Two Rare Early Republican Orders

Most probably, the Order of the White Eagle had never been awarded. Decree No. 11 clearly indicated that one would have to make major contributions to a military objective in a wartime situation to qualify. During this period, while there were many minor skirmishes and infighting among the warlords, China, as a nation, was never involved in a major war with any foreign country. Under pressure from a number of western countries, China did declare war on Germany towards the end of the Great War. However, her participation was mainly in the form of supplying labor to England and France for logistic and behind-the-line work.

It is, in a sense, somewhat amazing that the various republican heads of states, while being rather generous with giving out awards of all sorts to their supporters, followers and allies, had uniformly refrained from giving out a single Order of the White Eagle. Such self-discipline was especially laudable, considering that most of the heads of states were warlords, whom, as a group, were not particularly renowned for this virtue.

The Smithsonian Institution has samples of the first, second and third class of the Order of the White Eagle[23]. They measure 68 mm, 63.5 mm and 60.5 mm across, respectively. Picture 8 shows the obverse of the three medals with the typical early republican national-colors ribbons. The Grand Order is very rare, but at least we know that it had been awarded a number of times, and must, therefore, be in some collections, public or otherwise. The Order of the White Eagle had never been awarded. It is also highly unlikely that however few samples of the order that existed in 1912 survived the numerous civil wars, revolutions, the eight-year-long Sino-Japanese War, change of control of the government to the Nationalists and then to the Communists. It is possible that these three medals are the only surviving samples of this order.

Picture 9 is a close-up of the obverse of the first class medal. As illustrated, the obverse of the order has a central medallion superimposed on a star with eight groups of five white enameled rays with gilt borders. An enameled ring of the five national colors of the republic surrounds the central medallion. In the center, there is a white enameled eagle, wings spreading, perched on a blue, yellow and green enameled globe, which is, in turn, superimposed on a crossed rifle and sword. On the globe were two Chinese characters, “Gong Li”, which means universal justice or truth. The regulations of 1912 did not mention the existence of these characters as part of the design of the order. It is possible that as the young republican nation struggled to maintain territorial integrity amidst the carving up of the country into spheres of influence of various foreign powers, the concept of universal justice was especially appealing.

The background of the central medallion of the first class badge is in gilt, that of the second class is in silver, and that of the third class is in green enamel. As customary with other Chinese medals, the first class badge has three small stars on the top group of rays of the eight-pointed base star, the second class badge has two small stars, and the third class badge has one small star. The first class badge has an elaborate cloud-like design for attaching to the ribbon, the device for the second class is simpler, that of the third class is simply a ball and a ring.

Picture 10 shows the reverse of the first class medals. The reverse has only the Chinese characters for “First Class War Participation Merit Medal” on the top, and the maker mark for “Made by Yung Zheng Zhi” in Chinese seal form in the bottom. A screw is used to hold the base star and the central medallion together.

Picture 11 shows the reverse of the second class medal. It has the characters for “Second Class War Participation Merit Medal” on the top, and the maker mark for “Made by Lao Tian Li”, again in Chinese seal form, in the bottom. Both makers were Chinese, and were used commonly by the early republican government to make many of its awards[24]. The reverse of the third class badge has the characters for “Third Class War Participation Merit Medal” and the “Made by Yung Zheng Zhi” mark.

As indicated earlier, all the three badges have on the five-color ribbon typical of early republican medals. These appear to have been added on later, like the purple cravat for the Grand Order sash badge described earlier. The Decree specified that these three classes were to be neck badges, and, therefore, should be worn with a cravat, not a ribbon. Since the Order of the White Eagle had never been awarded, and the Grand Order would have been awarded as a set(with breast star, sash and sash badge), it is quite likely that the samples of both these orders in the Smithsonian were production prototypes, which were often made without ribbons. That would explain why samples of both orders have on ribbons that are not in accordance with the regulations.

Footnotes:

[1] The term “early Republic of China” is used here to refer to the Republic of China from 1911 to 1929, before the Nationalists took control of the central government. The Nationalist government abolished all the orders of the earlier government and instituted new ones in 1929.

[2] Please see “ The Grand Order of China (Ta Hsun Chang),” JOMSA, June 1973, pp. 3-7; and “The Order of the White Eagle(A Military Decoration),” JOMSA, July 1973, pp. 19-21.

[3] The author would like to thank Mr. Douglas A. Mudd, the Collection Manager of the National Numismatic Collection of the Smithsonian Institution for his assistance in the research related to these Chinese orders during two visits there in the last few years.

[4] For the convenience of readers who are not familiar with the various ways of romanizing Chinese characters into English, established Chinese names are romanized in their old/original ways. Otherwise, the modern Pinyin system, which is used in the People’s Republic of China today, is adopted. Thus, the empire is still called “Ching”, instead of “Qing”, as Pinyin would dictate. Please also note that any form of romanization is never fully satisfactory as a representation of Chinese characters. The word “Ching” could come in any of the four Chinese tones, representing a total of 45 Chinese characters.

[5] Note all imperial memorials used dates of the Chinese imperial/lunar calendar, while the equivalent dates in the western calendar is used in this article. For example, the memorial requesting the drawing up of a new award system was dated “the 12^th day of the run second moon of the first year of Hsuan-tung,” which is April 2^nd, 1909.

[6] For original memorials in Chinese related to this order see Da Ching Hsuan-t’ung Hsin Fa Ling, Vol. 31, pp. 2-4. Note also as the emperor was only a child then, the memorial was probably issued by his father, the second Prince Ch’un, who acted as the young emperor’s regent.

[7] The full name of the press being “Imprimerie Imp. Roy. De la cour et de l’etat a Vienne.”

[8] See James Legge, ed., I Ching: Book of Changes, Bantam Book, 1969, the Great Appendix, Section II, Chapter 1, p. 381, emphasis on the phrase “most precious” and the Chinese pinyin “Da Bao” are added here for ease of reading.

[9] For a fascinating treatment of this subject please refer to Gary Dickinson & Linda Wrigglesworth, Imperial Wardrobe, “The Twelve Symbols”, pp. 75-96.

[10] For original regulations in Chinese please refer to Fa Ling Chuan Shu, 1912, Section 20, Chapter 2, pp. 3-8.

[11] Yuan, as it turned out, only supported the republican form of government when it was dictated by the circumstances. In December, 1915, when he felt his position was secure, he actually orchestrated a restoration of the monarchy, and ascended the throne himself as Emperor Hung-hsien. His reign, however, proved short-lived as oppositions were widespread. He died in June, 1916.

[12] This table is from Ch’i Hsi-sheng, Warlord Politics in China, 1916-1928, p. 267, Appendix A.

[13] In official portraits, Yuan Shih Kai usually wore the Grand Order of China along with stars of foreign orders that he had received. In this picture, he had on the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun with Pawlonia Flowers from Japan (second row, right), among others. (Readers who have read this article as published in the OMSA Journal would notice that for the website, a different picture of Yuan is used.)

[14] For a brief introduction on the imperial civil examination of China and the Hanlin Academy and their roles in Chinese history see John K. Fairbank, et. al., East Asia: The Modern Transformation, pp. 84-88, and Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China Vol.1, pp. 104, 117, 126-127, 142-143.

[15] See Mohler, “The Grand Order of China”, p. 7. It is interesting to note that while Mr. Mohler had apparently been aware of the existence of samples of the Order of the White Eagle in the Smithsonian, he was not aware that a sample of the Grand Order was also there.

[16] According to the records in the Smithsonian, the U.S. Mint gave this medal to the Institution in 1923 with no further information or documentation of its origins. The medal is also not listed in the Catalogue of Coins, Tokens, and Medals in the Numismatic Collection of the Mint of the United States at Philadelphia, PA, published in 1914.

[17] For original regulations in Chinese please refer to Fa Ling Chuan Shu, 1912, Section 20, Chapter 2, pp 9-21.

[18] The same Decree also stated that the first three classes of the Order of the Striped Tiger would come with breast stars, and the first two classes would also come with sash and sash badges. It may appear strange to the reader that the higher Order of the White Eagle came with only neck badges, while the lower Order of the Striped Tiger came with breast stars and sash badges. But the Chinese do not always have a very tidy award structure in this regard. A similar problem existed even after the Nationalist government took over. The two highest military awards of the Nationalist Chinese are the Order of National Glory, and the Order of Blue Sky and White Sun. But for many years, these two awards came only as a breast badge. On the other hand, the third highest award, the Order of the Precious Tripod, had always come in nine classes, with the first three in the form of a breast star, and the first two with a sash and a sash badge. Only in 1980 did the Nationalist government in Taiwan fixed this problem and converted both the Order of National Glory and the Order of Blue Sky and White Sun into an award with a breast star, a sash and a sash badge.

[19] For a discussion on the animal and bird symbols used in the so-called “mandarin squares” please see Imperial Wardrobe, pp. 120-142.

[20] The civilian ranks were viewed as somewhat higher than the military ranks. Historically, Chinese civilian officials, who were often also eminent scholars, were typically appointed by the emperor to lead major military campaigns.

[21] The White-Bellied Sea Eagle (Haliaeetus leucogaster), for example, has pure white head, neck, and underparts, and gray back, and can be found in coastal regions in the southern parts of China. See Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee, The Birds of China, p.156.

[22] For further explanations and sources of the phrases “ying yang” and “ying jan” see Lin Yutang’s Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage, pp. 894-895; and Che Hai or Che Yuan, both Chinese encyclopaedic dictionaries, for entries under the character “ying.”

[23] According to the records in the Smithsonian, the U.S. Mint gave these three medals to the Institution in 1923 along with the sash badge of the Grand Order, also with no further information or documentation of its origins.

[24] The early Republican government had apparently used Japanese makers, as well as “Lao Tian Li” and “Yung Zheng Zhi”. The later two’s maker marks are commonly found on other orders of this period, such as on the various classes of the Striped Tiger. However, on the reverse of the Striped Tiger, the class of the award would not be indicated.

Send mail to pkua@netvigator.com with questions or comments about this web site. Copyright © Paul Kua Last modified: March 23, 2005

Send mail to pkua@netvigator.com with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © Paul Kua
Last modified: March 23, 2005