First of the Five Sovereigns, Ancestor of the Huaxia
Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor, named Xuanyuan, opens the Records of the Grand Historian. Born preternaturally alert and able to speak in infancy, he rose in an age when the house of Shennong had declined and the lords warred on one another. He cultivated virtue and trained his troops, defeated Yandi, the Flame Emperor, in three battles on the plain of Banquan, then captured and killed the rebellious Chiyou at Zhuolu, whereupon the lords honored him as Son of Heaven.
A remarkable inventory of inventions was credited to his reign: the sexagenary calendar of Da Nao, the twelve pitch-pipes of Ling Lun, the script of Cang Jie, and the silk-weaving taught by his consort Leizu. When Chiyou raised a great fog at Zhuolu, Huangdi built the south-pointing chariot to keep his bearings. The foundational text of Chinese medicine, the Huangdi Neijing, is framed as his dialogues with the physician Qi Bo. The Shiji's 'Fengshan shu' tells how he cast a bronze tripod at Mount Jing; when it was finished a dragon let down its whiskers to receive him, and he rode it into the sky while lesser officials, clinging to the whiskers, fell back to earth clutching his dropped bow.
By Han times Huangdi had become the common ancestor of the Huaxia people, the origin of the phrase 'descendants of Yan and Huang'. His mausoleum on Qiaoshan in Huangling, Shaanxi, said to hold his robes, still receives a state ceremony each Qingming festival.
