Nanjing Yunjin, with a history of more than 1,500 years, refers to the incredibly beautiful brocade made in Nanjing, capital city of eastern Jiangsu Province. Yun in Chinese means 'clouds', and jin means 'brocade'. The image is lovely: A delicate and flossy piece of brocade that feels just like soft clouds and is more valuable than gold.

Among all ancient fabrics, silk cloth known as jin represents the top of the industry's arts and crafts. Furthermore, Nanjing brocade incorporates all the best weaving techniques of past dynasties and is known to be the best out of the Chengdu brocade in southwestern Sichuan Province, Suzhou brocade in Jiangsu Province or even Zhuang brocade in southwestern Guangxi Province. Because of its rich cultural history, Nanjing brocade is hailed by experts as the 'last milestone in the technological history of Chinese silk fabrics.'

Ⅰ. History

The history of Nanjing Yunjin can be traced back to the Three Kingdoms Period (220-280). In a war which broke out at the end the East Jin Dynasty (317-420), General Liu Yu defeated the Xi'an -based Qin kingdom (384-417). The victory brought all the craftsmen in Xi'an back to Jiankang, present-day Nanjing City, among whom brocade-weavers were a dominant force. The brocade weavers were top craftsmen nationwide and had learned a lot about brocade weaving from minority ethnic groups. In 417, the East Jin government set up a special brocade office in Nanjing to manage the production of the brocade, which represented the formal establishment of Nanjing brocade.

Later in the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), Mongolians conquered Central China and the rulers then began a tradition of decorating officers uniforms with shining gold and silver. With the flourishing and exploitation of gold mines, weavers added real gold thread to Nanjing brocade. The shining brocade immediately found great favor with feudal kings and aristocrats and also was popular among ethnic minorities such as Mongolians, Tibetans and Uygurs. In the Yuan, Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, rulers set up special official fabric bureaux in Nanjing for the administration and monopoly of brocade production and marketing. They listed it as one of the special royal tributes to the emperors. Brocade technology was repeatedly refined despite high costs both in terms of time consumed and materials used. It was not long before the brocade surpassed the other famous silk products, and it obtained fame as an exquisite, rare silk.

In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the brocade production boom peaked. Along the Qinhuai River in Nanjing, the noises of people weaving could be heard day and night. Records show at that time that there were more than 30,000 looms and more than 300,000 people making a living off the trade.