The Yan Emperor () or the Flame Emperor was a legendary ancient Chinese emperor in pre-dynastic times. Some modern Chinese scholars have identified the Sheep's Head Mountains (''Yángtóu Shān'')

Weibin District, Baoji Weibin District () is a district of Baoji, Shaanxi Shaanxi is a Provinces of China, province in north Northwestern China. It borders the province-level divisions of Inner Mongolia to the north; Shanxi and Henan to the east; Hubei, Chongqin ...

as his homeland and territory. A long debate has existed over whether or not the Yan Emperor was the same person as the legendary

Shennong Shennong ( zh, c=神農, p=Shénnóng), variously translated as "Divine Farmer" or "Divine Husbandman", born , was a mythological Chinese ruler known as the first Yan Emperor who has become a deity in Chinese and Vietnamese folk religion. H ...

. An academic conference held in China in 2004 achieved general consensus that the Yan Emperor and Shennong were the same person. Another possibility is that the term "Yan Emperor" or "Flame Emperor" was a title, held by dynastic succession of tribal lords, with Shennong being known as ''Yandi'' perhaps posthumously. Accordingly, the term "Yan Emperor''s''" or "Flame Emperor''s''" would be generally more correct. The succession of these Yan or Flame emperors, from Shennong, the first Yan Emperor, until the time of the last Yan Emperor's defeat by the

Yellow Emperor The Yellow Emperor, also known as the Yellow Thearch, or Huangdi ( zh, t=黃帝, s=黄帝, first=t) in Chinese, is a mythical Chinese sovereign and culture hero included among the legendary Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. He is revered as ...

, may have been some 500 years.

Historical records

No written records are known to exist from the era of Yan Emperor's reign. However, he and Shennong are mentioned in many of the classic works of ancient China. ''Yan'' literally means "flame", implying that Yan Emperor's people possibly uphold a symbol of fire as their tribal

totem A totem (from or ''doodem'') is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage (anthropology), lineage, or tribe, such as in the Anishinaabe clan system. While the word ...

K. C. Wu K. C. Wu (; October 21, 1903 – June 6, 1984) was a Chinese political figure and historian. Among other offices, he served as Mayor of Shanghai and as Chairman of the Taiwan Provincial Government. Early life Wu was born in Jianshi County, H ...

speculates that this appellation may be connected with the use of fire to clear the fields in

slash and burn Slash-and-burn agriculture is a form of shifting cultivation that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an area. T ...

agriculture. In any case, it appears that agricultural innovations by Shennong and his descendants contributed to some sort of socioeconomic success that led them to style themselves as , rather than , as in the case of lesser tribal leaders. At this time it appears that there were only the bare beginnings of written language, and that for record keeping a system of knotting strings (perhaps similar to quipu) was in use. The ''

Zuo Zhuan The ''Zuo Zhuan'' ( zh, t=左傳, w=Tso Chuan; ), often translated as ''The Zuo Tradition'' or as ''The Commentary of Zuo'', is an ancient Chinese narrative history traditionally regarded as a commentary on the ancient Chinese chronicle the '' ...

'' states that in 525 BC, the descendants of Yan were recognized as long having been masters of fire and having used fire in their names. Yan Emperor was known as "Emperor of the South"

Downfall

The last Yan Emperor, Yuwang, met the end of his reign in the third of a series of three battles, known as the

Battle of Banquan The Battle of Banquan () took place in ancient 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. Background The "Battle of Banquan ...

. The exact location of this battle is disputed among modern historians, due to multiple locations adopting the same name at various points through history. Possible candidates include Zhuolu County and

Huailai County Huailai () is a county in northwestern Hebei province, China, under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Zhangjiakou. Huailai County is a center for grape wine production, with the China Great Wall Wine Company, Ltd. headquartered ...

in Zhangjiakou, Hebei,

Yanqing District Yanqing District (), formerly known as Yanqing County before 2015, is a District (China), district of the municipality of Beijing located northwest of the city proper of Beijing, 74km away from the city center. The district consists of 3 Subdi ...

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

, Fugou County in Zhoukou, Henan, and Yanhu District in

Yuncheng, Shanxi Yuncheng () is the southernmost prefecture-level city in Shanxi province, People's Republic of China. It borders Linfen and Jincheng municipalities to the north and east, and Henan (Luoyang and Jiyuan to the east, Sanmenxia to the south) a ...

. The Yan Emperor, retreating from a recent invasion from the forces of Chiyou, came into territorial conflict with its neighbouring Youxiong tribes, led by the

. The Yan Emperor was defeated after three successive battles and surrendered to the Yellow Emperor, who assumed the title of overlord () and agreed to merge the two tribes into a new confederation — the

Yanhuang Yanhuang or Yan Huang ( zh, t=, s=, p=''Yán Huáng'') was the name of a mythical ethnic group of ancient China who were said to have inhabited the Yellow River basin area. They claimed their descent from the two tribes led by the Flame Emperor ( ...

tribe. Under the Yellow Emperor's leadership, the newly combined tribes then went to war and defeated Chiyou in the

Battle of Zhuolu The Battle of Zhuolu () was the second battle in the history of China as recorded in the '' Records of the Grand Historian'', fought between the Yanhuang tribes led by the legendary Yellow Emperor and the Jiuli tribes led by Chiyou. The battl ...

, and established their cultural and political dominance in Central Plains China.

Historicity

Since the

is treated as a historical fact by

Sima Qian Sima Qian () was a Chinese historian during the early Han dynasty. He is considered the father of Chinese historiography for the ''Shiji'' (sometimes translated into English as ''Records of the Grand Historian''), a general history of China cov ...

in his ''

Records of the Grand Historian The ''Shiji'', also known as ''Records of the Grand Historian'' or ''The Grand Scribe's Records'', is a Chinese historical text that is the first of the Twenty-Four Histories of imperial China. It was written during the late 2nd and early 1st ce ...

'', it would appear that this is a pivotal transition point between mythology and history. Ironically, the Yan Emperor enters history only with his submission to the will of the Yellow Emperor. In any case, the title of ''flame emperor'' apparently lapsed after this time. His tribe's descendants were said to be perpetuated through intermarriage with that of the Yellow Emperor, and

Han Chinese The Han Chinese, alternatively the Han people, are an East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Greater China. With a global population of over 1.4 billion, the Han Chinese are the list of contemporary ethnic groups, world's la ...

throughout history have referred themselves as the " Descendants of Yan and Huang".

In traditional culture

Both Huangdi and Yandi are considered in some sense ancestral to Chinese culture and people. Also, the tradition of associating a certain color with a particular dynasty may have begun with the Flame Emperors. According to the Five Elements, or Wu Xing model, red, fire, should be succeeded by yellow, earth—or Yandi by Huangdi. According to the records of ancient history books by the Vietnamese such as , the earliest monarch of Vietnam, , was allegedly a descendant of Emperor Yan. Because of this, all the ancient Vietnamese dynasties claim Emperor Yan as their common ancestor.

List of Flame Emperors

This is the most common list given by Huangfu Mi, Xu Zheng, and Sima Zhen: List provided at the end of the '' Shan Hai Jing'': *

References

Citations

Sources

* * Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors Yan Emperor Classic of Mountains and Seas {{Religious Confucianism