Yellow Emperor
Encyclopedia
The Yellow Emperor or Huangdi1 is a legendary Chinese sovereign and culture hero
Culture hero
A culture hero is a mythological hero specific to some group who changes the world through invention or discovery...

, included among the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. Tradition holds that he reigned from 2697–2597 or 2696–2598 BC. His cult became prominent in the late Warring States and early Han period
Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...

, when he was portrayed as the originator of the centralized state, a patron of esoteric arts, a cosmic ruler, and a lord of the underworld. Traditionally credited with numerous inventions and innovations, he is regarded as the initiator of Chinese civilization and said to be the ancestor of all Huaxia Chinese.

Historicity

The great Chinese historian Sima Qian
Sima Qian
Sima Qian was a Prefect of the Grand Scribes of the Han Dynasty. He is regarded as the father of Chinese historiography for his highly praised work, Records of the Grand Historian , a "Jizhuanti"-style general history of China, covering more than two thousand years from the Yellow Emperor to...

and much Chinese historiography following himconsidered the Yellow Emperor to be a more historical figure than earlier legendary figures such as Fu Xi, Nüwa
Nüwa
Nüwa is a goddess in ancient Chinese mythology best known for creating mankind and repairing the wall of heaven.-Primary sources:...

, and the Yan emperor
Shennong
Shennong , which names mean "Divine Farmer", but also known as the Emperor of the Five Grains , was a legendary ruler of China and culture hero reputed to have lived some 5,000 years ago...

. His Records of the Grand Historian
Records of the Grand Historian
The Records of the Grand Historian, also known in English by the Chinese name Shiji , written from 109 BC to 91 BC, was the Magnum opus of Sima Qian, in which he recounted Chinese history from the time of the Yellow Emperor until his own time...

begins with the Yellow Emperor, while passing over the others.

Throughout most of Chinese history, the Yellow Emperor and the other ancient sages were considered to be real historical figures. Their historicity started to be questioned in the 1920s by historians like Gu Jiegang
Gu Jiegang
Gu Jiegang was a Chinese historian who is known best for his seven volume work Gushi Bian . He was a leading force in the Doubting Antiquity school.-Biography:...

, one of the founders of the Doubting Antiquity School in China. In their attempts to prove that the earliest figures of Chinese history were mythological, Gu and his followers argued that these ancient sages were originally gods who were later depicted as humans by the rationalist intellectuals of the Warring States period. Yang Kuan (楊寬), a member of the same historiographical
Historiography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...

 current, noted that only in the late Warring States had the Yellow Emperor started to be described as the first ruler of China. Yang thus argued that Huangdi was a late transformation of Shangdi
Shangdi
Shangdi , also known as Di in Oracle Bone Inscription and Thirteen Classics, refers to the supreme god or a divine power regarded as the spiritual ultimate by the Chinese people from the Shang Dynasty. He controlled victory in battle, harvest, the fate of the kingdom, and the weather...

, the supreme god of the Shang
Shang Dynasty
The Shang Dynasty or Yin Dynasty was, according to traditional sources, the second Chinese dynasty, after the Xia. They ruled in the northeastern regions of the area known as "China proper" in the Yellow River valley...

 pantheon
Pantheon (gods)
A pantheon is a set of all the gods of a particular polytheistic religion or mythology.Max Weber's 1922 opus, Economy and Society discusses the link between a...

.

Also in the 1920s, French scholars Henri Maspero
Henri Maspero
Henri Maspero was a French sinologist, today particularly remembered for his pioneering works on Taoism.-Biography:...

 and Marcel Granet
Marcel Granet
Marcel Granet was a French sociologist, ethnologist and sinologist. As a follower of Émile Durkheim and Édouard Chavannes, Granet was one of the first to bring sociological methods to the study of China...

 published critical studies of China's accounts of high antiquity. In his Danses et légendes de la Chine ancienne ["Dances and legends of ancient China"], for example, Granet argued that these tales were "historicized legends" that said more about the time when they were written than about the time they purported to describe.

Most scholars now agree that the Yellow Emperor was originally a deity who was later transformed into a human figure. K.C. Chang sees Huangdi and other cultural heroes as "ancient religious figures" who were "euhemerized" in the late Warring States and Han
Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...

 periods. Historian of ancient China Mark Edward Lewis
Mark Edward Lewis
Mark Edward Lewis is an American historian of ancient China. He received his B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago and studied Chinese at the International Chinese Language Program . Since 2002 he has been Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in Chinese Culture at Stanford University...

 speaks of the Yellow Emperor's "earlier nature as a god," whereas Roel Sterckx
Roel Sterckx
Roel Sterckx is the Joseph Needham Professor of Chinese History, Science, and Civilization in the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Clare College. Sterckx was a pupil at Sint-Jan Berchmanscollege Mol and was educated at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, National Taiwan University,...

, a professor at University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

, calls Huangdi a "legendary cultural hero."

Clan names

The Yellow Emperor has been referred to as Xuanyan-shi (s , t , p
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...

Xuānyuán-shì) and Youxiong-shi (c
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

, p
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...

Yǒuxióng-shì). Third-century scholar Huangfu Mi commented that Xuanyuan was the name of a hill where Huangdi had lived and that he later took as a name. Qing-dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....

 commentator Liang Yusheng (梁玉繩; 1745–1819) argued instead that the hill was named after the Yellow Emperor rather than the opposite.

According to British Sinologist Herbert Allen Giles (1845–1935); Youxiong was a name taken from Huangdi's hereditary principality; Giles also cited sources saying that Xuanyuan was the name of a village where the Yellow Emperor had lived. William Nienhauser, a modern translator of the Shiji, explains that Huangdi was originally the head of the Youxiong Clan, which lived near what is now Xinzheng
Xinzheng
Xinzheng is a small county-level city of Zhengzhou in the south of Henan province of Central China. The city has a population of 600,000 people and covers an area of .-History:...

 in Henan
Henan
Henan , is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the central part of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is "豫" , named after Yuzhou , a Han Dynasty state that included parts of Henan...

.

"Yellow Emperor"

In the late Warring States period, the Yellow Emperor was integrated into the cosmological scheme of the Five Phases, in which the color yellow
Yellow
Yellow is the color evoked by light that stimulates both the L and M cone cells of the retina about equally, with no significant stimulation of the S cone cells. Light with a wavelength of 570–590 nm is yellow, as is light with a suitable mixture of red and green...

 represents earth
Earth (Wu Xing)
Earth , is the changing point of the matter. Earth is the third one of Wu Xing.Earth is a balance of both yin and yang, the feminine and masculine together. Its motion is inward and centering, and its energy is stabilizing and conserving. It is associated with the color yellow and the planet...

, dragons, and the center. The correlation of the colors in association with different dynasties was mentioned in the Lüshi Chunqiu
Lüshi Chunqiu
The Lüshi Chunqiu is an encyclopedic Chinese classic text compiled around 239 BCE under the patronage of the Qin Dynasty Chancellor Lü Buwei...

(late 3rd century BCE), where the Yellow Emperor's reign was seen to be governed by earth.

Origins

The origin of Huangdi's legend is unclear, but historians have formulated several hypotheses about it. Yang Kuan (楊寬), a member of the Doubting Antiquity School (1920s–1940s), argued that the Yellow Emperor was derived from Shangdi
Shangdi
Shangdi , also known as Di in Oracle Bone Inscription and Thirteen Classics, refers to the supreme god or a divine power regarded as the spiritual ultimate by the Chinese people from the Shang Dynasty. He controlled victory in battle, harvest, the fate of the kingdom, and the weather...

, the highest god of the Shang dynasty
Shang Dynasty
The Shang Dynasty or Yin Dynasty was, according to traditional sources, the second Chinese dynasty, after the Xia. They ruled in the northeastern regions of the area known as "China proper" in the Yellow River valley...

. Yang's view is based on the series Shangdi 上帝 => Huang Shangdi 皇上帝 => Huangdi 皇帝 => Huangdi 黄帝, in which he claims that huang 黄 ("yellow") either was a graphic variant
Variant Chinese character
Variant Chinese characters are Chinese characters that are homophones and synonyms. Almost all variants are allographs in most circumstances, such as casual handwriting...

 of huang 皇 ("august") or was used as a taboo character
Naming taboo
Naming taboo is a cultural taboo against speaking or writing the given names of exalted persons in China and neighboring nations in the ancient Chinese cultural sphere.-Kinds of naming taboo:...

 for the latter.

Historian Mark Edward Lewis
Mark Edward Lewis
Mark Edward Lewis is an American historian of ancient China. He received his B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago and studied Chinese at the International Chinese Language Program . Since 2002 he has been Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in Chinese Culture at Stanford University...

 agrees that huang 黄 and huang 皇 were often interchangeable, but, disagreeing with Yang, he claims that huang meaning "yellow" appeared first. Based on what he admits is a "novel etymology" likening huang 黄 to the phonetically close wang 尪 (the "burned shaman" in Shang rainmaking rituals), Lewis suggests that "Huang" in the Yellow Emperor's title might originally have meant "rainmaking shaman" or "rainmaking ritual." Citing late Warring States and early Han versions of Huangdi's myth, he further argues that the figure of the Yellow Emperor originated in ancient rain-making rituals in which the Yellow Emperor represented the power of rain and clouds, whereas his mythical rival Chi You
Chi You
Chi You was a tribal leader of the ancient nine Li tribe . He is best known as the tyrant who fought against the then-future Yellow Emperor during the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors era in Chinese mythology. For the Hmong people, Chi You was a sagacious mythical king...

 (or Yandi) stood for fire and drought.

Also disagreeing with Yang Kuan's hypothesis, Sarah Allan
Sarah Allan
Sarah Allan is an American scholar of ancient China. She is presently a Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Literatures, and of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Dartmouth College; formerly she taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University...

 finds it unlikely that such a popular myth as the Yellow Emperor's could have come from a taboo character. She argues instead that pre-Shang
Shang Dynasty
The Shang Dynasty or Yin Dynasty was, according to traditional sources, the second Chinese dynasty, after the Xia. They ruled in the northeastern regions of the area known as "China proper" in the Yellow River valley...

 "history," including the story of the Yellow Emperor, "can all be understood as a later transformation and systematization of Shang myth
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...

." In her view, Huangdi was originally an unnamed "lord of the underworld" (or the "Yellow Springs"), the mythological counterpart of the Shang sky deity Shangdi
Shangdi
Shangdi , also known as Di in Oracle Bone Inscription and Thirteen Classics, refers to the supreme god or a divine power regarded as the spiritual ultimate by the Chinese people from the Shang Dynasty. He controlled victory in battle, harvest, the fate of the kingdom, and the weather...

. At the time, Shang rulers claimed that their mythical ancestors, identified with "the [ten] suns, birds, east, life, [and] the Lord on High" (i.e., Shangdi), had defeated an earlier people associated with "the underworld, dragons, west." After the Zhou
Zhou Dynasty
The Zhou Dynasty was a Chinese dynasty that followed the Shang Dynasty and preceded the Qin Dynasty. Although the Zhou Dynasty lasted longer than any other dynasty in Chinese history, the actual political and military control of China by the Ji family lasted only until 771 BC, a period known as...

 overthrew the Shang in the eleventh century BCE, Zhou leaders reinterpreted Shang myths as meaning that the Shang had vanquished a real political dynasty, which was eventually named the Xia dynasty
Xia Dynasty
The Xia Dynasty is the first dynasty in China to be described in ancient historical chronicles such as Bamboo Annals, Classic of History and Records of the Grand Historian. The Xia Dynasty was established by the legendary Yu the Great after Shun, the last of the Five Emperors gave his throne to him...

. By Han
Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...

 times – as seen in Sima Qian
Sima Qian
Sima Qian was a Prefect of the Grand Scribes of the Han Dynasty. He is regarded as the father of Chinese historiography for his highly praised work, Records of the Grand Historian , a "Jizhuanti"-style general history of China, covering more than two thousand years from the Yellow Emperor to...

's account in the Shiji – the Yellow Emperor, who as lord of the underworld had been symbolically linked to the Xia, had become a historical ruler whose descendants were thought to have founded the Xia.

The Yellow Emperor in pre-imperial times

Accounts of the Yellow Emperor started to appear in Chinese texts in the Warring States period. "The most ancient extant reference" to Huangdi is an inscription on a bronze vessel made in the first half of the fourth century BCE by the royal family of the state of Qi. As Michael Puett points out, this was one of several references to the Yellow Emperor in the fourth and third centuries BCE within accounts of the creation of the state.

Elements of Huangdi's myth

Early years

According to Huangfu Mi (215–282), the Yellow Emperor was born in Shou Qiu
Shou Qiu
Shou Qiu is a historical site on the eastern outskirts of the city of Qufu in Shandong Province, China. According to the legend, Shou Qiu is the birthplace of the Yellow Emperor.The site features two giant turtle-borne steles with a small lake between them...

 ("Longevity Hill"), which is today on the outskirts of the city of Qufu
Qufu
Qufu is a city in southwestern Shandong province, People's Republic of China. It is located at 35° 36′ northern latitude and 117° 02′ east, about south of the provincial capital Jinan and northeast of the prefecture seat at Jining...

 in Shandong Province. Early on, he lived with his tribe in the northwest near the Ji River
Ji River
Ji River may refer to two separate former rivers in China.The Ji Shui was a former river in north-eastern China. It was credited with being the home of the Yellow Emperor's tribe and gave its name to the Zhou dynasty, whose surname was recorded as 姬...

 (thought to be the Fen River
Fen River
The Fen River drains the center of Shanxi Province, China. It rises in the Guancen Mountains of Ningwu County in northeast Shanxi, flows southeast into the basin of Taiyuan, and then south through the central valley of Shanxi before turning west to join the Yellow River west of Hejin. The Fen and...

 in Shanxi
Shanxi
' is a province in Northern China. Its one-character abbreviation is "晋" , after the state of Jin that existed here during the Spring and Autumn Period....

), later migrating to Zhuolu
Zhuolu County
Zhuolu County is a county of Hebei, China. It is under the administration of the Zhangjiakou city. It has eight towns , nine townships , and 373 village-level units , in Zhangjiakou Prefecture, Hebei Province. It is located near the confluence of the Sanggan He and Yang He tributaries to the...

 in modern-day Hebei Province. He then became a farmer and tamed six different special beasts: the bear
Bear
Bears are mammals of the family Ursidae. Bears are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans, with the pinnipeds being their closest living relatives. Although there are only eight living species of bear, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Northern...

 , the brown bear
Brown Bear
The brown bear is a large bear distributed across much of northern Eurasia and North America. It can weigh from and its largest subspecies, the Kodiak Bear, rivals the polar bear as the largest member of the bear family and as the largest land-based predator.There are several recognized...

 (s , t ), the and xiū which later combined to form the mythical Pixiu
Pixiu
Pixiu or Pi Yao originally known as Pi Xie is a Chinese mythical hybrid creature considered to be a very powerful protector to practitioners of Feng Shui. It resembles a winged lion. Pixiu is an earth and sea variation, particularly an influential and auspicious creature for wealth...

, the ferocious chū , and the tiger
Tiger
The tiger is the largest cat species, reaching a total body length of up to and weighing up to . Their most recognizable feature is a pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with lighter underparts...

 . From this, Ye Shuxian associated the Yellow Emperor with bear legends common across northeast Asia people as well as the Dangun legend
Dangun
Dangun Wanggeom was the legendary founder of Gojoseon, the first Korean kingdom, around present-day Liaoning, Manchuria, and the Korean Peninsula. He is said to be the "grandson of heaven", and to have founded the kingdom in 2333 BC...

.

The Yellow Emperor and the Yan emperor
Yan Emperor
The Yan Emperor, or Yandi was a legendary Han Chinese ruler who lived in pre-dynastic China. Modern scholarship has identified the Sheep's Head Mountains just north of Gaoping in Shanxi Province as his homeland and territory....

 were both leaders of a tribe or a combination of two tribes near the Yellow River
Yellow River
The Yellow River or Huang He, formerly known as the Hwang Ho, is the second-longest river in China and the sixth-longest in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Har Mountains in Qinghai Province in western China, it flows through nine provinces of China and empties into...

, in an era that modern Chinese history books often refer to as "primitive society
Yuanshi society
Yuanshi society is a term to describe the early ancient tribal society around the time of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors era in ancient Chinese history and mythology. The term literally means "primitive society".-Tribe chart:...

." The Yan emperor hailed from a different area around the Jiang River
Jiang River
The Jiang River was an ancient river in north-eastern China.According to Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian, the river gave its name to Shennong's family.According to the Guoyu, it was the birthplace of the Yan emperor....

 (thought to be the modern Wei
Wei River
The Wei River is a major river in west-central China's Gansu and Shaanxi provinces. It is the largest tributary of the Yellow River and very important in the early development of Chinese civilization....

. Both emperors lived in a time of warfare. The Yan emperor proving unable to control the disorder within his realm, the Yellow Emperor took up arms to establish his domination over various warring factions.

Achievements

In traditional Chinese accounts, the Yellow Emperor is credited with improving the livelihood of the nomadic hunters of his tribe. He teaches them how to build shelters, tame wild animals, and grow the five Chinese cereals
Five chinese cereals
The Chinese Five Cereals are a group of 5 farmed crops, mainly cereals or grains , which were all important in ancient China and regarded as sacred, or their cultivation was regarded as a sacred boon from a mythological or supernatural source.The name is sometimes translated as "Five Grains,"...

, although other accounts credit Shennong
Shennong
Shennong , which names mean "Divine Farmer", but also known as the Emperor of the Five Grains , was a legendary ruler of China and culture hero reputed to have lived some 5,000 years ago...

 with the last. He invents carts, boats, and clothing.

Other inventions credited to the emperor include the Chinese diadem , throne rooms , the bow sling
Bow (weapon)
The bow and arrow is a projectile weapon system that predates recorded history and is common to most cultures.-Description:A bow is a flexible arc that shoots aerodynamic projectiles by means of elastic energy. Essentially, the bow is a form of spring powered by a string or cord...

, early Chinese astronomy
Chinese astronomy
Astronomy in China has a very long history, with historians considering that "they [the Chinese] were the most persistent and accurate observers of celestial phenomena anywhere in the world before the Arabs."...

, the Chinese calendar
Chinese calendar
The Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar, incorporating elements of a lunar calendar with those of a solar calendar. It is not exclusive to China, but followed by many other Asian cultures as well...

, math calculations, code of sound laws , and cuju
Cuju
Cuju is an ancient code of football with similarities to association football. It is seen by some to be a forerunner of modern football and originated in China, and was also played in Korea, Japan and Vietnam.-History:...

, an early Chinese version of football. He is also sometimes said to have been partially responsible for the invention of the guqin zither
Guqin
The guqin is the modern name for a plucked seven-string Chinese musical instrument of the zither family...

, although others credit the Yan emperor with inventing instruments for Ling Lun
Ling Lun
Ling Lun is the legendary founder of music in ancient China. In Chinese mythology, as described in the Lüshi Chunqiu , he was said to have created bamboo flutes which made the sounds of many birds, including the mythical phoenix...

's compositions.

In traditional accounts, he also goads the historian Cangjie
Cangjie
Cangjie is a very important figure in ancient China , claimed to be an official historian of the Yellow Emperor and the inventor of Chinese characters. Legend has it that he had four eyes and four pupils, and that when he invented the characters, the deities and ghosts cried and the sky rained...

 into creating the first Chinese character
Chinese character
Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...

 writing system, the Oracle bone script
Oracle bone script
Oracle bone script refers to incised ancient Chinese characters found on oracle bones, which are animal bones or turtle shells used in divination in Bronze Age China...

, and his principal wife Leizu
Leizu
Leizu was a legendary Chinese empress and wife of the Yellow Emperor. According to tradition, she discovered silk and invented the silk loom in the 27th century BC.Leizu discovered silkworms while having a midday tea, and a cocoon fell in her tea....

 invents sericulture
Sericulture
Sericulture, or silk farming, is the rearing of silkworms for the production of raw silk.Although there are several commercial species of silkworms, Bombyx mori is the most widely used and intensively studied. According to Confucian texts, the discovery of silk production by B...

 and teaches his people how to weave silk and dye clothes.

At one point in his reign the Yellow Emperor allegedly visited the mythical East sea and met a talking beast called the Bai Ze
Bai Ze
Baí Zé , or in Japanese, is a fantastic beast from Chinese legend. Its name literally means "white marsh".The Baí Zé was encountered by the Yellow Emperor or Huáng Dì while he was on patrol in the east...

 who taught him the knowledge of all supernatural creatures. This beast explained to him there were 11,522 (or 1,522) kinds of supernatural creatures.

Battles

According to traditional accounts, the Yan emperor meets the force of the "Nine Li" (九黎) under their bronze-headed leader Chi You
Chi You
Chi You was a tribal leader of the ancient nine Li tribe . He is best known as the tyrant who fought against the then-future Yellow Emperor during the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors era in Chinese mythology. For the Hmong people, Chi You was a sagacious mythical king...

 and his 81 horned and four-eyed brothers and is decisively defeated. He flees to Zhuolu and begs the Yellow Emperor for help. During the ensuing Battle of Zhuolu
Battle of Zhuolu
The Battle of Zhuolu was the second battle in Chinese history as recorded in the Records of the Grand Historian, fought between the Yellow Emperor and Chi You. The battle was fought in Zhuolu, near the present-day border of Hebei and Liaoning...

, the Yellow Emperor employs his tamed animals and Chi You darkens the sky by breathing out a thick fog. This leads the emperor to develop the South Pointing Chariot
South Pointing Chariot
The south-pointing chariot was an ancient Chinese two-wheeled vehicle that carried a movable pointer to indicate the south, no matter how the chariot turned. Usually, the pointer took the form of a doll or figure with an outstretched arm...

, which he uses to lead his army out of the miasma. He next calls upon the drought demon Nuba
Nuba (Chinese mythology)
Nǚba , was an ancient Chinese mythical drought demon. She is reputed to have come to the aid of the Yellow Emperor during his struggle with Chi You at the Battle of Zhuolu. Some sources also refer to her as being the Yellow Emperor's daughter....

 to dispel Chi You's storm. He then destroys the Nine Li before falling out with the Yan emperor and defeating him at Banquan
Battle of Banquan
The Battle of Banquan is the first battle in Chinese history as recorded by Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian. It was fought by Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor, and Yandi, the Flame Emperor. The Battle of Banquan may actually only refer to the third of a series of three battles. Huangdi, the...

 and replacing him as the primary ruler.

Death

The Yellow Emperor was said to have lived for over a hundred years before meeting a phoenix
Fenghuang
Fenghuang are mythological birds of East Asia that reign over all other birds. The males are called Feng and the females Huang. In modern times, however, such a distinction of gender is often no longer made and the Feng and Huang are blurred into a single feminine entity so that the bird can be...

 and a qilin
Qilin
The Qilin is a mythical hooved Chinese chimerical creature known throughout various East Asian cultures, and is said to appear with the imminent arrival or passing of a wise sage or an illustrious ruler. It is a good omen that brings rui . It is often depicted with what looks like fire all over...

 and then dying. Two tombs were built in Shaanxi
Shaanxi
' is a province in the central part of Mainland China, and it includes portions of the Loess Plateau on the middle reaches of the Yellow River in addition to the Qinling Mountains across the southern part of this province...

 within the Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor
Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor
The Mausoleum of Yellow Emperor is the burial site of the Chinese legendary Yellow Emperor, located in Huangling County, Yan'an City, Shaanxi Province, China. According to legend, the Yellow Emperor attained immortality and was taken up to heaven, leaving behind only his clothing and cap to be...

, in addition to others in Henan
Henan
Henan , is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the central part of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is "豫" , named after Yuzhou , a Han Dynasty state that included parts of Henan...

, Hebei
Hebei
' is a province of the People's Republic of China in the North China region. Its one-character abbreviation is "" , named after Ji Province, a Han Dynasty province that included what is now southern Hebei...

 and Gansu
Gansu
' is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China.It lies between the Tibetan and Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Ningxia to the north, Xinjiang and Qinghai to the west, Sichuan to the south, and Shaanxi to the east...

.

Modern-day Chinese people
Chinese people
The term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People with Han Chinese ethnicity ....

 sometimes refer to themselves as the "Descendants of Yan & Huang", although non-Han minority groups in China may have their own myths or not count as descendants of the emperor.

Family and descendants

According to the Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor
Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor
The Mausoleum of Yellow Emperor is the burial site of the Chinese legendary Yellow Emperor, located in Huangling County, Yan'an City, Shaanxi Province, China. According to legend, the Yellow Emperor attained immortality and was taken up to heaven, leaving behind only his clothing and cap to be...

 in modern-day Shaanxi
Shaanxi
' is a province in the central part of Mainland China, and it includes portions of the Loess Plateau on the middle reaches of the Yellow River in addition to the Qinling Mountains across the southern part of this province...

, the Yellow Emperor shares ancestry with that of a Central Plains
Central Plain (China)
Zhongyuan or the Central Plain of China refers to the area on the lower reaches of the Yellow River which formed the cradle of Chinese civilization. It forms part of the North China Plain....

 race that went by the name Ji
Ji (surname)
姬=Ji is the family name of the family in control of the Zhou Dynasty , which followed the Shang Dynasty and preceded the Qin Dynasty in China.Thirty-nine members of the family ruled over China during this period.Ji has...

 from their position along the Ji River.

The Yellow Emperor's father was Shaodian
Shaodian
According to legend, Shaodian was the father of Huangdi , the Yellow Emperor. His own father was Lord Youxiong whilst Shaodian's wife was Youjiao . Youjiao later gave birth to both Huangdi and Yandi.-External links:...

 and his mother was Fu Pao (附寶). The Yellow Emperor had a total of four wives. His first wife Leizu
Leizu
Leizu was a legendary Chinese empress and wife of the Yellow Emperor. According to tradition, she discovered silk and invented the silk loom in the 27th century BC.Leizu discovered silkworms while having a midday tea, and a cocoon fell in her tea....

 of Xiling
Xiling District
Xiling District is a district of Yichang, Hubei, China. It includes the central part of Yichang's urban area, on the left bank of the Yangtze River.-External links:*...

 bore him two sons. His other three wives were his second wife Fenglei (封嫘), third wife Tongyu (彤魚) and fourth wife Momu (嫫母). The emperor had a total of 25 sons, 14 of whom began their own surnames and clans. The oldest was Shaohao
Shaohao
Shaohao , also known as Shao Hao, Jin Tian or Xuanxiao, was a Chinese emperor in 2600 BC. According to some traditions , he was, in some versions, one of the Five Emperors....

 or Xuanxiao, who lived in Qingyang
Qingyang County
Qingyang County is a county in Anhui Province, People's Republic of China, under the jurisdiction of the Chizhou City. It has a population of 280,000 and an area of . The government of Qingyang County is located in Yongcheng Town.-Transport:...

 by the Yangtze River
Yangtze River
The Yangtze, Yangzi or Cháng Jiāng is the longest river in Asia, and the third-longest in the world. It flows for from the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai eastward across southwest, central and eastern China before emptying into the East China Sea at Shanghai. It is also one of the...

. Changyi, the younger, lived by the Ruo River (若水).

When the Yellow Emperor died, he was succeeded by Changyi's son, Zhuanxu
Zhuanxu
Zhuanxu , also known as Gaoyang is a mythological monarch of ancient China.A grandson of the Yellow Emperor, Zhuanxu led the Shi clan in an eastward migration to present-day Shandong, where intermarriages with the Dongyi clan enlarged and augmented their tribal influences...

.

Later sources claimed that three subsequent dynasties descended from the Yellow Emperor:
  1. Zhuanxu
    Zhuanxu
    Zhuanxu , also known as Gaoyang is a mythological monarch of ancient China.A grandson of the Yellow Emperor, Zhuanxu led the Shi clan in an eastward migration to present-day Shandong, where intermarriages with the Dongyi clan enlarged and augmented their tribal influences...

    , Ku
    Emperor Ku
    Kù , or Dì Kù , also known as Gāoxīn Shì , was a mythical Emperor of China during the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors period. He was the son of Jiăo Jí , the grandson of Shăohào and the great grandson of Huáng-dì , the Yellow Emperor. According to speculative dates he is supposed to have ruled...

    , Yao, and Shun
  2. Xia dynasty
    Xia Dynasty
    The Xia Dynasty is the first dynasty in China to be described in ancient historical chronicles such as Bamboo Annals, Classic of History and Records of the Grand Historian. The Xia Dynasty was established by the legendary Yu the Great after Shun, the last of the Five Emperors gave his throne to him...

  3. Shang dynasty
    Shang Dynasty
    The Shang Dynasty or Yin Dynasty was, according to traditional sources, the second Chinese dynasty, after the Xia. They ruled in the northeastern regions of the area known as "China proper" in the Yellow River valley...


Societal influence

Imperial era

The Yellow Emperor was credited with an enormous number of cultural legacies and esoteric teachings. While Taoism
Taoism
Taoism refers to a philosophical or religious tradition in which the basic concept is to establish harmony with the Tao , which is the mechanism of everything that exists...

 is often regarded in the West as arising from Laozi
Laozi
Laozi was a mystic philosopher of ancient China, best known as the author of the Tao Te Ching . His association with the Tao Te Ching has led him to be traditionally considered the founder of Taoism...

, Chinese Taoists claim the Yellow Emperor formulated many of their precepts. In addition the texts mentioned above, he was also credited with composing the Four Classics of the Yellow Emperor
Huangdi Sijing
The Huangdi sijing are long-lost Chinese manuscripts that were discovered among the Mawangdui Silk Texts. They are also known as the Huang-Lao boshu , in association with the "Huang-Lao" philosophy named after the legendary Huangdi and Laozi...

, the Yellow Emperor's Hidden Talisman Classic
Huangdi Yinfujing
The Huangdi Yinfujing , or Yinfujing, is a circa 8th century CE Daoist scripture associated with Chinese astrology and Neidan-style Internal alchemy...

, and the "Yellow Emperor's Four Seasons Poem" included in the Tung Shing
Tung shing
The Tung Shing is a Chinese divination guide and almanac. It consists primarily of a calendar based on the Chinese lunar year.-History:...

 fortune-telling almanac. The Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon, which presents the doctrinal basis of traditional Chinese medicine
Traditional Chinese medicine
Traditional Chinese Medicine refers to a broad range of medicine practices sharing common theoretical concepts which have been developed in China and are based on a tradition of more than 2,000 years, including various forms of herbal medicine, acupuncture, massage , exercise , and dietary therapy...

, was also named after him.

"Xuanyuan 12" (s , t ) is also the Chinese name for Gamma Leonis
Gamma Leonis
Gamma Leonis is a binary star system in the constellation Leo. It has the traditional name Algieba or Al Gieba.-Name origin and history:...

. In the Hall of Supreme Harmony
Hall of Supreme Harmony
The Hall of Supreme Harmony is the largest hall within the Forbidden City. It is located at its central axis, behind the Gate of Supreme Harmony. Built above three levels of marble stone base, and surrounded by bronze incense burners, the Hall of Supreme Harmony is one of the largest wooden...

 in Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

's Forbidden City
Forbidden City
The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the middle of Beijing, China, and now houses the Palace Museum...

, there is also a mirror called the "Xuanyuan Mirror".

Twentieth century

The Yellow Emperor became a powerful national symbol in the last decade of the Qing dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....

 (1644–1911) and remained dominant in Chinese nationalist discourse throughout the Chinese Republican period
Republican period
Republican period may refer to many periods in several nations, including:# The Roman Republic.# The French Republic.# Republican China.# Any of several periods in the United States where the Republican Party controlled the federal government, or within individual US states or local governments...

 (1911–1949). The early twentieth century is also when the Yellow Emperor was first referred to as the ancestor of all Chinese.

Late Qing

Starting in 1903, radical publications started using the projected date of his birth as the first year of the Chinese calendar
Chinese calendar
The Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar, incorporating elements of a lunar calendar with those of a solar calendar. It is not exclusive to China, but followed by many other Asian cultures as well...

. Intellectuals like Liu Shipei (1884–1919) found this practice necessary in order to "preserve the [Han] race" (baozhong 保種) from both Manchu dominance and foreign encroachment. Anti-Manchu revolutionaries like Chen Tianhua
Chen Tianhua
Chen Tianhua , was a Chinese revolutionary born in Xinhua, Hunan province into a poor peasant family during the Qing dynasty.-Early life and education:Chen did not begin his education until he was fifteen...

 (1875–1905), Zou Rong
Zou Rong
Zou Rong . Chinese nationalist and revolutionary martyr of the anti-Qing movement. Born in Chongqing, Sichuan Province, he was sent to Japan at an early age, where he studied the successful Japanese way of modernization...

 (1885–1905), and Zhang Binglin
Zhang Binglin
Zhang Binglin was a Chinese philologist, textual critic and anti-Manchu revolutionary.His philological works include Wen Shi , the first systematic work of Chinese etymology...

 (1868–1936) tried to foster the racial consciousness they thought was missing from their compatriots, and thus depicted the Manchus as racially inferior barbarians who were unfit to rule over Han Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...

. Chen's widely circulated pamphlets claimed that the "Han race" formed one big family descended from the Yellow Emperor. The first issue (Nov. 1905) of the Minbao 民報 ("People's Journal"), which was founded in Tokyo by revolutionaries of the Tongmenghui
Tongmenghui
The Tongmenghui, also known as the Chinese United League, United League, Chinese Revolutionary Alliance, Chinese Alliance and United Allegiance Society, was a secret society and underground resistance movement formed when merging many Chinese revolutionary groups together by Sun Yat-sen, Song...

, featured the Yellow Emperor on its cover and called Huangdi "the first great nationalist of the world." It was one of several nationalist magazines that featured the Yellow Emperor on their cover in the early twentieth century.

Many historians interpret this sudden popularity of the Yellow Emperor as a reaction to the theories of French scholar Albert Terrien de Lacouperie (1845–1894), who in a book called The Western Origin of the Early Chinese Civilization, from 2300 B.C. to 200 A.D. (1892) had claimed that Chinese civilization had been founded about 4200 years earlier by Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...

n immigrants. Lacouperie's "Sino-Babylonia
Babylonia
Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as...

nism" posited that Huangdi was a Mesopotamian tribal leader who had led a massive migration of his people into China around 2300 BCE and founded what later became Chinese civilization. European Sinologists quickly rejected these theories, but in 1900 two Japanese historians, Shirakawa Jirō and Kokubu Tanenori, omitted these criticisms and published a long summary that presented Lacouperie's views as the most advanced Western scholarship on China. Chinese scholars were quickly attracted by "the historicization of Chinese mythology" that the two Japanese authors advocated.

Anti-Manchu intellectuals and activists who searched for China's "national essence" (guocui 國粹) adapted Sino-Babylonianism to their needs. Zhang Binglin explained Huangdi's battle with Chi You
Battle of Banquan
The Battle of Banquan is the first battle in Chinese history as recorded by Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian. It was fought by Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor, and Yandi, the Flame Emperor. The Battle of Banquan may actually only refer to the third of a series of three battles. Huangdi, the...

 as a conflict opposing the newly arrived civilized Mesopotamians to backward local tribes, a battle that transformed China into one of the most civilized places in the world. Zhang's reinterpretation of Sima Qian's account "underscored the need to recover the glory of early China." Liu Shipei also presented these early times as the golden age of Chinese civilization. In addition to tying the Chinese to an ancient center of human civilization in Mesopotamia, Lacouperie's theories suggested that China should be ruled by the descendants of Huangdi. In a controversial essay called History of the Yellow Race (Huangshi 黃史), which was published serially from 1905 to 1908, Huang Jie (黃節; 1873–1935) claimed that the Han race was the true master of China because it was descended from the Yellow Emperor. Reinforced by the values of filial piety
Filial piety
In Confucian ideals, filial piety is one of the virtues to be held above all else: a respect for the parents and ancestors. The Confucian classic Xiao Jing or Classic of Xiào, thought to be written around 470 BCE, has historically been the authoritative source on the Confucian tenet of xiào /...

 and the Chinese patrilineal clan
Chinese clan
A Chinese clan is a patrilineal and patrilocal group of related Chinese people with a common surname sharing a common ancestor and, in many cases, an ancestral home.-Description:...

, the racial vision defended by Huang and others turned vengeance against the Manchus into a duty owed to one's ancestors.

Republican period

The Yellow Emperor continued to be revered after the Xinhai Revolution
Xinhai Revolution
The Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, also known as Revolution of 1911 or the Chinese Revolution, was a revolution that overthrew China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing , and established the Republic of China...

 of 1911, which overthrew the Qing dynasty. In 1912, for instance, banknotes carrying Huangdi's effigy were issued by the new Republican government. After 1911, however, the Yellow Emperor as national symbol changed from first progenitor of the Han race to ancestor of China's entire multi-ethnic population. Under the ideology of the Five Races in Unity
Five Races Under One Union
Five races under one union was one of the major principles upon which the Republic of China was originally founded in 1911 at the time of the Xinhai Revolution.-Description:...

, Huangdi became the common ancestor of the Han
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...

, the Manchus, the Mongols
Mongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...

, the Tibetans, and the Hui Muslims
Hui people
The Hui people are an ethnic group in China, defined as Chinese speaking people descended from foreign Muslims. They are typically distinguished by their practice of Islam, however some also practice other religions, and many are direct descendants of Silk Road travelers.In modern People's...

, who were said to form the Zhonghua minzu
Zhonghua minzu
Zhonghua minzu , usually translated as Chinese ethnic groups or Chinese nationality, refers to the modern notion of a Chinese nationality transcending ethnic divisions, with a central identity for China as a whole...

, a broadly understood Chinese nation. Sixteen state ceremonies were held between 1911 and 1949 to Huangdi as the "founding ancestor of the Chinese nation
Zhonghua minzu
Zhonghua minzu , usually translated as Chinese ethnic groups or Chinese nationality, refers to the modern notion of a Chinese nationality transcending ethnic divisions, with a central identity for China as a whole...

" (中華民族始祖) and even the "the founding ancestor of human civilization" (人文始祖).

Modern significance

The cult of the Yellow Emperor was forbidden in the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

 from 1949 to 1980. Starting in the 1980s, however, the cult was revived and the Chinese state sometimes uses the conception of the "Descendants of Yan and Huang" to direct or claim credit for the efforts of anyone of Chinese descent. In 1984, for example, Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping was a Chinese politician, statesman, and diplomat. As leader of the Communist Party of China, Deng was a reformer who led China towards a market economy...

 argued for Chinese reunification
Chinese reunification
Chinese reunification refers to the bringing together of all of the territories controlled by the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China under a single political entity...

 saying "Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

 is rooted in the hearts of the descendants of the Yellow Emperor," whereas in 1986 the PRC acclaimed the Chinese-American astronaut Taylor Wang
Taylor Wang
Taylor Gun-Jin Wang is an American scientist and in 1985, became the first ethnic Chinese person to go into space. While an employee of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Wang was a payload specialist on the Space Shuttle Challenger mission STS-51-B.-Early life and education:With ancestry in...

 as the first of the Yellow Emperor's descendants to travel in space.

After retreating to Taiwan in late 1949 at the end of the Chinese Civil War
Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...

, Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....

 ruled that the Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...

 would keep paying homage to the Yellow Emperor on April 4, the National Tomb Sweeping Day
Qingming Festival
The Qingming Festival , Pure Brightness Festival or Clear Bright Festival, Ancestors Day or Tomb Sweeping Day is a traditional Chinese festival on the 104th day after the winter solstice , usually occurring around April 5 of the Gregorian calendar...

, but neither he nor the three presidents that succeeded him ever paid homage in person. In 2009 President Ma Ying-jeou
Ma Ying-jeou
Ma Ying-jeou is the 12th term and current President of the Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan, and the Chairman of the Kuomintang Party, also known as the Chinese Nationalist Party. He formerly served as Justice Minister from 1993 to 1996, Mayor of Taipei from 1998 to 2006, and Chairman...

 presided over these rites in person and proclaimed that both Chinese culture and common descent from the Yellow Emperor united people from Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

 and the mainland
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...

. Later the same year, Lien Chan
Lien Chan
Lien Chan is a politician in Taiwan. He was Premier of the Republic of China from 1993 to 1997, Vice President of the Republic of China from 1996 to 2000, and was the Chairman of the Kuomintang from 2000 to 2005...

 – a former Vice President of the Republic of China who is now Honorary Chairman of the Kuomintang
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...

 – and his wife Lien Fang Yu paid homage at the Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor
Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor
The Mausoleum of Yellow Emperor is the burial site of the Chinese legendary Yellow Emperor, located in Huangling County, Yan'an City, Shaanxi Province, China. According to legend, the Yellow Emperor attained immortality and was taken up to heaven, leaving behind only his clothing and cap to be...

 in Huangling
Huangling County
Huangling County is a county of Yan'an, Shaanxi, China.-Transportation:*China National Highway 210...

, Yan'an
Yan'an
Yan'an , is a prefecture-level city in the Shanbei region of Shaanxi province in China, administering several counties, including Zhidan County , which served as the Chinese communist capital before the city of Yan'an proper took that role....

, in mainland China.

Historian Louis Crompton has cited Ji Yun's report, in his popular Notes from the Yuewei Hermitage (1800), that some claimed the Yellow Emperor was the first Chinese to take male bedmates, disregarding Ji Yun's dismissal of the claim.

Traditional dates

Although the traditional Chinese calendar
Chinese calendar
The Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar, incorporating elements of a lunar calendar with those of a solar calendar. It is not exclusive to China, but followed by many other Asian cultures as well...

 did not mark years continuously, some Han-dynasty astronomers tried to determine the years of the life and reign of the Yellow Emperor. In 78 BCE, under the reign of Emperor Zhao
Emperor Zhao of Han
Emperor Zhao of Han was an emperor of the Chinese Han Dynasty from 87 BC to 74 BC.Emperor Zhao was the youngest son of Emperor Wu of Han. By the time Zhao was born, Emperor Wu was already 62. Zhao ascended the throne after the death of Emperor Wu in 87 BC. He was only 8 years old...

, an official called Zhang Shouwang (張壽望) calculated that 6,000 years had passed since the time of Huangdi; the court refused his proposal for reform, countering that only 3,629 years had elapsed. In the proleptic Julian calendar
Proleptic Julian calendar
The proleptic Julian calendar is produced by extending the Julian calendar to dates preceding AD 4 when its quadrennial leap year stabilized. The leap years actually observed between its official implementation in 45 BC and AD 4 were erratic, see the Julian calendar article for details.A calendar...

, the court's calculations would have placed the Yellow Emperor in the late 38th century BCE rather than in the 27th century BCE that is conventional nowadays.

During their missions in China in the seventeenth century, the Jesuits tried to determine what year should be considered the epoch
Epoch (astronomy)
In astronomy, an epoch is a moment in time used as a reference point for some time-varying astronomical quantity, such as celestial coordinates, or elliptical orbital elements of a celestial body, where these are subject to perturbations and vary with time...

 of the Chinese calendar. In his Sinicae historiae decas prima (first published in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 in 1658), Martino Martini
Martino Martini
Martino Martini was an Italian Jesuit missionary, cartographer and historian, mainly working on ancient Imperial China.-Early years:Martini was born in Trento, in the Bishopric of Trent...

 (1614–1661) dated the royal ascension of Huangdi to 2697 BC, but started the Chinese calendar with the reign of Fuxi, which he claimed started in 2952 BC. Philippe Couplet
Philippe Couplet
Philippe Couplet, also Philip Couplet or Philippus Couplet , was a Belgian Jesuit Father who was active in China in the 17th century. He was born in Mechelen, Spanish Netherlands ....

's (1623–1693) "Chronological table of Chinese monarchs" (Tabula chronologica monarchiae sinicae; 1686) also gave the same date for the Yellow Emperor. The Jesuits' dates provoked great interest in Europe, where they were used for comparisons with Biblical chronology. Modern Chinese chronology has generally accepted Martini's dates, except that it usually places the reign of Huangdi in 2698 BCE (see next paragraph) and omits Huangdi's predecessors Fuxi and Shennong
Shennong
Shennong , which names mean "Divine Farmer", but also known as the Emperor of the Five Grains , was a legendary ruler of China and culture hero reputed to have lived some 5,000 years ago...

, who are considered "too legendary to include."

Starting in 1903, radical publications started using the projected date of birth of the Yellow Emperor as the first year of the Chinese calendar
Chinese calendar
The Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar, incorporating elements of a lunar calendar with those of a solar calendar. It is not exclusive to China, but followed by many other Asian cultures as well...

. Different newspapers and magazines proposed different dates. Jiangsu, for example counted 1905 as year 4396 (making 2491 BCE the first year of the Chinese calendar), whereas the Minbao (the organ of the Tongmenghui
Tongmenghui
The Tongmenghui, also known as the Chinese United League, United League, Chinese Revolutionary Alliance, Chinese Alliance and United Allegiance Society, was a secret society and underground resistance movement formed when merging many Chinese revolutionary groups together by Sun Yat-sen, Song...

) reckoned 1905 as 4603 (first year: 2698 BCE). Liu Shipei (劉師培; 1884–1919) claimed that the 1900 international expedition sent by eight foreign powers
Eight-Nation Alliance
The Eight-Nation Alliance was an alliance of Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States whose military forces intervened in China to suppress the anti-foreign Boxers and relieve the siege of the diplomatic legations in Beijing .- Events :The...

 to suppress the Boxer Uprising entered Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

 in the 4611th year of the Yellow Emperor. Liu's calendar started with the birth of the Yellow Emperor, which was reckoned to be 2711 BCE. When Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen was a Chinese doctor, revolutionary and political leader. As the foremost pioneer of Nationalist China, Sun is frequently referred to as the "Father of the Nation" , a view agreed upon by both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China...

 declared the foundation of the Republic of China
Republic of China (1912–1949)
In 1911, after over two thousand years of imperial rule, a republic was established in China and the monarchy overthrown by a group of revolutionaries. The Qing Dynasty, having just experienced a century of instability, suffered from both internal rebellion and foreign imperialism...

 on 2 January 1912, he decreed that this was the 12th day of the 11th month of year 4609 (epoch: 2698 BCE), but that the state would now be using the solar calendar and count 1912 as the first year of the Republic. Chronological tables published in the 1938 edition of the Cihai (辭海) dictionary followed Sun Yat-sen in using 2698 as the year of Huangdi's accession; this chronology is now "widely reproduced, with little variation."

Helmer Aslaksen, a mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....

 who teaches at the National University of Singapore
National University of Singapore
The National University of Singapore is Singapore's oldest university. It is the largest university in the country in terms of student enrollment and curriculum offered....

 and specializes in the Chinese calendar, explains that those who use 2698 BCE as a first year probably do so because they want to have "a year 0 as the starting point," or because "they assume that the Yellow Emperor started his year with the Winter solstice of 2698 BCE," hence the difference with the year 2697 BCE calculated by the Jesuits.

Popular culture

  • The emperor appears as a god in the strategy game
    Strategy game
    A strategy game or strategic game is a game in which the players' uncoerced, and often autonomous decision-making skills have a high significance in determining the outcome...

     Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom
    Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom
    Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom is the sixth title in the City Building Series. BreakAway Games was contracted for Emperor after having previously worked on Queen of the Nile...

     made by Sierra Entertainment
    Sierra Entertainment
    Sierra Entertainment Inc. was an American video-game developer and publisher founded in 1979 as On-Line Systems by Ken and Roberta Williams...

    , (owned by Vivendi
    Vivendi
    Vivendi SA is a French international media conglomerate with activities in music, television and film, publishing, telecommunications, the Internet, and video games. It is headquartered in Paris.- History :...

     until 2008). In the game he is a patron of hunting and has the skills needed for leading men into battle.

  • The emperor serves as the hero in Jorge Luis Borges
    Jorge Luis Borges
    Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...

    ' story, "The Fauna of the Mirror". British fantasy writer China Miéville
    China Miéville
    China Tom Miéville is an award-winning English fantasy fiction writer. He is fond of describing his work as "weird fiction" , and belongs to a loose group of writers sometimes called New Weird. He is also active in left-wing politics as a member of the Socialist Workers Party...

     used this story as the basis for his novella "The Tain", which describes a post-apocalyptic London
    London
    London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

    . "The Tain" was included in Miéville's short-story collection "Looking For Jake" (2005).

  • The popular Chinese RPG series for the PC
    Personal computer
    A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...

    , Xuanyuan Jian, revolves around the legendary sword used by the emperor.

  • The emperor is an important NPC
    Non-player character
    A non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...

     in the action RPG
    Action role-playing game
    Action role-playing games form a loosely defined sub-genre of role-playing video games that incorporate elements of action or action-adventure games, emphasizing real-time action where the player has direct control over characters, instead of turn-based or menu-based combat...

     Titan Quest
    Titan Quest
    Titan Quest is an action RPG developed by Iron Lore Entertainment. It was released worldwide by THQ on June 26, 2006. The game was released on Steam, along with the expansion Titan Quest: Immortal Throne, on July 17, 2007...

    , whom the Player must reach in the Jade Palace and learn the truth of Typhon's imprisonment from. He also tells the player a bit of information about the war between the gods and the titans, while revealing that he has been following the Player's actions since the beginning of the Silk Road
    Silk Road
    The Silk Road or Silk Route refers to a historical network of interlinking trade routes across the Afro-Eurasian landmass that connected East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean and European world, as well as parts of North and East Africa...

    .

See also

  • Chinese folk religion
    Chinese folk religion
    Chinese folk religion or Shenism , which is a term of considerable debate, are labels used to describe the collection of ethnic religious traditions which have been a main belief system in China and among Han Chinese ethnic groups for most of the civilization's history until today...

  • List of emperors of China
  • Taoism
    Taoism
    Taoism refers to a philosophical or religious tradition in which the basic concept is to establish harmony with the Tao , which is the mechanism of everything that exists...

  • Tianxia

Further reading

, 0-472-06735-4................
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