Yan Emperor

The Yan Emperor was a legendary Chinese ruler in pre-dynastic times. Modern scholarship has identified the Sheep's Head Mountains (Yángtóu Shān) just north of Baoji in Shaanxi Province 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. 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 Flame Emperor was a title, held by dynastic succession, with Shennong being known as Yandi, perhaps posthumously. Accordingly, the term Flame Emperors would be generally more correct. The succession of Flame Emperors, from Shennong, the first Yandi, until the time of the last Yan Emperor's defeat by Huangdi (the Yellow Emperor), may have been some 500 years.

Historical records

No written records are known to exist from the era of Yan's reign. However, he and Shennong are mentioned in many of the classic works of ancient China. Yan literally means "flame", and K. C. Wu speculates that this appellation may be connected with the fire used to clear the fields in slash and burn agriculture. In any case, it appears that agricultural innovations by Shennong and his descendants contributed to some sort of social success that lead them to style themselves as di (Chinese: 帝; literally: "emperors"), rather than hou (Chinese: 侯; literally: "lord"), as in the case of lesser 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 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. Yandi was known as "Emperor of the South"