A quail-patterned patch for the ninth-rank civil officials

Patches for the military officers of the Ming Dynasty were simpler. For the first- and second-rank military officers, patches with the pattern of a lion were used, while those with tiger and leopard patterns were for the third and fourth ranked officers respectively. The bear-patterned ones were for the fifth-rank officers, and those of young-tiger patterns for the sixth- and seventh-rank officers. Rhinoceros-patterned patches signaled eighth-rank officers, and hippocampus-patterned ones the ninth-rank officers.

A hippocampus-patterned patch for the first-rank civil officials

The custom of attaching patches continued in the Qing Dynasty, but with a little difference in form and color from the previous dynasty. For example, while patches of the Ming Dynasty were in a whole piece on both the front and back of an official robe, the front patches of the Qing Dynasty were halved in the middle of the robe's front part. More over, while the former's patches were mostly light colored, with design patterns woven from golden thread against a red background, the latter's were richly colored, with the background color being either black or dark red. Also, whereas there were no floral borders around the edges of the former's patches, those of the latter were always bordered with decorative patterns.

In addition, while in the Ming Dynasty, rank patches for some civil officials (such as the fourth-, fifth-, seventh-, eighth- and ninth-rank officials) were embroidered with a pair of birds, those of the Qing Dynasty had just a single bird. Another characteristic of the Qing Dynasty that were different from the Ming Dynasty lied in the fact that patches were also attached to the robes of the women with a rank title conferred by the emperor (usually the wife or mother of a senior official), the design patterns of which depended on the son's or husband's official rank. But for the mother or wife of a military officer, the bird-patterned patches were used, rather than the beast-patterned ones.(Arthor: Jessie)