Yellow Emperor

The Yellow Emperor, also known as the Yellow Thearch or by his Chinese name Huangdi (/ˈhwɑːŋ ˈdiː/), is a mythical Chinese sovereign and cultural hero included among the legendary Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, and an individual deity (shen) or part of the Five Regions Highest Deities (Chinese: 五方上帝; pinyin: Wǔfāng Shàngdì) in Chinese religion. Calculated by Jesuit missionaries, who based their work on various Chinese chronicles, and later accepted by the twentieth-century promoters of a universal calendar starting with the Yellow Emperor, Huangdi's traditional reign dates are 2697–2597 or 2698–2598 BC.

Huangdi's cult is first attested in the Warring States period, and became prominent late in that same period and into the early Han dynasty, when he was portrayed as the originator of the centralized state, as a cosmic ruler, and as a patron of esoteric arts. A large number of texts – such as the Huangdi Neijing, a medical classic, and the Huangdi Sijing, a group of political treatises – were thus attributed to him. Having waned in influence during most of the imperial period, in the early twentieth century Huangdi became a rallying figure for Han Chinese attempts to overthrow the rule of the Qing dynasty, which they considered foreign because its emperors were Manchu people. To this day the Yellow Emperor remains a powerful symbol within Chinese nationalism. Traditionally credited with numerous inventions and innovations – ranging from the lunar calendar (Chinese calendar), Taoism, wooden houses, boats, carts, the compass needle, "the earliest forms of writing", and/or an early form of football – the Yellow Emperor is now regarded as the initiator of Han culture (later Chinese culture).