Yellow Emperor

Yellow Emperor, Mandarin Huangdi, legendary Chinese ruler and culture hero; tradition holds that he reigned from 2697 B.C. to 2597 B.C. He is one of the mythical prehistoric emperors who supposedly created the basic elements of Chinese civilization. His wife is said to have developed silk production. Along with the semimythical Lao Tzu, he was associated in the traditional Chinese folk culture with the founding of Taoism.

The Yellow Emperor or Huang Di is a legendary Chinese sovereign and cultural hero who is said to be the ancestor of all Han Chinese. One of the Five Emperors, the Yellow Emperor is said by tradition to have reigned from 2698 BC to 2599 BC.

The legend of his westwards retreat in the war against the eastern Emperor Chi You at the Battle of Zhuolu is seen as the establishment of the Han Chinese nationality.

Among his other accomplishments, the Yellow Emperor has been credited with the invention of the principles of Traditional Chinese medicine. The Huangdi Neijing (黄帝内經 The Medical Canon of the Yellow Emperor) was supposedly composed in collaboration with his physician Qi Bó. However, modern historiographers generally consider it to have been compiled from ancient sources by a scholar living between the Zhou and Han dynasties, more than 2,000 years later. His interest in natural health and preventing and treating diseases meant he is said to have lived to the age of 100, and to have attained immortality after his physical death.

In the legend, his wife Lúo Zǔ taught the Chinese how to weave the silk from silkworms, and his historian Cāng Jié created the first Chinese characters.

Legend says that the Yellow Emperor invented a magical compass during a battle against Chi You who used a sandstorm as camouflage to hide his army. Thanks to the compass, the Yellow Emperor found out where Chi You was and defeated him. The swirling chair in his chariot was also a compass so that he would always face south, which the Chinese people consider to be good Feng Shui. He is also said to have played a part in the creation of the Guqin, together with Fuxi and Shennong, and to have invented the earliest form of the Chinese calendar, and its current sexagenary cycles are counted based on his reign.

Huang Di captured Bai Ze atop Mount Dongwang. The beast described to him all the 11,520 types of monsters, shapeshifters, demons, and spirits in the world. Huang Di's retainer recorded this in pictures, which later became the book "Bai Ze Tu", which no longer exists.

Huang Di was euhemerized from a mythical god during the early Zhou Dynasty into a legendary emperor during the late Zhou dynasty—his lengendary deeds were embellished along the way.

Huang Di appears as a God in the strategy game Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom made by Sierra Entertainment, now a division of Vivendi.

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

There have been TV dramas made in mainland China depicting the life of Huang Di. However, their historical accuracy is questionable. They are semi-fictional because their focus is mainly on martial arts, Wuxia and drama.

The Yellow Emperor serves as the hero in Jorge Luis Borges' story, "The Fauna of the Mirror." British fantasy writer China Miéville used this story as the basis for his novella "The Tain", which describes a post-apocalyptic London. "The Tain" was recently included in Miéville's short story collection "Looking For Jake."