Emperor of China

Huangdi (Chinese: 皇帝; pinyin: Huángdì) or Emperor of China was the superlative title held by monarchs of China who ruled various imperial dynasties in Chinese history. In traditional Chinese political theory, the emperor of China was considered the Son of Heaven and the autocrat of all under Heaven worshipped posthumously under an imperial cult. Under the Han dynasty, Confucianism gained sanction as the official political theory and succession in most cases theoretically followed agnatic primogeniture. The lineage of emperors descended from a paternal family line constituted a dynasty.

The absolute authority of the emperor came with a variety of governing duties and moral obligations; failure to uphold these was thought to remove the dynasty's Mandate of Heaven and to justify its overthrow. In practice, emperors sometimes avoided the strict rules of succession and dynasties' purported "failures" were detailed in official histories written by their successful replacements or even later dynasties. The power of the emperor was also limited by the imperial bureaucracy, which was staffed by scholar-officials and in some dynasties eunuchs. An emperor was also constrained by filial obligations to his ancestors' policies and dynastic traditions, such as those first detailed in the Ming dynasty's Ancestral Instructions.