In reckoning the date of an Emperor's reign it was not usual to include officially the year in which his predecessor had died, but to date the reign from the first day of the year following. Thus, though K´ang Hsi became Emperor in 1661, his reign is dated officially from 1662. The Imperial date mark is usually written in six characters beginning with the name of the dynasty and ending with the words _nien chih_ (made in the period): the _nien hao_ coming in the middle:-- 1 2 3 4 5 6 e.g. _Ta_ _ming_ _ch´êng_ _hua_ _nien_ _chih_ = made (_chih_) 4 [Chinese] 1 5 [Chinese] 2 6 [Chinese] 3 in the Ch´êng Hua period (_nien_) of the great Ming (dynasty). Occasionally the word _nien_ is replaced by _yü_ [Chinese] (Imperial), _yü chih_ meaning made by Imperial command; and in place of _chih_ we sometimes find the word _tsao_ [Chinese] or more rarely _tso_ [Chinese] both of which have the same meaning "made." The six characters may be written in two lines of three, or in three lines of two, or again in one long line read from right to left; and for reasons of space, and sometimes for no apparent reason, the first two characters are omitted, e.g. [Chinese]. The omission of the _nien hao_ is rare except on a few Japanese copies of Chinese porcelain, e.g. [Chinese] _ta ming nien chih_ = made in the great Ming dynasty. As already mentioned, the seal forms of the mark were frequently employed from the eighteenth century onwards (see p. 209). An archaic form of seal character occurs in the Yung Lo mark which is given below. The use of the _nien hao_ on the Imperial wares made at Ching-tê Chên was made obligatory by a command issued in the Ching-tê period (1004-1007), when the name of the town was altered to Ching-tê Chên. _Ming Dynasty_ [Illustration: [Chinese] HUNG WU, 1368-1398.] [Illustration: [Chinese] Same in seal characters.] [Illustration: [Chinese] YUNG LO, 1403-1424.] [Illustration: [Chinese] Same in archaic characters.] [Illustration: [Chinese] HSÜAN TÊ, 1426-1435.] [Illustration: [Chinese] Same in seal characters.] [Illustration: [Chinese] CH´ÊNG HUA, 1465-1487.] [Illustration: [Chinese] Same in seal characters (the first two omitted).] [Illustration: [Chinese] HUNG CHIH, 1488-1505.] [Illustration: [Chinese] CHÊNG TÊ, 1506-1521.] [Illustration: [Chinese] CHIA CHING, 1522-1566.] [Illustration: [Chinese] LUNG CH´ING, 1567-1572.] [Illustration: [Chinese] WAN LI, 1573-1619.] [Illustration: [Chinese] T´IEN CH´I, 1621-1627.] [Illustration: [Chinese] CH´UNG CHÊNG, 1628-1643.] _Ch´ing Dynasty._ [Illustration: [Chinese] SHUN CHIH, 1644-1661.] [Illustration: [Chinese] Same in seal characters.] _Ch´ing Dynasty_ [Illustration: [Chinese] K´ANG HSI, 1662-1722.] [Illustration: [Chinese] Same in seal characters.] [Illustration: [Chinese] YUNG CHÊNG, 1723-1735.] [Illustration: [Chinese] Same in seal characters.] [Illustration: [Chinese] CH´IEN LUNG, 1736-1795.]