A mandarin square, also known as a rank badge, was a large embroidered badge sewn onto the surcoat of an official in Imperial China, Korea, Vietnam, and the Ryukyu Kingdom. It was embroidered with detailed, colourful animal or bird insignia indicating the rank of the official wearing it.
The history of the Mandarin Square is unclear. However, in 事林广记, there are pictures showing officials wearing clothing with squares on the back, decorated with birds.
Mandarin squares were first authorized for wear in 1391 by the Ming Dynasty. The use of squares depicting birds for civil officials and animals for military officials was an outgrowth of the use of similar squares, apparently for decorative use, in the Yuan Dynasty. The original court dress regulations of the Ming Dynasty were published in 1368, but did not refer to badges as rank insignia. These badges continued to be used through the remainder of the Ming and the subsequent Qing Dynasty until the imperial system fell in 1912. Ming nobles and officials wore their rank badges on full-cut red robes with the design stretching from side to side, completely covering the chest and back. This caused the badges to be slightly trapezoidal with the tops narrower than the bottom. The Ming statutes never refer to the number of birds or animals that should appear on the badges. In the beginning, two or three were used. In a typical example of paired birds, they were shown in flight on a background of bright cloud streamers on a gold background. Others showed one bird on the ground with the second in flight. The addition of flowers produced an idealized naturalism.
Qing Dynasty
There was a sharp difference between the Ming and Qing styles of badges: the Qing badges were smaller with a decorative border. And, while the specific birds and animals did not change much throughout their use, the design of the squares underwent an almost continual evolution. According to rank, Qing-Dynasty nobles had their respective official clothes. Princes, including Qin Wang and Jun Wang, usually wore black robes as opposed to the blue robes in court, and had four circular designs, one on each shoulder, front, and back, as opposed to the usual front-and-back design. Specifically, princes of the blood used four front-facing dragons, Qin Wang had two front-facing and two side-facing dragons, and Jun Wang had four side-facing ones; all had five claws on each foot. Beile and Beizi had a circular design on their official clothing, the former having two front-facing dragons, the latter two side-facing ones; these dragons had only four claws on each foot, and are referred to as "drakes" or "great serpents". National duke, general, efu, "commoner" duke, marquis and count had two front-facing, four-clawed dragons on square designs, whereas viscount and baron had cranes and golden pheasants, as for mandarins of the first and second class.
Korea
Korean rank badge is a small panel of embroidery that would have served to indicate the status of a government official in the Choson Dynasty Korea. Made in the nineteenth century, it shows a pair of black and white leopards, one above the other in opposing stance, surrounded by stylised cloud patterns in pink, purple and pale green upon a blue background. It would have been worn by a military official from the first to third ranks. Leopards and tigers, respected for their strength and courage in Korea, were used for the dress of military officials while civil officials wore crane motifs. This badge shows the distinctively spotted animals among rocks, waves and clouds in a pattern which remained virtually unchanged for 300 years.
Tables
The specific birds and animals used to represent rank varied only slightly from the inception of mandarin squares until the end of the Qing Dynasty. These tables show this evolution.
Military
Scholar
The official who held a lower position or did odd job used the magpie during the Ming dynasty. Supervising officials used xiezhi. Musicians used the oriole.
