Ancient Chinese dress color hierarchy?

Ancient China divided colors into two kinds, positive colors and intermediate colors, positive colors and intermediate colors became a tool to identify nobility and hierarchy, and should not be mixed in the slightest.

The positive colors are the five pure colors of green, red, yellow, white and black, and the intermediate colors are the colors mixed with the five positive colors of cyanine (reddish cyanine), red (light red), misty (light cyanine), violet, and yellowish yellow (tawny). Confucius once said, "Red and purple are not considered profane clothing," and you can't use red or purple cloth for casual wear at home.

Extended information:

According to "Han Fei Zi", "the left side of the outer reserves", "Duke Huan of Qi was good at purple, a country all purple. When this time also, the five elements shall not be a purple." As the saying goes, if the top is good, the bottom will be very good, so much so that at that time, five pieces of raw silk could not buy a piece of purple cloth.

Duke Huan of Qi was very worried when he saw this phenomenon, so Guan Zhong advised him to stop wearing purple, "three days, the territory is not dressed in purple."

However, the tradition started by Duke Huan of Qi was passed down, and a system of five grades of official uniforms was created during the Northern and Southern Dynasties: vermilion, purple, scarlet (crimson), green, and green. In the Tang Dynasty, for example, the third grade and above wore purple official uniforms, the fourth grade wore dark scarlet, the fifth grade wore light scarlet, the sixth grade wore dark green, the seventh grade wore light green, the eighth grade wore dark green, and the ninth grade wore light green.

People's Daily Online - How ancient China divided nobility and rank from colors