There is a saying that "red is purple". Why was purple the noblest in ancient times?

In fact, before Qi Huangong, purple was not the color of nobility. In ancient China, the color system was divided into positive color and indirect color. Positive color refers to white, cyan, black, red and yellow, and purple is a mixture of cyan and red. This color is called intermediate color, not advanced color. In ancient times, the positive color was expensive and the middle color was cheap.

However, in Qi Huangong during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, he personally liked to wear purple clothes. Then, at that time, the whole state of Qi regarded wearing purple as a fashion, and the system of displaying grades by color was a bit broken at that time. Confucius respected Zhou's ceremony, but later he thought it was inappropriate to be purple. There was a wave of aversion to purple.

In fact, purple skirts are rare. Its manufacturing process is more complicated, and things are scarce. Later, its status gradually improved. In the Tang dynasty, only officials with three or more products could wear purple official clothes. The development of purple is related to the development of Taoism to some extent. In Taoism, the place where the Emperor of Heaven lives is called Zigong or Zifu.

Later, there was China, which represented Zixian County, and Zifang represented the place where the immortals lived in Taoism. In the Journey to the West, the little pill that the Monkey King secretly ate at the Taishang Laojun was called Zijindan. In Taoism, there is a story about its founder, Laozi. When he visited Gudan, someone saw the purple gas coming from the east, saying that a saint had passed the customs, and then he saw Lao Tzu riding a green cow. Therefore, in Taoism, purple has auspicious meaning. Later, many ancient emperors thought this color was auspicious, and gradually purple became a noble color.