The supplementary clothing system is a very distinctive costume system in a specific period in the history of china's clothing, which refers to the civil and military officials of the Ming and Qing dynasties, adding a special badge to the front chest and back of the official uniform, which is embroidered with different animal patterns to mark the grade of the official, so that people can know their official rank at a glance. Civilian officials embroidered birds, military attaches embroidered beasts, from one product to nine products have special regulations.
Most of the birds and beasts on the ming and qing dynasty official uniforms were real animals in the real world, which is different from the fictional patterns on the Ming Dynasty clothes we introduced earlier.
Dressed as a beast, it was a symbol of the status and status of officials in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and it was once a great honor.
First, the traceability of the supplementary service system
The practice of embroidering different animal patterns on official uniforms according to different official positions can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty.
The Qing Dynasty Shen Zinan's Yilin Hui kao has "In the first year of Wu De, Gao Zu summoned his generals of the Guards... The record of the left and right Wuwei generals wearing leopard print jackets, and the left and right Wei generals serving Rui eagle pattern jackets shows that in the early years of the Tang Dynasty, military attaches had already decorated leopard eagles and other animal patterns on their official uniforms.
During the Wu Zetian period, this practice was further expanded. The Old Book of Tang records that in the first year of the extension, the embroidered robes given by Wu Zetian to the hundred officials were decorated with pairs of animals as ornaments, "the left and right guards are decorated with lions, the left and right guards are decorated with unicorns, the left and right guards are decorated with tigers, the left and right leopards are decorated with leopards, the left and right eagles are decorated with eagles, and the left and right jade bell guards are decorated with magpies."
However, the animal patterns embroidered on the official uniforms of the Tang Dynasty were often decorated throughout the body, not limited to the front chest and back.
The front chest and back are the two most prominent parts of the clothing. In the Yuan Dynasty, a kind of corset was popular, that is, weaving, embroidering or printing various square flowers and animal patterns on the front chest and back of the clothing, forming an organic whole with the clothing.
The pattern on the chest and back of the Yuan Dynasty mainly played a role in beautification and decoration, and more often it was used as a decorative pattern on the kimono, and the auspicious meaning was greater than the ceremonial significance. However, this practice of highlighting the front chest and back directly affected the official uniform system of the Ming Dynasty.
The real system of supplementary service was fixed in the Ming Dynasty and inherited by the Qing Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty followed the Tradition of the Tang Dynasty to distinguish the ranks of officials with bird and animal patterns, and integrated the method of Decorating the chest and back with square patterns in the Mongolian Yuan, and incorporated it into the national official uniform system, and eventually formed a supplementary uniform system.
Second, the Ming Dynasty's supplementary service system
After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the official uniform system was continuously improved. After many adjustments, the complement was gradually included as part of the official uniform system. Civilian officials embroidered birds to show civilization; military attaches embroidered beasts to demonstrate fierceness. Both the Great Ming Canon and the History of the Ming Dynasty have relevant records.
Civilian embroidered birds: one pint of crane, two pins of golden chicken, three pins of peacocks, four pins of cloud geese, five pins of white wagtails, six pins of herons, seven pins of partridge, eight pins of yellow orioles, nine pins of quail.
In the Ming Dynasty, one pin to nine pin civilian officials double bird supplement
Military officer embroidery beast: one product, two product lion, three products, four products tiger and leopard, five products of bear, six products, seven products biao, eight products rhinoceros, nine products of seahorse. The picture below shows the complement pattern on the official uniforms of military officers of the Ming Dynasty contained in the "Ming Huidian".
In the Ming Dynasty, one pin to four pin military attaché supplements
Ming Dynasty five pin to seven pin military attaché supplement
Ming Dynasty eight pin to nine pin military attaché supplement
Do not enter the nine products of various idle official posts embroidered a pair of practice birds.
Practice finches
The Fengxian officials of the Ming Dynasty were responsible for supervising the hundred officials, and the complement pattern on their official uniforms was the badger. It is a unicorn beast in ancient myths and legends, which can distinguish between right and wrong, recognize good and evil, and is a symbol of righteousness, light, justice and honesty.
Badger
The supplementary service of the Ming Dynasty has the following characteristics:
▶ The complement pattern on the official uniforms of the Ming Dynasty and the birds embroidered by the civil officials were all used in two, one soaring in the sky and the other standing on the ground, called "happy encounter". The beasts embroidered by the military attaché are single and double. In the "Great Ming Huidian", the number of lions and biao is single, and the number of bears, rhinos and seahorses is double. Because the Ming Dynasty military attaché supplemental clothing pattern is not particularly fine, the three products and four products are all used tigers and leopards, so the Ming Dynasty military attaché uniform also appeared in a complement with two different animal patterns.
▶ The complements on the official uniforms of the Ming Dynasty are all square supplements, which correspond to the circular complements on the emperor's robes, implying that the heavens are round and the heavens are humble.
▶ The size of the complement in the Ming Dynasty is relatively large, generally about 40 cm nearly square.
▶ In addition to distinguishing the official ranks by complements, the Ming Dynasty also followed the Tang and Song dynasties' color clothing system, distinguishing the grades by the color of the official clothes, but it was relatively rough, with dividends, green and green. Civil and military officials wear a silk robe (red robe) for one to four pins, a green robe for five to seven pins, and a green robe for eight to nine pins.
Third, the qing dynasty's supplementary service system
The patchwork of Qing Dynasty officials basically followed the Ming Dynasty, but individual patterns were adjusted to make clearer provisions for the parts that were not subdivided in the Ming Dynasty.
Civilian officials still embroidered poultry, one pin to seven pins were the same as the Ming Dynasty, eight pins changed yellow oriole to quail, and nine pins used the Ming Dynasty's non-grade training finches.
Qing Dynasty one pin to three pin civilian official supplements
Qing Dynasty four pin to six pin civilian official supplement
Qing Dynasty Seven Pin to Nine Pin Civilian Official Supplement
The military attaché's embroidered beasts also changed slightly: one pin qilin, two pin lions, three pin leopards, four pin tigers, five pin bears, six pin biao, seven pins, eight pin rhinoceros, nine pin seahorses.
Qing Dynasty one pin to four pin military attaché supplement
Qing Dynasty five pin to nine pin military attaché supplement
Officials of the supervision system, such as the Imperial History, the Vice-Imperial History, the Imperial History of supervision, and the InspectorAters, still use badgers.
The characteristics of the Qing Dynasty's supplementary service are:
▶ The complement pattern on the official uniform of the Qing Dynasty, the civilian official embroidered single bird, the military officer embroidered the single beast, and the front and back are symmetrical.
▶ In the Qing Dynasty, the complements of officials were divided into round supplements and square supplements, princes, shizi, etc. used round supplements, and general officials used square supplements.
Part of Lang Shining's Painting of the Feast of ten thousand trees (collection of the Palace Museum)
▶ The size of the complement of the Qing Dynasty is smaller than that of the Ming Dynasty, about 30 centimeters or so nearly square.
▶ The official uniforms of the Qing Dynasty officials no longer had a color distinction, and were uniformly distinguished by stone cyan, which was distinguished only by wearing a flower plume and a complement pattern.
Fourth, the semantic changes of the clothed animals and beasts
Since ancient times, the use of ornaments in China has paid attention to "every picture must be intentional, intentional must be auspicious". The birds and beasts used in the ming and qing dynasties for official clothing were auspicious and beautiful images in the concept of the ancients, and they either looked beautiful and magnificent, or had certain habits that met ethical and moral standards. Wearing these animal images on the body not only means wealth and development and a splendid future, but also shows power and status, but also symbolizes the noble moral character of officials.
So why did the cloaked beast go from an enviable and desirable beautiful image to a continuous decline in price step by step, and finally degenerated into a negative image with a human face and a beast heart?
First, the corruption and darkness of the officialdom during the Ming and Qing dynasties seriously damaged the positive image of officials. The political corruption of the imperial court, the prevalence of bribery in the officialdom, the use of the power in their hands, the corruption of the law, and the evil deeds, resulting in the political darkness of the country, the behavior of the officials and the beautiful meaning of the animal pattern samples worn on their bodies are more and more incompatible, and the officials gradually degenerate into corrupt officials who are splendid in appearance but dirty on the inside.
Second, although the official supplement system in the Ming and Qing dynasties was very detailed, it was not uncommon for the following to be arrogant and to inflate the nobles with lowly, and the phenomenon of violating the system occurred frequently and was repeatedly prohibited. For example, the two official uniforms excavated from the tomb of the Xue family in the Ming Dynasty in Jiangyin City, Jiangsu Province, the patterns of the complement are the crane and the peacock, and the highest official position that the tomb owner Xue Ruhuai did before his death was the chief of the Chengde Lang Punishment Department, and the official rank was only Zheng Liupin, which was obviously overstepping the system. The military attaché was even more confused, no matter what grade he dared to use the Lion Qilin to make up for it. The bureaucracy is chaotic and mixed, and it has also bred many acts of endangering the people by pretending to be arrogant and deceitful. People who are well-dressed but have bad moral character and oppress the people abound, resulting in the people's extreme dislike and hatred for officials in patch-up clothes emotionally, and then hostility and contempt for the term "dressed animal".
There was an ancient idiom called "cloaked owl", which was used as a metaphor for a fierce and ungrateful person who was extremely unfilial. Legend has it that the owl is a bird of evil and is born to eat its mother; a beast is a beast, born to eat its father. The cloaked thief is a metaphor for an ungrateful or extremely vicious person. And as the word "cloaked beast" has become more and more synonymous with those morally degraded and despicable "hypocrites", the originally lofty, enviable and yearning clothed animals and beasts have gradually merged with the clothed and crowned tyrants and the like, and finally become a derogatory term.