The Yellow Emperor as depicted in a tomb from the mid 2nd century AD. The inscription reads: "The Yellow Emperor created and changed a great many things; he invented weapons and thewell-field system; he devised upper and lower garments, and established palaces and houses."[1]
Huangdi's cult is first attested in theWarring States period,[10] and became prominent late in that same period and into the earlyHan dynasty, when he was portrayed as the originator of the centralized state, as a cosmic ruler, and as a patron of esoteric arts. A large number of texts – such as theHuangdi Neijing, a medical classic, and theHuangdi Sijing, a group of political treatises – were thus attributed to him. Having waned in influence during most of theimperial period, in the early twentieth century Huangdi became a rallying figure forHan Chinese attempts to overthrow the rule of the Qing dynasty, remaining a powerful symbol within modernChinese nationalism.[11]
Until 221 BC, whenQin Shi Huang of theQin dynasty coined the titlehuangdi (皇帝) – conventionally "emperor" - the characterdi帝 did not refer to earthly rulers but toShangdi, the highest god of theShang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC) pantheon.[12] In the Warring States period (c. 475–221 BC), the termdi on its own could also refer to the deities associated with the fiveSacred Mountains of China and colors. Huangdi (黃帝), the "yellowdi", was one of the latter. To emphasize the religious meaning ofdi in pre-imperial times, historians of early China commonly translate the god's name as "Yellow Thearch" and the first emperor's title as "August Thearch", in which "thearch" refers to a godly ruler.[13]
In the late Warring States period, the Yellow Emperor was integrated into the cosmological scheme of theFive Phases, in which the color yellow represents theearth phase, theYellow Dragon, and the center.[14] The correlation of the colors in association with different dynasties was mentioned in theLüshi Chunqiu (late 3rd century BC), where the Yellow Emperor's reign was seen to be governed by earth.[15] The characterhuang黃 ("yellow") was often used in place of thehomophonoushuang皇, which means "august" (in the sense of 'distinguished') or "radiant", giving Huangdi attributes close to those of Shangdi, the Shang supreme god.[16]
TheRecords of the Grand Historian, compiled bySima Qian in the first century BC, gives the Yellow Emperor's name as "Xuan Yuan" (traditional Chinese:軒轅;simplified Chinese:轩辕;pinyin:Xuān Yuán <Old Chinese (B-S) *qʰa[r]-[ɢ]ʷa[n], lit. "Chariot Shaft"[17]). Third-century scholarHuangfu Mi, who wrote a work on the sovereigns of antiquity, commented that Xuanyuan was the name of a hill where Huangdi had lived and that he later took as a name.[18] TheClassic of Mountains and Seas mentions a Xuanyuan nation whose inhabitants have human faces, snake bodies, and tails twisting above their heads;[19]Yuan Ke, a contemporary scholar of early Chinese mythology, "noted that the appearance of these people is characteristic of gods and suggested that they may reflect the form of the Yellow Thearch himself".[20] TheQing dynasty scholar Liang Yusheng (梁玉繩, 1745–1819) argued instead that the hill was named after the Yellow Emperor.[18] Xuanyuan is also the name of the starRegulus in Chinese, the star being associated with Huangdi in traditional astronomy.[21] He is also associated to the broaderconstellations Leo and Lynx, of which the latter is said to represent the body of the Yellow Dragon (黃龍Huánglóng), Huangdi's animal form.[22]
Huangdi was also referred to as "Youxiong" (有熊;Yǒuxióng). This name has been interpreted as either a place name or a clan name. According to British sinologistHerbert Allen Giles (1845–1935), that name was "taken from that of [Huangdi's] hereditary principality".[23] William Nienhauser, a modern translator of theRecords of the Grand Historian, states that Huangdi was originally the head of the Youxiong clan, which lived near what is nowXinzheng in Henan.[24] Rémi Mathieu, a French historian of Chinese myths and religion, translates "Youxiong" as "possessor of bears" and links Huangdi to the broader theme of the bear in world mythology.[25] Ye Shuxian has also associated the Yellow Emperor with bear legends common across northeast Asia people as well as theDangun legend.[26][page needed]
InHan dynasty texts, the Yellow Emperor is also called upon as the "Yellow God" (黃神Huángshén).[28] Certain accounts interpret him as the incarnation of the "Yellow God of theNorthern Dipper" (黄神北斗Huángshén Běidǒu),[note 1] another name of the universal god (Shangdi上帝 orTiandi天帝).[29] According to a definition in apocryphal texts related to theHétú河圖, the Yellow Emperor "proceeds from the essence of the Yellow God".[30]
As a cosmological deity, the Yellow Emperor is known as the "Great Emperor of the Central Peak" (中岳大帝Zhōngyuè Dàdì),[3] and in theShizi as the "Yellow Emperor with Four Faces" (黃帝四面Huángdì Sìmiàn).[31] In old accounts the Yellow Emperor is identified as a deity of light (and his name is explained in theShuowen jiezi to derive fromguāng光, "light") and thunder, and as one and the same with the "Thunder God" (雷神Léishén),[32][33] who in turn, as a later mythological character, is distinguished as the Yellow Emperor's foremost pupil, such as in theHuangdi Neijing.
Map of tribes and tribal unions in Ancient China, including tribes of Huang Di (Yellow Emperor), Yan Di (Flame Emperor) and Chiyou
The Chinese historianSima Qian – and much Chinese historiography following him – considered the Yellow Emperor to be a more historical figure than earlier legendary figures such asFu Xi,Nüwa, andShennong. Sima Qian'sRecords of the Grand Historian begins with the Yellow Emperor, while passing over the others.[2][34]
Throughout most of Chinese history, the Yellow Emperor and the other ancient sages were considered to be historical figures.[5] Their historicity started to be questioned in the 1920s by historians such asGu Jiegang, one of the founders of theDoubting Antiquity School in China.[5] 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 theWarring States period.[35]Yang Kuan, a member of the same current ofhistoriography, noted that only in the Warring States period had the Yellow Emperor started to be described as the first ruler of China.[36] Yang thus argued that Huangdi was a later transformation ofShangdi, the supreme god of theShang dynasty'spantheon.[14]
Also in the 1920s, French scholarsHenri Maspero andMarcel Granet published critical studies of China's accounts of high antiquity.[37] In hisDanses 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.[38]
In the "middle of the [20th] century, a group of" Chinese "historians proposed the theory that [theThree Sovereigns and Five Emperors]" were originallyChinese gods who became thought of as human during the later period of theZhou dynasty.[8] Most scholars now agree that the Yellow Emperor originated as a god who was later represented as a historical person.[39]K. C. Chang sees Huangdi and other cultural heroes as "ancient religious figures" who were "euhemerized" in the late Warring States and Han periods.[5] Historian of ancient ChinaMark Edward Lewis speaks of the Yellow Emperor's "earlier nature as a god", whereasRoel Sterckx, a professor atUniversity of Cambridge, calls Huangdi a "legendary cultural hero".[40]
The origin of Huangdi's mythology is unclear, but historians have formulated several hypotheses about it.Yang Kuan, a member of theDoubting Antiquity School (1920s–40s), argued that the Yellow Emperor was derived fromShangdi, the highest god of theShang dynasty.[41][42][43] Yang reconstructs the etymology as follows: Shangdi上帝 → Huang Shangdi皇上帝 → Huangdi皇帝 → Huangdi黄帝, in which he claims thathuang黃 ("yellow") either was avariant Chinese character forhuang皇 ("august") or was used as a way to avoid thenaming taboo for the latter.[44] Yang's view has been criticized by Mitarai Masaru[45] and by Michael Puett.[46]
HistorianMark Edward Lewis agrees thathuang黄 andhuang皇 were often interchangeable, but disagreeing with Yang, he claims thathuang meaning "yellow" appeared first.[41] Based on what he admits is a "novel etymology" likeninghuang黄 to the phonetically closewang尪 (the "burned shaman" in Shang rainmaking rituals), Lewis suggests that "Huang" in "Huangdi" might originally have meant "rainmaking shaman" or "rainmaking ritual."[47] 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 Huangdi represented the power of rain and clouds, whereas his mythical rivalChiyou (or theYan Emperor) stood for fire and drought.[48]
Also disagreeing with Yang Kuan's hypothesis,Sarah Allan finds it unlikely that such a popular myth as the Yellow Emperor's could have come from a taboo character.[42] She argues instead that pre-Shang "'history'," including the story of the Yellow Emperor, "can all be understood as a later transformation and systematization of Shangmythology."[49] 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.[42] 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."[50] After theZhou dynasty overthrew the Shang dynasty in the eleventh century BC, Zhou leaders reinterpreted Shang myths as meaning that the Shang had vanquished a real political dynasty, which was eventually named theXia dynasty.[50] ByHan times – as seen inSima Qian's account in theShiji – 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.[51]
Given that the earliest extant mention of the Yellow Emperor was on a fourth-century BCChinese bronze inscription[note 2] claiming that he was the ancestor of the royal house of thestate of Qi, Lothar von Falkenhausen speculates that Huangdi was invented as an ancestral figure as part of a strategy to claim that all ruling clans in the "Zhou dynasty culture sphere" shared common ancestry.[53]
Explicit accounts of the Yellow Emperor started to appear in Chinese texts during theWarring States period. The earliest extant mention of Huangdi is aninscription on the Chen Hou Yinqidui (陳侯因齊敦), cast during the first half of the fourth century BC by the royal family (surnamed Tian田) of thestate of Qi, a powerful eastern state.[54] As the Tian family hadusurped the throne of Qi, establishing such a divine heritage would positively affect their claim to legitimacy.
Harvard University historian Michael Puett writes that the Qi bronze inscription was one of several references to the Yellow Emperor in the fourth and third centuries BC within accounts of the creation of the state.[55] Noting that many of the thinkers who were later identified as precursors of theHuang–Lao – "Huangdi and Laozi" – tradition came from the state of Qi,Robin D. S. Yates hypothesizes that Huang–Lao originated in that region.[56]
The cult of Huangdi became very popular during theWarring States period (5th century – 221 BC), a period of intense competition between rival states which ended with the unification of the realm by thestate of Qin.[57] In addition to his role as ancestor, he became associated with "centralized statecraft" and emerged as a figure paradigmatic of emperorship.[58]
In hisShiji,Sima Qian claims that thestate of Qin started worshipping the Yellow Emperor in the fifth century BC, along withYandi, the Fiery Emperor.[59] The altars were established at Yong雍 (near modernFengxiang County inShaanxi province), which was the capital of Qin from 677 to 383 BC.[60] By the time ofKing Zheng, who became king of Qin in 247 BC andFirst Emperor of a unified China in 221 BC, Huangdi had become by far the most important of the four "thearchs" (di帝) who were then worshiped at Yong.[61]
The figure of Huangdi had appeared sporadically in Warring States texts.Sima Qian'sShiji (orRecords of the Grand Historian, completed around 94 BC) was the first work to turn these fragments of myths into a systematic and consistent narrative of the Yellow Emperor's "career".[62] TheShiji's account was extremely influential in shaping how the Chinese viewed the origin of their history.[63]
TheShiji begins its chronological account of Chinese history with the life of Huangdi, whom it presents as a sage sovereign from antiquity.[64] It recounts that Huangdi's father wasShaodian[2] and his mother wasFubao (附寶).[65] The Yellow Emperor had four wives. His first wifeLeizu ofXiling bore him two sons.[2] His other three wives were his second wife Fenglei (封嫘), third wife Tongyu (彤魚) and fourth wife Momu (嫫母).[65][66] The emperor had a total of 25 sons,[67] 14 of whom began their own surnames and clans.[2] The oldest wasShaohao or Xuan Xiao, who lived inQingyang by theYangtze River.[2]Changyi, the second son, lived by theRuo River. When the Yellow Emperor died, he was succeeded by Changyi's son,Zhuan Xu.[2]
The chronological tables found in chapters 13 of theShiji represent all past rulers – legendary ones such as Yao and Shun, the first ancestors of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, as well as the founders of the main ruling houses in the Zhou sphere – as descendants of Huangdi, giving the impression that Chinese history was the history of one large family.[68]
Inquiring of the Dao at the Cave of Paradise, hanging scroll, color on silk, 210.5 x 83 cm byDai Jin (1388–1462). This painting is based on the story, first recounted in theZhuangzi, that the Yellow Emperor traveled to theKongtong Mountains to inquire about theDao with theDaoist sageGuangchengzi.
TheDai Dai Liji (大戴禮記), compiled byDai De towards the end of theWestern Han dynasty, carries a quote attributed to Confucius:
When [the Yellow Emperor] was alive, people benefited from his rule for a hundred years; after he died, people stood in awe of his spirit for a hundred years; after [his spirit] disappeared, people used his teachings for a hundred years. For this reason, people say [that the Yellow Emperor lived for] three hundred years.[70]
The Yellow Emperor was credited with an enormous number of cultural legacies and esoteric teachings. WhileTaoism is often regarded in the West as arising fromLaozi, many Chinese Taoists claim the Yellow Emperor formulated many of their precepts,[6] including the quest for "long life".[71] TheYellow Emperor's Inner Canon (黃帝內經Huángdì Nèijīng), which presents the doctrinal basis oftraditional Chinese medicine, was named after him.[72] He was also credited with composing theFour Books of the Yellow Emperor (黃帝四經Huángdì Sìjīng), theYellow Emperor's Book of the Hidden Symbol (黃帝陰符經Huángdì Yīnfújīng), and the "Yellow Emperor's Four Seasons Poem (軒轅黃帝四季詩)" included in theTung Shing fortune-telling almanac.[6]
A section of the four seasons poem from theTung Shing, which is believed to have fortune telling properties.
In the second century AD, Huangdi's role as a deity was diminished because of the rise of a deifiedLaozi.[74] A state sacrifice offered to "Huang-Lao jun" was not offered to Huangdi and Laozi, as the termHuang-Lao would have meant a few centuries earlier, "yellow Laozi".[75] Nonetheless, Huangdi kept being considered as an immortal: he was seen as a master of longevity techniques and as a god who could reveal new teachings – in the form of texts such as the sixth-centuryHuangdi Yinfujing – to his earthly followers.[76]
The Yellow Emperor became a powerful national symbol in the last decade of theQing dynasty (1644–1911) and remained dominant in Chinese nationalist discourse throughout theRepublican period (1912–1949).[77] The early twentieth century is also when the Yellow Emperor was first referred to as theancestor of all Chinese people.[78]
Starting in 1903, radical publications started using the projected date of his birth as the first year of theChinese calendar.[79] Intellectuals such asLiu Shipei (1884–1919) found this practice necessary in order to "preserve the [Han] race" (baozhong保種) from both dominance byManchu people and foreign encroachment.[79] Revolutionaries motivated byAnti-Manchuism such asChen Tianhua (1875–1905),Zou Rong (1885–1905), andZhang Binglin (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 overHan Chinese.[80] Chen's widely circulated pamphlets claimed that the "Han race" formed one big family descended from the Yellow Emperor.[81] The first issue (Nov. 1905) of theMinbao民報 ("People's Journal"),[82] which was founded in Tokyo by revolutionaries of theTongmenghui, featured the Yellow Emperor on its cover and called Huangdi "the first great nationalist of the world."[83] It was one of several nationalist magazines that featured the Yellow Emperor on their cover in the early twentieth century.[84] The fact that Huangdi meant "yellow" emperor also served to buttress the theory that he was the originator of the "yellow race".[85]
Many historians interpret this sudden popularity of the Yellow Emperor as a reaction to the theories of French scholarAlbert Terrien de Lacouperie (1845–94), who in a book calledThe Western Origin of the Early Chinese Civilization, from 2300 B.C. to 200 A.D. (1892) had claimed that Chinese civilization was founded around 2300 BCE byBabylonian immigrants.[86] Lacouperie's "Sino-Babylonianism" posited that Huangdi wasKing Nakhunte, aMesopotamian tribal leader who had led a massive migration of his people, from the Bak ethnic group, into China around 2300 BC and founded what later became Chinese civilization.[87][88] Europeansinologists 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.[89] Chinese scholars were quickly attracted by "the historicization ofChinese mythology" that the two Japanese authors advocated.[90]
Anti-Manchu intellectuals and activists who searched for China's "national essence" (guocui國粹) adapted Sino-Babylonianism to their needs.[91] Zhang Binglin explained Huangdi'sbattle with Chi You 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.[92] Zhang's reinterpretation of Sima Qian's account "underscored the need to recover the glory of early China."[93] Liu Shipei also presented these early times as the golden age of Chinese civilization.[94] 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 calledHistory 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.[95] Reinforced by the values offilial piety and theChinese patrilineal clan,[96] the racial vision defended by Huang and others turned vengeance against the Manchus into a duty owed to one's ancestors.[97]
Top image: A five-yuan banknote carrying the effigy of the Yellow Emperor, issued in 1912 by the government of the newly establishedRepublic of China Bottom image: A 100-yuan banknote displaying the Yellow Emperor, issued in 1938 by the Federal Reserve Bank of China of theProvisional Government of the Republic of China (1937–40), a Japanese puppet regime in North China
The Yellow Emperor continued to be revered after the1911 Revolution, which overthrew the Qing dynasty. In 1912, for instance, banknotes carrying Huangdi's effigy were issued by the new Republican government.[98] 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.[99] Under the ideology of theFive Races Under One Union, Huangdi became the common ancestor of theHan Chinese, theManchu people, theMongols, theTibetans, and theHui people, who were said to form theZhonghua minzu, a broadly understood Chinese nation.[99] Sixteen state ceremonies were held between 1911 and 1949 to Huangdi as the "founding ancestor of theChinese nation" (中華民族始祖) and even "the founding ancestor of human civilization" (人文始祖).[98]
The cult of the Yellow Emperor was forbidden in the People's Republic of China until the end of the Cultural Revolution.[100] The prohibition was halted during the 1980s when the government reversed itself and resurrected the "Yellow Emperor cult".[101] Starting in the 1980s, the cult was revived and phrases relating to the "Descendants of Yan and Huang" were sometimes used by the Chinese state when referring to people of Chinese descent.[102] In 1984, for example,Deng Xiaoping argued forChinese unification saying "Taiwan is rooted in the hearts of the descendants of the Yellow Emperor," whereas in 1986 the PRC acclaimed the Chinese-American astronautTaylor Wang as the first of the Yellow Emperor's descendants totravel in space.[103] In the first half of the 1980s, the Party had internally debated whether this usage would makeethnic minorities feel excluded. After consulting experts fromBeijing University, theChinese Academy of Social Science, and theCentral Nationalities Institute, theCentral Propaganda Department recommended on March 27, 1985, that the Party speak of theZhonghua Minzu – the "Chinese nation" broadly defined – in official statements, but that the phrase "sons and grand-sons of Yandi and the Yellow Emperor" could be used in informal statements by party leaders and in "relations withHong Kong and Taiwanese compatriots and overseas Chinese compatriots".[104]
After retreating to Taiwan in late 1949 at the end of theChinese Civil War,Chiang Kai-shek and theKuomintang (KMT) ruled that theRepublic of China (ROC) would keep paying homage to the Yellow Emperor on April 4, the NationalTomb Sweeping Day, but neither he nor the three presidents that succeeded him ever paid homage in person.[105] In 1955, the KMT, which was led by Mandarin speakers and still poised on retakingthe mainland from the Communists, sponsored the production of the movieChildren of the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi zisun黃帝子孫), which was filmed mostly inTaiwanese Hokkien and showed extensive passages ofTaiwanese folk opera. Directed by Bai Ke (1914–1964), a former assistant ofYuan Muzhi, it was a propaganda effort to convince speakers of Taiyu that they were linked to mainland people by common blood.[106] In 2009Ma Ying-jeou was the first ROC president to celebrate the Tomb Sweeping Day rituals for Huangdi in person, on which occasion he proclaimed that bothChinese culture and common descent from the Yellow Emperor united people fromTaiwan and the mainland.[105][107] Later the same year,Lien Chan – a former Vice President of the Republic of China who is now Honorary Chairman of theKuomintang – and his wifeLien Fang Yu paid homage at theMausoleum of the Yellow Emperor inHuangling,Yan'an, in mainland China.[105][108]
Gay studies researcher Louis Crompton[109][110][111] has citedJi Yun's report in his popularNotes from the YueweiHermitage (1800), that some claimed the Yellow Emperor was the first Chinese to take male bedmates, a claim that Ji Yun dismissed.[112] Ji Yun argued that this was probably a false attribution.[113]
Today,Xuanyuanjiao based on Taiwan represents an organised form of Yellow Emperor worship married to Confucian orthodoxy.
As with any myth, there are numerous versions of Huangdi's story, emphasizing different themes and interpreting the main character's significance in different ways.
According toHuangfu Mi (215–282), the Yellow Emperor was born inShou Qiu ("Longevity Hill"),[114] which is today on the outskirts of the city ofQufu in Shandong. Early on, he lived with his tribe near theJi River –Edwin Pulleyblank states that "there seems to be no record of a Ji River outside the myth"[115] – and later migrated toZhuolu in modern-dayHebei. He then became a farmer and tamed six different special beasts: the bear (熊), thebrown bear (罴;羆), thepí (貔) andxiū (貅) (which later combined to form the mythicalPixiu), the ferociouschū (貙), and the tiger (虎).
Huangdi is sometimes said to have been the fruit ofextraordinary birth, as his motherFubao conceived him as she was aroused, while walking in the country, by a lightning bolt from theBig Dipper. She delivered her son on the mount of Shou (Longevity) or mount Xuanyuan, after which he was named.[116]
Another story states that "Huang Di came into being when the energies that instigated the beginning of the world merged with one another, and created human beings by placing earthen statues at the cardinal points of the world and leaving them exposed for 300 years. During that time, the statues became filled with the breath of creation and eventually began to move [after the 300 years]. Huang Di...received his magic powers when he was 100 years old. He [became axian] and, riding adragon, rose toheaven where he became one of the five [Wufang Shangdi]. Huang Di himself rules over the fifth cardinal point, the centre."[4]
In traditional Chinese accounts, the Yellow Emperor is credited with teaching his people how to build shelters, tame wild animals, and grow theFive Grains, although other accounts creditShennong with the last. He invents carts, boats, and clothing.
There are other major traditions whereFuxi was the one who invented the calendar and the Yellow Emperor merely reformed and intercalated it.[121]
In traditional accounts, he also goads the historianCangjie into creating the firstChinese character writing system, theOracle bone script, and his principal wifeLeizu inventssericulture and teaches his people how to weave silk and dye clothes.
At one point in his reign the Yellow Emperor allegedly visited themythical East sea and met a talking beast called theBai Ze who taught him the knowledge of all supernatural creatures.[122][123] This beast explained to him there were 11,522 (or 1,522) kinds of supernatural creatures.[122][123]
Chi You, the mythical opponent of the Yellow Emperor at theBattle of Zhuolu, here depicted in a Han-dynasty tomb relief
The Yellow Emperor and theYan Emperor were both leaders of a tribe or a combination of two tribes near theYellow River. The Yan Emperor hailed from a different area around theJiang River, which a geographical work called theShuijingzhu identified as a stream nearQishan in what was the Zhou homeland before they defeated the Shang.[115] Both emperors lived in a time of warfare.[124][7] 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.[124]
According to traditional accounts, the Yan Emperor meets the force of the "Nine Li" (九黎) under their bronze-headed leader,Chi You, and his 81 horned and four-eyed brothers[125] and suffers a decisive defeat. He flees to Zhuolu and begs the Yellow Emperor for help. During the ensuingBattle of Zhuolu 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 thesouth-pointing chariot, which he uses to lead his army out of the miasma.[125] He next calls upon the drought demonNüba to dispel Chi You's storm.[125] He then destroys the Nine Li and defeats Chi You.[126] Later he engages in battle with the Yan Emperor,defeating him at Banquan and replacing him as the primary ruler.[124]
Modern-day Chinese people sometimes refer to themselves as the "Descendants of Yan and Yellow Emperor", although non-Han minority groups in China may have their own myths or not count as descendants of the emperor.[128]
As the Yellow Deity with Four Faces (黃帝四面 Huángdì Sìmiàn) he represents the centre of the universe and vision of the unity which controls the four directions. It is explained in theHuangdi Sijing ("Four Scriptures of the Yellow Emperor") that regulating "heart within brings order outside". In order to reign, one must "reduce himself" abandoning emotions, "drying up like a corpse", never allowing oneself to be carried away, as the Yellow Emperor himself did during his three years of refuge on Mount Bowang in order to find himself according to the myth. This practice creates an internal void where all the vital forces of creation gather, and the more indeterminate they remain, the more powerful they will be.[129]
It is from this centre that equilibrium and harmony emanate, equilibrium of the vital organs which becomes harmony between the person and the environment. As sovereign of the centre, the Yellow Emperor is the very image of the concentration or re-centering of the self. By self-control, taking charge of his own body one becomes powerful outside. The centre is also the vital point in the microcosm by means of which the internal universe viewed as an altar is created. The body is a universe, and by going into himself and by incorporating the fundamental structures of the universe, the sage will gain access to the gates of Heaven, the unique point where communication between Heaven, Earth and Man can occur. The centre is the convergence of within and outside, the contraction of chaos on the point which is equidistant from all directions. It is the place which is no place, where all creation is born and dies.[129]
The Great Deity of the Central Peak (中岳大帝Zhōngyuèdàdì) is another epithet representing Huangdi as the hub of creation, theaxis mundi (which in Chinese mythology isKunlun) that is the manifestation of the divine order in physical reality, that opens to immortality.[3]
Throughout history, several sovereigns and dynasties claimed (or were claimed) to descend from the Yellow Emperor. Sima Qian'sShiji presented Huangdi as ancestor of the two legendary rulersYao andShun, and traced various lines of descent from Huangdi to the founders of theXia,Shang, andZhou dynasties. He claimed thatLiu Bang, the first emperor of theHan dynasty, was a descendant of Huangdi. He believed that the ruling house of theQin dynasty was originated also from the Yellow Emperor, but by stating thatQin Shihuang was in fact the child of Qin chancellorLü Buwei, he perhaps meant to leave the First Emperor out of Huangdi's descent.
Claiming descent from illustrious ancestors remained a common tool of political legitimacy in the following ages.Wang Mang (c. 45 BC – 23 AD), of the short-livedXin dynasty, claimed to descend from the Yellow Emperor in order to justify his overthrow of the Han.[130] As he announced in January of 9 AD: "I possess no virtue, [but] I rely upon the fact that] I am a descendant of my august original ancestor, the Yellow Emperor..."[131] About two hundred years later a ritual specialist named Dong Ba董巴, who worked for at the court of theCao Wei, which had recently succeeded the Han, promoted the idea that the Cao family was descended from Huangdi via EmperorZhuanxu.[132]
During theTang dynasty, non-Han rulers also claimed descent from the Yellow Emperor, for individual and national prestige, as well as to connect themselves to the Tang.[133] Most Chinese noble families also claimed descent from Huangdi.[134] This practice was well established in Tang and Song times, when hundreds of clans claimed such descent. The main support for this theory – as recorded in theTongdian (801 AD) and theTongzhi (mid 12th century) – was theShiji's statement that Huangdi's 25 sons were given 12 different surnames, and that these surnames had diversified into all Chinese surnames.[135] AfterEmperor Zhenzong (r. 997–1022) of the Song dynasty dreamed of a figure he was told was the Yellow Emperor, theSong imperial family started to claim Huangdi as its first ancestor.[136]
A number ofoverseas Chinese clans that keep a genealogy also trace their family ultimately to Huangdi, explaining their different surnames as name changes claimed to have derived from the fourteen surnames of Huangdi's descendants.[137] Many Chinese clans, both overseas and in China, claim Huangdi as their ancestor to reinforce their sense of being Chinese.[138]
Gun, Yu, Zhuanxu, Zhong, Li, Shujun, andYuqiang are various emperors, gods, and heroes whose ancestor was also supposed to be Huangdi. The Huantou, Miaomin, andQuanrong peoples were said to be descended from Huangdi.[139]
Martino Martini, a seventeenth-centuryJesuit who, based on Chinese historical records, calculated that the Yellow Emperor's reign began in 2697 BC. Martini's dates are still used today.
Although the traditionalChinese calendar did not mark years continuously, someHan-dynasty astronomers tried to determine the years of the life and reign of the Yellow Emperor. In 78 BC, under the reign ofEmperor Zhao of Han, 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.[140] In theproleptic Julian calendar, the court's calculations would have placed the Yellow Emperor in the late 38th century BC rather than in the 27th century BC that is conventional nowadays.
During theirJesuit missions in China in the seventeenth century, theJesuits tried to determine what year should be considered theepoch of the Chinese calendar. In hisSinicae historiae decas prima (first published inMunich in 1658),Martino Martini (1614–1661) dated the royal ascension of Huangdi to2697 BC, but started the Chinese calendar with the reign ofFuxi, which he claimed started in 2952 BCE.[141]Philippe Couplet's (1623–1693) "Chronological table of Chinese monarchs" (Tabula chronologica monarchiae sinicae; 1686) also gave the same date for the Yellow Emperor.[142] The Jesuits' dates provoked great interest in Europe, where they were used for comparisons withBiblical chronology.[143] Modern Chinese chronology has generally accepted Martini's dates, except that it usually places the reign of Huangdi in 2698 BC (see next paragraph) and omits Huangdi's predecessors Fuxi andShennong, who are considered "too legendary to include."[144]
Helmer Aslaksen, a mathematician who teaches at theNational University of Singapore and specializes in the Chinese calendar, explains that those who use 2698 BC 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 BC", hence the difference with the year 2697 BC calculated by the Jesuits.[145]
Starting in 1903, radical publications started using the projected date of birth of the Yellow Emperor as the first year of theChinese calendar.[79] Different newspapers and magazines proposed different dates.Jiangsu, for example counted 1905 as year 4396 (making 2491 BC the first year of the Chinese calendar), whereas theMinbao (the organ of theTongmenghui) reckoned 1905 as 4603 (first year: 2698 BC).[146]Liu Shipei (1884–1919) created the Yellow Emperor Calendar to show the unbroken continuity of the Han race and Han culture from earliest times. There is no evidence that this calendar was used before the 20th century.[147] Liu's calendar started with the birth of the Yellow Emperor, which was reckoned to be2711 BC.[148] WhenSun Yat-sen declared the foundation of theRepublic of China on January 2, 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.[149] Chronological tables published in the 1938 edition of theCihai dictionary followed Sun Yat-sen in using 2698 as the year of Huangdi's accession; this chronology is now "widely reproduced, with little variation".[150]
^A斗dǒu in Chinese is an entire semantic field. Its base meaning is a "dipper" or the shape of one, as theBig Dipper (北斗Běidǒu). It can also be read as a measure of volume, meaning a "dipperful" in some usages and multiple liters in others. It can also signify a "whirl". InSimplified Chinese characters,斗 is used to write the word鬥 (dòu) and its graphical synonyms, which connote "contend", "struggle", "battle".
^Specifically, the inscription on the Chen Hou Yinqidui (陳侯因齊敦), cast byKing Wei of Qi (r. 356–320 BCE).[52]
^abcWindridge, Charles (2003).Tong Sing: The Book of Wisdom: Based on the Ancient Chinese Almanac. Consulting work done by Cheng Kam Fong (Revised and Updated ed.). New York:Barnes & Noble Books. pp. 59, 107.ISBN978-0-7607-4535-9.OCLC54439373.
^Witzel, Morgen (6 December 2019).A History of Leadership. Routledge. p. 89.ISBN978-1-351-66649-7.The Yellow Emperor, who was believed to be the ancestor of the Chinese people and who was – and remains – a symbol of Chinese nationalism.
^Allan 1984, p. 245: "Only after the 'First Emperor' of Qin styled himselfShi Huangdi, didhuangdi come to refer to an earthly ruler rather than the August Lord"
^Major 1993, p. 18: "Thearch captures well the character of ancient Chinese thought wherein divinities might be (simultaneously and without internal contradiction) high gods, mythical/divine rulers, or deified royal ancestors: beings of enormous import, straddling the numinous and the mundane."
^An Liu; John S. Major (2010).The Huainanzi: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Government in Early Han China. Columbia University Press.ISBN978-0231142045. p. 117, note 11.
^Xu, Shen. "13: 女部". In Sturgeon, Donald (ed.).說文解字 [Shuowen Jiezi] (in Literary Chinese) (Digitised ed.). China: Chinese Text Project. Archived fromthe original on 2 July 2025. Retrieved2 July 2025.姬：黄帝居姬水，以为姓。从女𦣞声。
^SCPG Publishing Corp.The Deified Human Face Petroglyphs of Prehistoric China. World Scientific, 2015.ISBN1938368339. p. 239: in theHetudijitong and theChunqiuhechengtu the Yellow Emperor is identified as the Thunder God.
^Yang, Lihui; An, Deming.Handbook of Chinese Mythology. ABC-CLIO, 2005.ISBN157607806X. p. 138
^Lewis 2007, p. 556: "modern scholars of myth generally agree that the sage kings were partially humanized transformations of earlier, supernatural beings who figured in shamanistic rituals, cosmogonic myths or tales of the origins of tribes and clans."
^Allan 1991, pp. 64, 73, 175: "In the Xia annals of theShiji, the Xia ancestry is traced from Yu禹 back to Huang Di, the Yellow Lord"; "the lord of the underworld and Yellow Springs and thus closely associated with the Xia"; "By the Han, their [the Xia] ancestor, the Yellow Emperor, originally the lord of the underworld, had been transformed into an historical figure who, with his descendant Zhuan Xu, ruled before Yao".
^Falkenhausen 2006, p. 165 ("Warring States texts document a variety of attempts to coordinate all or most of the clans of the Zhou culture sphere under a common genealogy descended from the mythical Yellow Emperor (Huangdi), who may have been invented for that very purpose").
^LeBlanc 1985–1986, p. 53 (quotation);Seidel 1969, p. 21 (who calls it "the most ancient document on Huangdi" ["le plus ancient document sur Houang Ti"]);Jan 1981, p. 118 (who calls the inscription "the earliest existing and datable source of the Yellow Emperor cult" and claims that the vessel dates either from 375 or 356 BC;Chang 2007, p. 122 (who gives the date as 356 BCE);Puett 2001, p. 112 (Huangdi's "first appearance in early Chinese literature is a passing reference in a bronze inscription, where he is mentioned as an ancestor of the patron of the vessel");Yates 1997, p. 18 ("earliest extant reference" to Huangdi is "in a bronze inscription dedicated byKing Wei" (r. 357–320);von Glahn 2004, p. 38 (which calls Qi "the dominant state in eastern China" at the time).
^von Glahn 2004, p. 38 ("By the reign of King Zheng, the future First Emperor of Qin, the cult of Huangdi overshadowed all of its rivals for the attention of the Qin rulers").
^Yi 2010, in section titled"Yan–Huang chuanshuo炎黄传说" ("The legends of Yandi and Huangdi") (original: "到了司马迁《史记》才有较系统记述.... 《史记·五帝本纪》整合成了一个相对完整的故事");Lewis 1990, p. 174 ("the earliest surviving sequential narrative of the career of the Yellow Emperor");Birrell 1994, p. 86 ("[Sima Qian] composed a seamless biographical account of the deity that had no basis in the earlier classical texts that recorded myth narratives.").
^Salamone, Frank A. (2004). Levinson, David (ed.).Encyclopedia of Religious Rites, Rituals, and Festivals. New York:Routledge. p. 431.ISBN0-415-94180-6.
Li Keqin (李克勤).金鑾寶座軒轅鏡 御門聽政太和殿 [The Xuanyuan mirror in the Imperial Throne Room – the Hall of Supreme Harmony where the emperor held court].Sing Tao Daily星島地產 (in Chinese). Archived fromthe original on 6 July 2011. Retrieved29 August 2010.
^Sun 2000, p. 69: "中华这个五千年文明古国由黄帝开国、中国人都是黄帝子孙的说法, 则是20 世纪的产品": "The claims that the 5000-year-old Chinese civilization was inaugurated by Huangdi and that Chinese people are the descendants of Huangdi are products of the twentieth century."
^Dikötter 1992, pp. 71 and 117 ("racial loyalty was perceived as an extension of lineage loyalty";Hon 2010, p. 150 ("call to arms.... to wage a racial war against the Manchus").
^Liu Xiang (77–6 BC),Bielu别祿: "It is said thatcuju was invented by Huangdi; others claim that it arose during the Warring States period" (蹴鞠者, 傳言黄帝所作, 或曰起戰國之時); cited inBook of the Later Han (5th century), chapter 34, p. 1178 of the standard Zhonghua shuju edition.(in Chinese)
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