Dynasty.
Illustration: The Yellow Dragon Banner of the Qing Dynasty drawn by foreign countries
This is China's first true national flag.
At the same time, Korea on the eastern peninsula was also caught up in Japanese aggression.
In 1875, three Japanese warships led by the Yunyang bombarded Busan, and then invaded Ganghwa Island, the gateway to Seoul, and forced Korea to sign the unequal "Ganghwa Treaty" through gunboat diplomacy, opening the door to the country, known in Korean history as the "Yunyang Incident" and japan as the "Ganghwa Island Incident".
After North Korea was forced to open its doors, Japan began its colonial and encroaching policy.
Illustration: The Ganghwa Island incident drawn by Japan
After the Qing Dynasty had its own Yellow Dragon Banner, it also issued suggestions to the surrounding vassal states, suggesting that they follow the use of the Chinese Dragon Banner.
In September 1880, Huang Zunxian, counselor of the Qing Dynasty Embassy in Japan, met Kim Hongji, a Korean revisionist official who had come to Visit Japan, and Huang Zunxian gave him a copy of his own "Korean Strategy", which suggested that The future national policy of Korea was: "Pro-China, allied with Japan, and united with the United States, and jointly resisting the southward movement of Tsarist Russia", and also suggested that "the army and navy should be invited to attack the Chinese dragon flag as the national emblem."
Later, another diplomat, He Ruzhang, China's first minister to Japan, also discovered this problem, and he suggested that Li Hongzhang let North Korea use the Dragon Banner, but it should not be exactly the same, and clouds and so on should be added to show the difference. "If The DPRK has opened its port, it should order the other country to use the Chinese Dragon Flag, or around the clouds, show a subtle distinction, and worship the system."
At this time, under the interference of the Qing court, North Korea signed a second unequal treaty with the United States, the Treaty of Reconciliation and Commerce between the DPRK and the United States, and the Americans proposed to have the flags of both sides when signing the treaty.
North Korea originally intended to use the Triangular Yellow Dragon Flag of the Qing Court, but this proposal was directly rejected by the Qing Court, whose opinion was that Korea was a vassal state and could only use the four-clawed golden dragon representing the king of the clan, and had no right to use the yellow dragon flag of the five-clawed golden dragon.
Because the talks were imminent, the Koreans temporarily used a three-color taiji flag (the taiji flag was the king flag of the Lee dynasty at that time) to cope with the past, and Ma Jianzhong, a Chinese diplomat who participated in the negotiations at the time, recalled: "Yesterday Lee Yingjun sleeved to the flag style, which seemed to be mixed with Japan. ”
So Ma Jianzhong proposed that North Korea simply use the Yellow Dragon Banner of the Qing Dynasty and change it to the "White Background, Qingyun, Red Dragon" flag, but the dragon used four claws to imply division. It is taken from the meaning of the cloud from the dragon.
However, the Koreans rejected Ma Jianzhong's proposal on the grounds that "the red dragon Qingyun made a labor-intensive worker", and they planned to use the Taiji flag, and in order to prevent confusion with the Japanese flag, they planned to form Taiji in red and blue and white.
After Ma Jianzhong saw this, he thought that North Korea had eight ways, and simply added the bagua element to the Taiji flag, the bagua used black, the taiji used half red and half black, and the outside of the flag was red.
After discussing this matter before, Zeng Si still used a white background, a taiji diagram in the middle, and a bagua on the outer periphery, which was just the number of the eight paths. Bagua pure uses black as the manifestation, Tai Chi uses half red and half black, and the flag is red outside the edge, he ruo, but this is what the contemptible people see, and the language of my government is also. ”
In September 1882, the anti-Japanese Mutiny broke out in Korea, which triggered the simultaneous dispatch of troops between China and Japan, and after the mutiny subsided, Japan asked Korea to send emissaries to Japan to apologize.
North Korea was forced to send Park Yong-hyo, a lieutenant of Jinling, as an emissary to Japan to apologize for his sins and repair the courier.
Picture note: The royal flag of the king of the Joseon Dynasty
On the ship Meiji Maru bound for Japan, Park Yong-hyo and the British consul in Korea, W. A. G. Aston chatted with British captain James about the North Korean flag.
The British captain believes that the style of the Taiji Bagua Flag is rare in the world, and the design is particularly outstanding, but the bagua is still too much around, and the long and short gua elephants cannot be understood by foreigners at all, they only feel cluttered, and it is not conducive to the production of other countries.
The British captain directly suggested deleting the four gua elephants, one for each of the four corners, which is very clear and clear.
At that time, the British were the world's first power, and it was an empire where the sun never set, and the British said it as the truth, and this British captain was said to have traveled all over the world, and the flags of various countries were seen a lot.
Park Yongxiao, who has never been abroad, only nodded, so he deleted the four gua, leaving only Qiankun Kan away from the four gua, which is the famous Taiji banner.
On March 6, 1883, the Joseon Dynasty officially decided to use the Taiji Flag as its national flag and announced to all countries.
The Taiji Flag was included in the "Compilation of The Statutes of the Treaty of Commerce" published in China at that time, including the Taiji Flag in the "Imperial Flags and Official flags of Chinese and Foreign Countries", which was marked as "the flag of Goryeo under the Great Qing Dynasty".
However, Chinese gossip emphasizes that dry is heaven, Kun is earth, earthquake is thunder, Sunda is wind, kan is water, separation is fire, Gen is mountain, and exchange is Ze. It's a combination of mutual matching, mutual complementarity, and finally forming a system.
The Koreans listened to the British captain and deleted the zhen, sundanese, gen, and four gua, can such gossip still be gossip?
No wonder netizens ridiculed the South Korean flag as a perfect embodiment of the current external situation in South Korea, the internal Taiji has no eyes, symbolizing the division between the north and the south; the external gossip is only four gua, which just reflects the pressure exerted by the four major powers of China, the United States, Japan and Russia on South Korea.
I don't know what you think of the Korean flag?