![[postal ensign]](../images/c/cn-ig11.gif)
image by Jaume Ollé, 04 December 2009
Last modified: 2020-07-31 by ian macdonald
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The Imperial Guards Brigade of Manchu Bannermen were a select detachment of
cavalry officers responsible for guarding the Forbidden City in Beijing,
especially the Emperor of China and his family, during the Qing Dynasty.
They are composed of eight brigades called banner and actually they had
eachbanner.
The banner system was established by Nurhaci in the early seventeenth century.
By 1601 Nurhaci was reorganizing his military forces into the basic structure of
the banners and some evidence suggests that he might have started as much as a
decade earlier.
The Eight Banners consisted of three ethnic components: the Manchu, the Han, and
the Mongols. Beginning in the late 1620s, Nurhaci's successors incorporated
allied and conquered Mongol tribes into the Eight Banner system.
Nozomi Kariyasu, 04 December 2009
Actually the Eight Banners were much more complex than that.
Firstly, the Eight Banners, as created by Nurhaci (the first Khan of Manchuria),
was both a military and social division. Later the Eight Banners system was
duplicated for the Mongols and the Han Chinese (in the latter case a purely
military division), so there were actually 24 Banners in total. In addition
there were the Green Standard Army, primarily a gendarmerie force made up
predominently of Han Chinese, as well as various irregular troops from ethnic
minorities.
Secondly, Each Banner is divided into arms-of-service, such as Imperial Guards,
infantry, cavalry, vanguard, artillery, and siege battalions, each with their
distinctive banner designs; moreover, each battalion has two types of banners,
which can roughly be translated into "General's Colours" and "Colonel's Colours".
The full list of military and ceremonial banners of the Qing Dynasty are
documented in the Illustrations of Ceremonial Objects of the Dynasty (皇朝禮器圖式) of
the Siku Quanshu (四庫全書), written in Classical Chinese between 1773 and 1782,
fascimile copies of which may be found in some major university libraries.
Miles Li, 06 December 2009
First three Banners were under direct control of the Emperor.
image by Jaume Ollé, 04 December 2009
Plain Yellow Banner with gold dragon, clowds and thunders established in 1601.
![[postal ensign]](../images/c/cn-ig22.gif)
image by Jaume Ollé, 04 December 2009
Bordered Yellow Banner with gold dragon, clouds and thunders established in 1616.
![[postal ensign]](../images/c/cn-ig33.gif)
image by Jaume Ollé, 12 December 2009
Plain White Banner with gold dragon, clouds and thunders established in 1601.
![[postal ensign]](../images/c/cn-ig44.gif)
image by Jaume Ollé, 12 December 2009
Bordered White Banner with dragon, clouds and thunders established in 1616.
![[postal ensign]](../images/c/cn-ig55.gif)
image by Jaume Ollé, 13 December 2009
Bordered Red Banner with gold dragon, clouds and thunders established in 1616.
![[postal ensign]](../images/c/cn-ig66.gif)
image by Jaume Ollé, 13 December 2009
Bordered Blue Banner with gold dragon, clouds and thuners established in 1616.
![[postal ensign]](../images/c/cn-ig77.gif)
image by Jaume Ollé, 14 December 2009
Plain Red Banner with gold dragon, clouds and thunders established in 1601.
![[postal ensign]](../images/c/cn-ig88.gif)
image by Jaume Ollé, 14 December 2009
Plain Blue Banner with gold dragon, clouds and thunders established in
1601.
Nozomi Kariyasu, 04 December 2009
The DoV shows illustrations of the eight divisional banners of the Imperial
Chinese Army as being without the elaborate charges used by the Imperial
bodyguard (which our source said that they were), however, in default of any
further information on the subject I drew them with proportions of 1:1?
Your gifs seem to imply that a ratio of 5:4 (or similar) would be more correct,
but before sending any updated drawings I would like your opinion?
Christopher Southworth, 06 December 2009
The images were taken from Chinese reliable flag book titled ATLAS OF FLAGS
IN CHINA 2003.
The eight banners images shown on book marks I bought in Beijing Forbidden
Castle are the same as the above book.
I believe the design of eight banners 1601 and 1616 are all accurate.
Nozomi Kariyasu, 12 December 2009
