Yellow Emperor and Yan Emperor: How Early Power Was Unified

After Yan Emperor, the Yellow Emperor Tribe Rises

In the last episode, Shennong, the Yan Emperor, teaches people how to farm, taste herbs, and live more securely.

His tribe continues for many generations and remains the leading power for a long time.

But old sayings are right about one thing: strength never stays in the same place forever.

After centuries at the top, the Yan Emperor tribe also begins to decline.

And while it weakens, a new power rises.

That power is the tribe of the Yellow Emperor.

The Yellow Emperor Is Born With the Same Mythic Flavor

The Yellow Emperor and the Yan Emperor are said to share the same paternal origin, both descending from the Shaodian line.

But the Yellow Emperor is born several centuries after the first generation of Yan Emperor.

His birth, too, is told in extraordinary terms.

In one account, his mother has long been unable to conceive. Troubled by this, she often goes into the wild to pray to Heaven. One day, while she is praying, a great thunderclap rolls across the sky. She feels a shock through her whole body, as if something has circled around her.

After that, she becomes pregnant.

And not for the usual span of ten months.

She carries him for twenty-four months before he is born.

That is why later texts such as the Records of the Grand Historian describe the Yellow Emperor as divinely gifted from birth. As a child he can already speak; as he grows, he understands ritual and order unusually early, and by the age of twenty-two he becomes leader of his own tribe.

He is young, and his tribe is on the rise.

But just as it begins to grow stronger, the wider world falls into trouble.

Yan Emperor Runs Into a Hard Enemy: Chiyou

At that time, the nominal overlord is still the Yan Emperor tribe.

But that tribe has already passed through many generations, and its prestige is not what it once was. Other tribes look at the same old ruling line and begin to chafe under it.

The tribe most unwilling to accept its leadership is the Jiuli tribe.

Its leader is Chiyou.

This tribe is remembered as formidable. Tradition says they are among the first to use metal weapons, and that they wear helmets and carry deadly arms, which is why later stories describe Chiyou as having a bronze head and an iron brow.

One side still relies mainly on wood and stone.

The other already has metal.

It is not hard to imagine how that battle goes.

When Yan Emperor fights Chiyou, he suffers badly.

But unable to strike back at Chiyou, where does Yan Emperor turn his frustration?

Toward the Yellow Emperor.

Yan Emperor Seizes Land, and the Yellow Emperor Yields

At that time, the Yellow Emperor is still the leader of a rising tribe.

Pressed hard by Chiyou, the Yan Emperor tribe comes and takes the Yellow Emperor's land.

An ordinary leader might have answered immediately with war.

The Yellow Emperor endures it.

You take the land, he thinks, and I will move.

So his tribe leaves its old settlement and begins to live a migrating life, following water and pasture.

On the surface, this looks like a loss.

Yet it is during this migration that the Yellow Emperor discovers something that will change the fate of his people.

The cart.

A Hat Ring Blown by the Wind Gives the Yellow Emperor an Idea

One day the Yellow Emperor is resting against a tree.

Suddenly a strong wind rises and blows away the large ring of his hat.

What catches his eye is this: the ring does not simply fall flat to the ground.

It rolls upright.

At once he understands something.

Round things can move by rolling.

He immediately weaves a circle from branches and pushes it with a stick. Later he makes two circles and joins them with an axle. After that come four circles, and above them a boxlike frame.

Now things can be placed on top and pulled along.

People no longer have to carry everything on their backs or in their hands.

The burden of migration becomes much lighter.

Later human-drawn carts become horse-drawn carts. Carts carry goods, carry people, and eventually go to war.

With carts, the Yellow Emperor tribe can move farther and fight with greater confidence.

The Name Xuanyuan Yellow Emperor Appears

The Yellow Emperor has several important figures around him.

There is Fenghou, who understands astronomy and the patterns of yin and yang. There is Limu, known for warfare. There is also Cangjie, later tied to the invention of writing.

As these men watch the Yellow Emperor lead his tribe to greater strength, they feel that their leader should have a formal title.

The Yellow Emperor says: if the cart is called xuanyuan, then I will take Xuanyuan as my style.

And when he looks around, he sees yellow earth stretching in every direction.

So the title Xuanyuan Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor of Xuanyuan, comes into being.

By now he is no longer the small tribal leader once displaced by Yan Emperor.

His people have carts, horses, war chariots, and mounted fighters. Their military strength grows greater and greater.

Meanwhile the Yan Emperor tribe is becoming more and more cramped.

Because Chiyou is still pressing them.

Yan Emperor Bows His Head, and the Two Tribes Join Forces

Crushed by Chiyou, the Yan Emperor tribe finally comes to the Yellow Emperor for help.

Earlier, it says, taking your land was our fault.

Now a great enemy stands before us. Can we join hands and drive him back first?

The Yellow Emperor agrees.

He too understands that retreat alone cannot solve everything.

So the Yellow Emperor tribe and the Yan Emperor tribe unite to face Chiyou.

This is the war later remembered as the Battle of Zhuolu.

At Zhuolu, Chiyou Is Defeated

The great battle is placed in what is now Hebei.

On the Yellow Emperor's side, drums thunder and gongs sound. Chiyou's people have never seen such a display and are shaken by it.

Then the battlefield fills with yellow dust.

The Yellow Emperor tribe comes from the loess country and is not unfamiliar with these conditions. Chiyou's side, however, is thrown into confusion when the world turns dark and direction becomes hard to judge.

Tradition also says that the Yellow Emperor possesses a south-pointing chariot, allowing his side to keep its bearings even in blowing dust.

In the end, Chiyou suffers a crushing defeat.

Chiyou himself is killed, and the Jiuli tribe submits to the Yellow Emperor.

Yan Emperor submits.

Jiuli submits.

At that point, the Yellow Emperor truly becomes the elder brother.

Once the Yellow Emperor Grows Powerful, His Realm Expands Too

After defeating Chiyou, the Yellow Emperor tribe continues to expand eastward.

Later it absorbs the Dongyi tribes and is even said to perform the feng and shan sacrifices at Mount Tai.

Its sphere of influence stretches farther and farther: west to southern Shanxi, south across much of Henan, east into Shandong and Hebei, and even close to the sea.

For that age, this is already a very large range.

The Yellow Emperor is also remembered for laying out roads, establishing cities, and allowing people to trade at midday.

When the sun is high, people come out to exchange things: cattle or sheep for grain, furs for tools, one good for another.

At that point, tribal life is no longer only about hunting, farming, and moving from place to place.

It begins to have roads, cities, trade, and a wider sense of order.

Leizu Raises Silkworms, and Cangjie Creates Writing

Two stories around the Yellow Emperor are especially famous.

One concerns his wife, Leizu.

In the last episode, Yan Emperor teaches people to use hemp for clothing. Here, Leizu is remembered as the one who teaches people to raise silkworms and reel silk.

From that point on, the clothing of nobles and commoners begins to diverge.

Ordinary people wear hemp.

The elite wear silk.

The second story concerns Cangjie and writing.

Writing, of course, is not something that appears fully formed in a single day because one man suddenly invents it. It must have developed over a long period of change. But later tradition is happy to place the credit for writing near the Yellow Emperor, through Cangjie.

Around the Yellow Emperor there are carts, soldiers, roads, cities, silk, and writing.

Taken together, these stories are telling the audience something clear: by the time of the Yellow Emperor, the tribe is beginning to look more and more like a large shared community.

The Descendants of Yan and Huang Begin Here

Later Chinese people call themselves the descendants of Yan and Huang.

Yan means Yan Emperor.

Huang means Yellow Emperor.

Yan Emperor teaches people to farm and taste herbs so the tribe can survive.

The Yellow Emperor unifies tribes, defeats Chiyou, and establishes a larger order.

That is why these two names are placed together.

Not because they are affectionate allies from the beginning.

Not because there is no conflict between them.

Quite the opposite.

It is because there is conflict, retreat, alliance, and merger that the story can be told this way at all.

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Now that the Yellow Emperor has become the elder brother, the world seems stable for a moment.

But a bigger question arrives immediately.

How is this position supposed to be passed on?

To a son?

Or to the worthiest man?

In the next episode, the story moves toward Yao and Shun.

It shifts from who can become the elder brother to who should inherit the elder brother's place.