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Early Chinese flags

1500 BC flag reconstruction
Pre-1876 flag

See also:

Bibliography on Chinese Flags for works cited on this page
China: Index of Pages

1500 BC flag reconstruction

by Phil Nelson

This is a reconstruction of a Chinese flag, circa 1500 BC shown in Znamierowski's World Encyclopedia of Flags. Znamierowski notes that the number of stripes indicated rank, ranging from 12 red ribbons for the Emperor to one for a low level functionary. The flag was attached to a bamboo staff topped with a metal trident. The red swallowtail ribbon was used to indicate a battle signal. It is interesting that the representation shows the yellow border being wider towards the fly than in the hoist.
Phil Nelson, 18 February 2000

Mencius (the Latinized form of Meng-Tseu) was a Chinese philosopher (375?-290 B.C.) who propagated the Confucius' (Khoung-Tseu) ideology. His book, also named Mencius (Meng-Tseu), is the fourth part of the Sse-Chou (The Four Books of Chinese moral and political Philosophy), considered as the basis of Confucianism. In chapter IV of the second part (Hia-Meng) of Mencius, we read:

Wen-Tchang said: "May I venture to ask you a question: Which kind of thing should be used to call the keepers of the royal reserves?" Meng-Tseu said: "A burskin should be used; to call ordinary men, a plain red silk standard should be used; to call scholars, a standard on which two dragons are shown should be used; for the main administrators (ta-fou), a standard ornate with feathers of five colours hanging from the top of the lance should be used."

The context of this discussion is the following (also from Meng-Tseu's text):

"King, koung (prince) of Thsi, who wanted to go hunting, called the keepers of the royal reserves with their standard. Since they did not answer him, he decided to make them die. [...] Why did Khoung-Tseu (Confucius) defend them? He defended them because the keepers did not answer the call since they had not been called with their specific signal. [Here is the discussion reported above]. Since the signal for the main administrators had been used to call the keepers, those, even facing their own death (which would have been the consequence of their lack of answer) did not dare to answer the call. If the signal for the scholars had been used to call the ordinary men, would the ordinary men have dare to answer? Neither would have answered a wise man if the signal for an unwise man had been used!"

One important part of the Confucianism philosophy is the strict respect of several complicated rituals, usually associated to the different levels of the social scale. It seems that standards as signals of rallying were important things in these rituals.
Ivan Sache, 15 May 2000

Pre-1876 flag

by Jaume Ollé

An old Japanese plate posted by Nizomi Kariyasu shows a flag captioned "China." The plate is date 1876 but flag must be older because the Chinese flag of 1876 is well known.
Jaume Ollé, 30 June 2001