This cup commemorates an autumn military parade near Lake Tai, Anhui province. The parade took place on 21 September 1908 (the jimao day in the eighth month of Guangxu 34th year). The Guangxu Emperor did not attend, but 'ordered Yin Chang and Duan Fang to officiate the event'. Having suffered a crushing defeat in the Sino-Japanese war in 1894-1895 China embarked on a series of reforms, and the strengthing of her military power ranked high on the agenda.

Whether the cup was made before or after the parade is a question worth reflecting upon. If the parade was foreseen as an important event and special porcelains were made to mark the occasion, it would seem logical that the Emperor would have been present. The fact that he sent two representatives implies that it was one of those routine military exercises. The event became historically significant because two months later the Guangxu Emperor died suddenly, at the age of 38. The cause of his death has since been the subject of great controversy. Before his untimely death the young Emperor had engaged in a long struggle for power with the Empress Dowager Cixi. Cixi died one day after Guangxu, but the ideologies they represented, namely conservatism versus reformism, remained incompatible. Commemorating the parade might have been a subtle message from the reformist camp that the battle still had to be won. A little more than three years later, in 1912, the Qing empire collapsed and China became a republic state.

Two other cups commemorating similar military parades in 1905 and 1911 respectively have been recorded, but it is this 1908 cup that was copied soon after the collapse of the Empire, probably not for its antiquity but for its historicity. There is a pair of cups with same inscription in a private collection. The shape and glaze, though superficially similar, show sufficient difference to suggest that they are later copies.