The I Ching and Postal Culture" Sharing No. 2: Qing Dynasty Bagua Postmarks

The I Ching is divided into three parts, the Lianshan of the Xia Dynasty, the Guizang of the Shang Dynasty and the Zhou Yi of the Zhou Dynasty, known as the Three Yi. The I Ching is divided into two parts, the Jing and the Chuan. The Upper Jing and the Lower Jing, the Upper Jing thirty hexagrams, the Lower Jing thirty-four hexagrams, **** sixty hexagrams. Each trigram to trigram painting, title, trigrams lines composition. Gua painting two basic linear symbols, known as "lines": "-" on behalf of Yang, called "Yang lines";" -" on behalf of the yin, called "yin lines". Six lines constitute a hexagram, *** there are eight, collectively known as gossip: Qian, Kun, Zhen, Xun, Burgundy (dry, against, Kan, away, respectively, symbolizing the sky, earth, thunder, wind, mountains, ze, water, fire, eight natural phenomena. One of the dry and Kun, Kan and away, Zhen and Sundown, Burgundy and Tui are opposites. Eight trigrams and two trigrams iteratively, interpreted as sixty-four hexagrams, which encompasses time and space million, the truth of the universe. The biography *** divided into seventy, by the ancients as "ten wings", meaning the wings of the "scriptures".

? In 1897, the Qing Customs Post enabled gossip postmarks, specifications for the width of 18 mm, 23 mm high, in January 13 of that year, the document provides only in the high value stamps not stamped in the use of gossip stamps to make up the cover, but in the actual implementation of but with gossip stamps stamps of all kinds of stamps. Gossip stamp *** enabled about 30 kinds (Figure 1-3), Beijing for the Qian Gua, Niuzhuang for the Kun Gua, this postmark can be called a special case in the history of the world's postmarks, but also the only postmarks without the date, after 1898 will not be commonly used, but the Suzhou Post Office in 1932, also used to datestamping of the original post office missed the stamps. This is the first time that Bagua was associated with the postmark, which also gave rise to valuable philatelic products, including a postmarked envelope with the Bagua postmark, Figure 4 is one of the postmarked envelopes of that year.