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Plate 27.8 Hat-top ornament, excavated from the tomb of Zhu Zhanji, Plate 27.9 Gold hat-top ornament, excavated from the tomb
Prince Zhuang of Liang, and of Lady Wei at Zhongxiang, Hubei province, of Zhu Zhanji, Prince Zhuang of Liang, and of Lady Wei at
c. 1424–41, Nanjing or Beijing. Jade, gold, semi-precioius and precious Zhongxiang, Hubei province, c. 1420–41, Nanjing or Beijing.
gems, height 6.3cm, diameter 6.6cm. Hubei Provincial Museum Gold with seven gem stones, height 3.9cm, width 5.2cm.
Hubei Provincial Museum

the colour red) was promulgated as the supporting virtue of indicative of the Song dynasty, which they ostensibly (at
the peasant armies who fought against the Mongols at the least initially) fought to restore. It is very tempting
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end of the Yuan dynasty. These armies included (but were therefore to posit the material evidence as telling us
not restricted to) those led by the Ming founder Zhu something about beliefs which might have been held within
Yuanzhang, fire having been sometimes seen as the phase the imperial clan about the protective force of the colour
red, even if these beliefs go unrecorded in sources written by
Plate 27.10 Gold hat-top ornament, excavated from the tomb of Zhu those subscribing to the now-orthodox position that it was
Zhanji, Prince Zhuang of Liang, and of Lady Wei at Zhongxiang, the ruler’s virtue, and not the preordained succession of
Hubei province, c. 1424–41, Nanjing or Beijing. Gold with ten gem Five Phases, which governed the rise and fall of dynasties.
stones, height 7.5cm. Hubei Provincial Museum
Certainly the red rubies are by far the most prominent of
the five differently coloured gemstones in the filigree gold
plaques that make up the magnificent princely belt
excavated from the tomb of Prince Zhuang of Liang (see Pl.
27.5). The use of ‘red, white, blue, yellow, black’ (in that
order, and here the term used for ‘red’ is chi 赤) is ordained

Plate 27.11 Gold hat-top ornament, excavated from the tomb of Zhu
Zhanji, Prince Zhuang of Liang, and of Lady Wei at Zhongxiang,
Hubei province, c. 1424–41, Nanjing or Beijing. Gold with 18 gem
stones, height 3.4cm. Hubei Provincial Museum

242 | Ming China: Courts and Contacts 1400–1450