Sometimes, the narrative is as important as historical facts. These founding myths can perhaps be categorised as Jean Baudrillard's second stage sign-order. "The second stage is perversion of reality, this is where we come to believe the sign to be an unfaithful copy, which "masks and denatures" reality as an "evil appearance-it is of the order of maleficence". Here, signs and images do not faithfully reveal reality to us, but can hint at the existence of an obscure reality which the sign itself is incapable of encapsulating."
The term 'august', originating from 'augustus', may not be that suitable a term to use here. Many more other websites use the term 'sovereign' and that term should be used here. People googling for a video on this topic may have a difficulty finding your video as a result.
@Dord Dord 'August' may have originated from 'Augustus' but the former is an adjective and its meaning is 'respected/venerable'. I think Cool History Bros had used some mis-translated text. Furthermore, these three mythical figures were not even at the emperor level,
@Dord Dord according to some other posters, Yao was usurped and imprisoned by Shun, Shun died in the countryside, so he maybe got assasinated by Yu. He did exile Yu's father.
Is there any doubt that it also warps our perspective that China is the only human nation at the moment, so history of Chinese things is the only human history, but what everyone calls "the future" is defined as what they consider will be Chinese?
For being ancient people and having 5000 years of history don't you ever wonder why we are only knowledged of today's daily life and what's only happened in the past 40 years.
@@AsianAmericanGuy because we've always been a secluded people. When the han's advanced to the south, instead of staying and assimilation into the population, we migrate even more south into the mountains of laos and Vietnam. We literally lived off the land and didn't try to modernize and keep up with the world
The Hmong has a long history as old as the Han Chinese. Had the Hmong ancestral Tribal Leader defeated the Yellow Emperor of Han Chinese, history of Han Chinese would have been different. Thousands of years ago the Yellow River Plain was settled by many rivalling tribes.
@@johntan8455 absolutely. All the major empires and dynastys have their own ethnic groups. Hmong people should be proud to have survived to this day and have bloomed towards modern society. We've had multiple US mayor's including current Oakland mayor, to gold medalist sunisa Lee. Cant forget the Vietnam war and our involvement also
So the five emperors are a lot like the early Roman kings. Sort of pseudo-historical/mythical figures who major aspects of society could be connected to.
Its even more complicated. This myth was written down by Sima Qian in ~100BC. 100 years after the unification under Qin Huangdi, when numerous independant kingdoms with local cultures were merged into an empire. We think that Sima Qian was a relatively diligent historian, recording what he found and inventing very little. But we have no surviving sources from earlier times. The inconsistencies in the myths and the fact that after Sima Qian various bits and pieces where added and modified makes it unlikely that the myth has a single source. It is generally assumed that those stories and characters are merged together from multiple regional cultures and their mythologies and circulated in many variation before Sima Qian picked one consolidate version. So its more like a "Justice League - ultimate edition" - director Sima Qian. Each of the character had its own genesis in some part of China based on some king and hero of old. And often a merger of many such characters.
@@michaelrenper796 Sima Qian did mention in his own words: I read the histories about Yao and Shun, and the gentlemen were talking about history of Huang Di. However, those text are unstructured and poor in quality and even the best teacher could not explain well. I went about the country and found many stories about Huang Di and his descendants,which I believe Huang Di and his descendants have left a powerful impact and can be seen as of today. Thus, I compiled those records which I find closest to the ancient text, and does not deviate much from the orthodox understanding as Chapter 1 and the beginning of this book.
@@kennywong4239 haha this. I think you're the only guy in the whole bunch of posters and even the video makers that actually have a good enough aptitude on the Chinese language to actually read Xima Quan's works. The rest of us are just people who read online articles or books on Chinese history written by a bunch of western writers. So kudo to you.
@@kennywong4239 ancient text even for Sima Qian's standard. It must be quite old then, probably late Shang dynasty or even early Zhou dynasty. So there must be records of of Xia dynasty and the three sovereign and 5 dynasty period in the earlier dynasties. If only there were actual surviving written records of the Xia Dynasty, then the western scholars wouldn't keep saying we are lying about those periods.
Many mythological people might have been great leaders of tribes and tribal confederations, before the advent of writing, and thus was mythologized in oral tradition.
Agreed. Oral traditions were what were passed down before the invention of writing. And these traditions must be rooted somewhere, although would be highly embellished through the centuries. In ancient times, stories were not invented out of thin air just because people were sitting around with nothing to do. By Sima Qian's time, he was recording what to him was already ancient history. Just like the figure of Jesus. A billion people believed in him and yet there are no direct archaeological evidence to show that he ever existed, other than the 4 Gospels which were supposedly written some 40 -50 years after his death.
@@jivvyjack7723 Sima Qian is a 2000 years old figure himself, so by the time he was writing those books, there were probably still some people that have oral traditions of passing history though oral means, especially since fictional stories are less widely spread back then.
Yellow Emperor was most likely a Neolithic chieftain, much more simpler than the later emperors and their stories. You just need to take a look at how people lived during that time, much simpler and you will see millet cultivation and rammed earth fortifications. And that was his environment. You may be able to say Han Chinese practiced human sacrifice during their beginnings.
I was waiting so excitedly for this! I keep seeing videos talking about all the emperors of China and calling three sovereigns and five emperors “Neolithic dynasty” and I’ve been correcting it everywhere! Thanks so much :)
I appreciate your effort to launch a channel on Chinese history, which is under-presented in the English-speaking world. And your animation skills are amazing! I learnt much from you guys’ videos and can’t wait to apply it to mine!
Bruh, It's not Chinese alone. It's Chinese-Hmong history. Hmong people aren't Chinese because of the damage the Chinese people have done. A good example, Hanifcation. Chiyou is our king and he is our ancestor Abrahamic-father figure.
@@KevinVang1000 I’m 1/4 Hmong and from Guizhou(with the most Hmong ppl worldwide). Chinese can be a cultural and historical term. The stories and ppl of all ethnicities living in the land consist Chinese history. Basically, Chiyou, Yan Emperor and Yellow emperor are the genetic sources for all Chinese ppl.
@@peterwindhorst5775 I think it was Huang Di's wife. Shennong did not invent anything. Legend has it that after some poor weather condition (can't remember was it flood or draught), there were severe shortage of food. Shennong decided to embark on a mission to find something edible. He brought along a special whip to tell if the fruit/leave/root was poisonous before tasting and record the after effect after he ingesting it (legend has it that he was poisoned hundred of times per day to fulfil his quest). He found crops such as mallet which is suitable for farming, tea etc. one day, he came across a plant known later as Intestine breaking grass. Not too sure why the whip failed, and so after consuming, Shennong died tragically with all his organ damaged. The compilation he left behind was the first medical encyclopedia of the Chinese traditional medicine.
I'm quite interested in the section about the neighboring countries (Korea, Hmong, Vietnam) tracing their ancestry to the mythical rulers of China for legitimacy purposes. It reminds me of how Alexander the Great also underwent a similar process in Asia, like how some Asian dynasties trace their lineage back to Iskandar/Alexander.
The Vietnamese not really traced our ancestry to this myth, it was accepted as Chinese myth and popularized through Confucius teaching actually. Vietnamese myth is completely different. Lac Long Quan and Au Co is our myth.
@@warhammervietnam5770 But I have seen many Vietnamese nationalists claim that Shennong belong to Vietnam as one of those "Bách việt" claims...Here is a example: ua-cam.com/video/6cUAw9K3Ymg/v-deo.html Are these Bách việt claims popular in Vietnam?
Thank you for all your work, I really enjoy history anyway and finding decent sources for Asian history in English sucks. My 19-year-old son was adopted as an infant from Vietnam and I enjoy passing these videos to him as American high schools don't teach diddly for history, much less Asian history.
Thank you for this detailed coverage. Recent archaeology has done a lot to confirm existing pre-Qin Dynasty beliefs about pre-Dynastic Chinese rulers. The best interpretation of these god-kings is that they're ancestral deities -- divine figures who double as ancestors of humanity. There's also a possibility that these figures were not a single family, as the current myths now depict, but three distinct families of gods from three different pantheon systems. Yandi and Huangdi both belong to the Xia-Zhou pantheon, where the main divine line resulted in Gun (whose name means "big fish"), his son Yu, and his grandson Qi, who established the Xia Dynasty, the first lords of China's "Central Plateau". A secondary line of descent from Huangdi resulted in Houji (Lord of Crops) and his descendants, who formed the Zhou royal line. Yandi, as Huangdi's brother, was the ancestor of the Qiang people. Chiyou was Huangdi's son, who was assigned to be ancestor of the Hmong. There is no creation myth associated with this pantheon, except for brief mentions that Huangdi and his subordinate gods created the various body parts of humanity. According to the Lost Book of Zhou (逸周书), the Yellow Emperor was supreme ruler of the Heaven and Earth, but the other four Emperors plotted against him, so he grew three more faces/heads to fight against them. His son Chiyou rebelled against him, so the Yellow Emperor fought and killed Chiyou. The deluge myth, as written in the Tsinghua Bamboo Slips and the engraving on a bronze storage vessel, stated that there was a time when humanity became evil and incurred the wrath of Heaven, which sent down a flood. Gun attempted to stop the flood but died in the process. Yu the Great then terraformed the earth, changing the arrangement of mountains and rivers, resulting in nine provinces. The Yellow Emperor then taught humans correct ways of life which would bring the five elements back into harmony and prevent further natural disasters. Fuxi, Nuwa, and Zhuanxu belonged to the Chu Kingdom pantheon. Their descendants were the Chu royal family. The Chu Silk Manuscript contains their creation myth, which states Fuxi and Nuwa formed atop a chaotic watery expanse. Their four children, the gods of the seasons, built a canopy over the world, which was Heaven. Their descendant Zhuanxu became king of the gods. HIs son was the white-haired god Laotong, and Laotong's sons were Chong and Li. Li was the god of fire, also called Zhurong. The god Gonggong challenged Fuxi's descendant Zhuanxu for the right to rule. Li defeated Gonggong, but Gonggong, in his anger, headbutted Mount Buzhou and broke the sky. The seasons and hours became disorganized, the gods abandoned their posts. Nuwa patched the sky, and Zhuanxu proceeded to set the hours and seasons back into order. He then sent his two grandsons to complete the creation of the world by forcing Heaven and Earth further apart, with Zhong pushing against Heaven and Li pushing against Earth. Shaohao, Shun, and maybe Yao belonged to the Shang-Qin pantheon. The main divine line went from Shaohao to Xie, forming the Shang Dynasty. A secondary line descended from Gaoyao, China's first legal expert, and Boyi, a flood-taming hero, to form the Qin royal family. Shaohao was god of a kingdom of birds located across the Eastern Sea (and he's clearly called a god in Shanhaijing). Some sources identify him with King Yao's older brother, who was overthrown by Yao. The earliest records of Shun actually identify him as Xie's ancestor and one of the progenitors of the Shang Dynasty. He might be the same deity as the heavenly god Di Jun from Shanhaijing. There is no specific creation of flood myth surviving from this pantheon, but Di Jun was the father of ten suns and twelve moons, and both Xie and Gaoyao were born when their mothers swallowed swallow eggs. Religion before the Qin Dynasty was very much based in ancestor worship. People did not worship a full pantheon of gods, only the ones relevant to them and their families. By the Zhou Dynasty, only the king worshiped Heaven and Earth, the ruling nobility worshiped the mountains and rivers, and everyone else just worshiped their ancestors. During the Warring States period, the myths from the three regions began to mix, forming essentially a crossover pantheon which would be the basis of Chinese mythology. The breakdown of the existing class system and feudal states also meant that people began to worship whatever god suited them, regardless of descent. As a result, Shanhaijing lists myths of all Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors as coexisting and interacting with each other, such as the the Dongyi hero Yi shooting down Di Jun's sons, then usurping the Xia Dynasty (Yi was a single figure in pre-Qin texts). By the Han Dynasty, people had assigned these ancestor gods specific posts in the pantheon: Houji was god of farming, Yu was god of the Earth, and Yi the monster-slaying tyrant king was the guardian god Zongbu.
The reason that Sima Qian wrote all these God Kings to be real Kings because he was quite a skeptical person and a realist. He probably believed that it is much more accurate to think of them as real people than to think of them as Gods, even if the topic is deemed super sketchy by him. Many of the periods before the late Xia period has no actual records, they were all based on oral stories and oral folklores, so he needed to travel across China, interviewed many many people, many accounts were highly mystified and inaccurate, many were conflicting, so he probably tried his best to compile all these folklores into some logical history. And I do believe that he tried his best to be as accurate as possible, for example he recorded Xiang Yu to be a better person than Liu Bang, the first emperor of the Han Dynasty and the direct ancestor of Han Wu Di, despite knowing Han Wu Di to be kinda crazy and could kill him anytime, he still wrote it as such. And Chinese scholars are experts of hiding obscure meaning in between lines. So we as modern readers may not completely understand what obscure meaning that Sima Qian was trying to hide in his work. What seemed as a recording of a seemingly righteous king may not be all that good in the right context.
@@mxn1948 I didn't know that! I must have mistaken with something else. I remember when the Mongol defeat the last China defender , it was call the southern ming. The guy make the kid emperor jump with him into the river. That's the one I remember that lost to the Mongol.
@@condorX2 yep, that was the Song dynasty not the Ming. The prime minister held the last (child) emperor of the Song and jumped into the water along with the rest of what remains of the court, after the southern Song had just lost the Battle of Yamen to kublai khan. The last emperor of the Ming was a grown man, and he hung himself as the capital fell to peasant rebels.
The power struggle between Yao and Shun, Shun and Yu were recorded in the Grand Records of the Historians, but you have to read between the lines. For Yao and Shun, after Shun was given power as a regent due to Yao failing health, Shun started to eradicate people who can threaten his power, such as Yu father Gun. He killed many people and chased many away from the Court. As for Shun and Yu, it was recorded that the old frail Shun left the palace to study the country and died along the way. I believe the court historians just recorded based on what the government narrative. It need not be that the histories are beautified.
There were no written records of the three sovereign and five emperors, the only reason why all these authority figures were deemed paragons is because Sima Qian could only record these people based on interviews on the local people. And these local people believe that all these people believed them to be some kind of mythical god kings, so he has no choice but to write them in such a way.
@@limitlesssky3050 if you look at the Book of Han, on the chapter known as Yi Wen Zhi, or Chapter on Literature, there were many history books that existed during Sima Qian's time. Some were written by his contemporary, but some were very ancient. It is unfortunate that many of these books were lost in time, or we could have known much more about those ancient times.
Shennong was seen as the ideal king by the Agriculturalist philosophy in the pre-Qin period! A farmer who's only profits come from his own labor, and who was only in power over the people because the people believed in his ability to lead! If only we had better records of the Agriculturalists now, they definitely seem to have been influential among the peasants, and seems like a forebearer to Chinese peasant revolutionism!
both 皇 and 帝‘s extensive meaning is more like Prime/Supreme, and sovereign can be a pretty good world for it. Emperor, the imperator in the context of European history, really means something quite different from 皇or 帝.
The Yellow Emperor's surname is XuanYuan: "chariots & YouXiong, many nomadic ethnics that entered China & ruled later e.g the Toba Sabir, Khitan(Liao) linking themselves to the Yellow Emperor, as his descendants to acquire the "Mandate of Heaven": righteous authority to rule...
there are different versions, but in my opinion, the best is: 3 augusts = 青帝伏羲/Green Emperor Fuxi, 炎帝神農/Red Emperor=Yandi Shennong 黃帝軒轅/Yellow Emperor=Huangdi Xuanyan, five emperors = the five descendants of Huangdi, Yandi and Huangdi should be in the same category, it would be weird that Yandi belongs to three augusts, meanwhile Huangdi belongs to five emperors,
Amazing and so interesting as always. Thank you so much for your content. History books about China in English are quite popular in the west these days. I just bought one called the shortest history of China. They are all written by Western authors who lived in China. I think one written by a Chinese with lots of western knowledge would be more interesting.
Two interesting things to note: 1. Danzhu, son of Yao is said in legend to be the inventor of the board game weiqi 围棋 also known as Go. His statue in Yao's temple is depicted as holding a Go chess piece in his hand, between his index and middle fingers. It is probably because of his obsession with Go that he became unfit to rule and thus Shun took over. 2. The royal family of the Qin kingdom of the warring states period (to which Qin Shihuang the 1st emperor of China came from) was said to have descended from Zhuanxu, as Zhunaxu's descendant has one by the name Boyi, who helped Yu to fight the floods. Shun rewarded Boyi by bestowing him the maternal family name of Ying 嬴 (not to be confused with their paternal family name Zhao 赵) which is the royal surname of the Qin kingdom. The minister to whom Yu gave the throne to was Boyi, but Boyi gave it to Qi instead. Boyi's clan was said to be closely related to the royal family of the Shang Dynasty, which explained why the Ying clan fought alongside Shangtang, the 1st king of Shang, to defeat and overthrow the Xia Dynasty. But the Ying would suffer enslavement when Shang was replaced by Western Zhou Dynasty, and was expelled to the Western fringe of the Zhou kingdom, modern day Shaanxi Province, known in China as the old lands of the Qin. There they fought off the nomadic barbarians, established their own fiefdom, but was still not bestowed by the Zhou kings as dukes/marquis/barons/earls. It was only after the disaster in 772BC when Western Zhou was replaced by Eastern Zhou that King Ping of Zhou formally bestowed the Ying their ducal state, named Qin, which would later become a kingdom, and then an empire over the course of the next 560 years.
@@Xcaliburization its a accepted knowledge that hmong and miao are one and the same. Hmong people got to let it go that they dont want to be bunched together with other people
I love creations myths because they have the most out of pocket events happen and you have to sit there like, “Yeah, that makes sense.” A butthurt god broke heaven? Fix it with five shiny rocks, then cut the legs off a turtle to establish cardinal directions. That makes sense.
I don't think we will ever found out if there's a link between the Neolithic settlements with the early Emperors and Xia. Not without some form of writing from that time period to give us clues of the social environment of that time. The Shang Oracle bones don't go that far back enough (only later part of 13th century BC) and doesn't reference anything that that could reflect those early myths/legends.
Playing warriors Orochi and I was wondering who all these random gods were and I recalled you mentioned some of the names. Now I have historical contexts for these very clearly stylised interpretations of Chinese dieties.
well，ancient sites have been unearthed to substantiate the existence of these generations，but more study is always welcome，even San Xing Dui culture has been positively linked to a tribe that prolly witnessed these events
Hmong person here and its weird when you pronounced the H in the name. It is nice to know see and knowing more of the history of my people even thou we are just a small but important part of history
Hi, bro. Are you Vietnamese? Can I ask you a question about Vienamese community? I have seen many Vietnamese nationalists claim that Shennong(Thần nông) belong to Vietnam as one of those Bách việt claims...and double eyelids are a Vietnamese privilege etc... Here is a example: ua-cam.com/video/ozrIcoM4Jpo/v-deo.html Are these claims popular in Vietnam?
I have always felt each legend and myth in our distant past is based on reality. The more I read and study our history and of our ancestors, the more certain this is true.
Hi Cool History Bros, I'm glad that you finally uploaded this video! By the way, it seems that the names of the rulers in this video were taken from _Shiji (Record of the Grand Historian)_ by Sima Qian, since there were many versions regarding the names and identities of these mythical/legendary rulers as stated in the beginning of this video. By the way, it is interesting to note that Qin Shi Huang created the title "Emperor" (皇帝 Huángdì) by combining the titles of these mythical rulers after he unified China.
@@bluetoochan8718 its still speculation, but with acceptance of having a link to chi you is nice. Its a accepted historical fact that after chi you was defeated his people dispersed and migrated south to the current locations of the miao people.
Yu's toxic work culture of not going home until the flood project was done.. It's done for the "greater good", what is a little sacrifice of not seeing his family now and then to him?
The flood projects probably killed many many people, and he also need to cleanse his father's tarnished reputation and also his own reputation, should he failed. That's not toxic culture, that's his ass on the line.
I've been watching vids and reading book sections on the beginnings of China and it's alot like asking 100 random people about the lost city of Atlantis.
The yellow emperor wanted more land. Chiyou god of war was undefeated and unstoppable he was only defeated because one of his ppl betrayed him, not sure if it was his brother or a woman for the yellow emperor. They tore his body to many parts and buried it separately so hmong could never unite and be powerful again.
In outher wird the first 5 Emperors were all a family. One was a far away relative but they were al related. Why are seen as the first dynasty? Why are the Xian not seen as the 2. Dynasty?
In books such as Zuo Zhuan, there was mentioned about Yu, Xia, Shang and Zhou and how the court culture changes between the 4 periods. As the latter 3 are dynasties, it was suspected the five emperors belong to the Yu (虞, different from Yu the great）dynasty. But there is no concrete evidence for this thus far.
In Hmong, we use Huab Tais (Huang Tai) for emperor and Vaj (Vang) for King. Chi You (txiv yawg) is ancestor of the Hmong people according to legend. In Hmong the word for Han Chinese is “Suav” meaning barbarian, lol.
Suav does not mean barbarian. It just means "Xia" aka Sha. Just like the Hmong called the Zhuang as Yiv which is "Yue". The Hmong called the Lolo people as Mab "Man" which is barbarian.
Can you do a video about the historicity of Sun Tzu? I've read that he probably didn't actually exist, but interestingly the surname "Sun" was popularly synonymous with generals at the time.
@@khai96x Sun 孙 means grandchildren, 子 means child in Chinese, oftenly used a male, just like 儿, it represents child/son, but by the other way, at Zhou and Qin dynasty, 子 can be added after a person's name, to mean something like ''mister''. Incorrectly used in Japan as ending of girl's name ''ko'' Later, people just use title of their job or as ''mister'', 先生Xiansheng ''early born'' means teacher, later used a ''mister'' for common men and few 19-20 century heroines. In Japan 先生 Sensei is still used as ''teacher''
@@khai96x And the family name 孙 grandchild is because when the last king of Shang killed Bi Gan, his uncle. Lots of related people escaped from the kingdom, this family is named grandchild because their ancestor was a member of the royal family of Shang, probably the grandson of a King.
@@riza-2396 So let me summarize to see if I understand it correctly: " + 子" means "Son of ". It is used to address people formally by their family name. "Sun Tzu" means "Son of the Sun family".
For those who don't know, there are different kinds of Hmong lol White Hmong Black Hmong XD Chinese Hmong, and a vartiation mix of Laotian, viet and Thai. We don't even really have a alphabet (sort of not really) Then China kicked us out XD
So well presented! I cannot applaud this effort enough! Though they are beautiful origin stories (who does like the story of Nuwa fixing the sky, Yu the Great saving the people from the floods, or Shennong discovering medicines and tea?), they are just that, and believing them to be historical is just unscientific hyper-nationalism. The written gap of pre-Shang times to when they are the earliest records is huge. The Chinese should be duly proud of its 3200 years of Civilization (that is a culture that has written records, not proto-writing) with the start of their writing (however rocky and discontinuous the governments were) and even pre-writing cultures on its own without having to resort to accepting legends as truth. It is as crazy as believing in Merlin in the UK. Science should guide history, not false pride.
Why? This is just like Christians and Jews believing in the Old Testament. They believe that the Kingdom of Israel to be some great mythical kingdom tracing their origin from Mesopotamia, when according to some scholars, they are no different than some small tribal town.
@@miri283 Yet the West dared to trace their origin to Mesopotamia, when in fact they're not even the same people. Changing Eyptian's faces to look like a bunch of white Arabs, when we all know they were in Africa continent. Downplaying Chinese civilization is literally their only expertise at this point in time.
Shennong is called Thần Nông in Vietnamese, he is the father of Lạc Long Quân, and Lạc Long Quân is the father of Kinh Dương Vương the founder and the first emperor of Vietnam under the name "Xích Quỷ".
Shennons homeland from west of the yellow river. Vietbamese or baiyue peoples Homeland was in south east of china which is thousands miles away from shennons. This doesn't add up to your claim. China was like the Rome of Asia and had culturally influenced it's neighbors and many neighbors admired china and they tried so hard to associate with china through myths
@@riza-2396 Unfortunately many nationalists take these myths as bible and attack each other. Take this Vietnamese nationalist channel for example: ua-cam.com/video/ozrIcoM4Jpo/v-deo.html The racism and ignorance in the comments shocked me. I can't believe Vietnamese nationalists even believe that double eyelids are a Vietnamese privilege😵💫
His name is translated as Fire Starter, the founder of fire. In alternative list for the 3 Augusts, it would be Fuxi, Suiren and Shennong. There is another guy, Youcao, the homemaker who is supposed to found the treehouses for people to hide from animals to be part of the 3 Augusts.
@@CoolHistoryBros The yellow emperor's name is 轩辕氏, while his name is also 姬, because 姓 is family name from old matriarchal tribes, 氏 comes from other things like title, place they live, merit of accomplishments, or just invented when needing a family name. These are later the same family name姓氏 after middle period of 夏, but used differently at early stage of Chinese history.
For Sima Qian claim that the Xiongnus were descended from Xia, he did not entirely make it up. There was indeed the story of a Xia Prince Chun Wei went into the Steppes. However, what happened to him eventually no one knows. The Xiongnus were marrying the Han princesses for many years. It won't be surprising that some of the aristocrats of Xiongnus learnt about this and told the Han court for some political advantages. By the way, in the 4th century when a Xiongnu tribe rebelled against the Jin dynasty, their leader claimed to be maternal grangson of the Han and seeking revenge. The logic is exactly the same.
Every myth and legend have "core truth" in it. People back then tells history not like modern world, they add and remove things to make it enjoyable. They dont care about truth, only story. Thats why i believe all people in 5 emperor existed, but maybe not as magnificent as the legend tells.
BTW, The Yellow Emperor and Yao's ruling capital has both been found... Yellow Emperor's capital is called the "Ruins of the West Slope", is located at Yangpingzhen in Henan... Yao's capital is called Taosi, it's located at XiangFen County in Shanxi... The good part is if you are Chinese, you can easily trace which ancient clan your family comes from... And my family is descendent of Shao Hao's clan...
My family was probably from Kang, or or 16rh brother of Wu king of Zhou.(from the other branch in the video, Ku's wife had a kid with someone else then abandonded, named 弃, literally abandon)
I am chinese from overseas too,but is it really that easy? One of my relatives attempted to trace his ancestry (he didn't even go so far to trace his clan,he just tried to trace where his ancestors lived before migrating out of China and maybe locate some distant relatives). He tried hard and used lots of money and time but still can't find it. He gave up at the end.
@@ytweirdgameryt6907 As long as you know your family name and where your last know clan hall were located, then it's as simple as grab a cold one from a corner store... Anyone who said that they can't trace it are ether have no clue where to look, or they have been away for far too long and no longer have the right information of where their family comes from...
This reminds me of how even the Romans (in the Aeneid) also claimed descendant from the exiled Trojans after they fell. Everyone in the Western classical world claimed descent from some god or other, or Alexander the Great. (Even the Malay sultans also claimed descent from Alex, in the Sejerah Meleyu.) Associating yourself with powerful mythical and divine figures is universal.
Alexander said that his grandfather is Xerxes, an Achaemenid emperor who tried to invade Greece and failed. Why did Alexander say this? Did he love the Persians?
@@عليياسر-ذ5ب Probably a tactic to boost his credibility and build his legitimacy in the eyes of his new Persian subjects, after he conquered the Persian empire.
@@silverchairsg Alexander said that when this Persian king came to the region of Macedonia, the ruler of Macedonia declared his surrender to the Persian king and made his sister marry the Persian king
@@silverchairsg Memoirs of Ptolemy, one of the commanders of Alexander's armies, and he said that he was a half-brother of Alexander from his father Philip, because the Macedonian king Philip was a womanizer of women who was raping women
Most importantly, the Chinese term which translates to "emperor" is "huang di". Both the "huang" and the "di" make up the term. "Di" by itself when used to describe the five chieftains does not mean "Emperor".
"A gentleman who returns good for evil should not cling to old enemies. The army and people of Taiwan are also the descendants of The Chinese emperor Yan and Huang(炎黄子孙). If they are willing to submit, How can we bear to add the swordblades to them then?" -- Emperor Kangxi This was said in the 17th century when the Kangxi Emperor sent Shi Lang eastward to conquer Taiwan. So please stop spreading rumors. This was said in the 17th century when the Kangxi Emperor sent Shi Lang eastward to conquer Taiwan. So please stop spreading rumors.
It is MIAO 苗 (seeds, agriculture), not Meo/MAO猫 (cat). Miáo (seeds) and Meo/Māo (cat) are totally different characters and tone . The MIAO 苗character consists of 卄(grass) and 田 (farm). The ancestor of Miao agricultural people who cultivated the rice. After the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, all minorities were given the right to determine their ethnicity name. Miao people still choose the name Miao, because Miao is recorded in history for more than 2000 years. whereas the Hmong only have 300 years of history. And most importantly, the term miao has no negative connotations, at least in Chinese.
Confucius was a humanitarian, but he worshipped the old dyasties. What would he have thought and said if he had known how the Shang and Zhou committed massive human sacrifices?
@Hnn D Now that's not entirely true. Confucius specifically was against human sacrifices. "Confucius said, ‘May he who first fashioned figurines to be interred with the dead be without descendants!’ He said this because these forms were made in the image of people and so used. " This is from Mencius, which was compiled at roughly the same time (if not earlier) than the Analects (of Lu and Qi) A commentator puts it wonderfully that these actions (both of human sacrifice and figurines) were mere dressing to make someone's death more "beautiful" at the cost of one's life (and spiritual life, if those figurines binded their spirits to serve for all time).
@Hnn D «When the stables caught fire, Confucius returned from court and asked: “Was anyone hurt?” He didn’t ask about the horses.» Chapter 17 of Book 10 of the Analects of Confucius. This is a famous quote, and shows that he cared for the slaves, not for the (much more expensive) horses. Which was very rare for his time!
@@ANTSEMUT1 Sure, that is true. And I suppose that is probably why Confucius was not aware that his idols and models, who lived just after the end of the Shang dynasty or before, like the Duke of Zhou, were ok with large scale, aztec-size human sacrifice.
Sometimes, the narrative is as important as historical facts. These founding myths can perhaps be categorised as Jean Baudrillard's second stage sign-order.
"The second stage is perversion of reality, this is where we come to believe the sign to be an unfaithful copy, which "masks and denatures" reality as an "evil appearance-it is of the order of maleficence". Here, signs and images do not faithfully reveal reality to us, but can hint at the existence of an obscure reality which the sign itself is incapable of encapsulating."
The term 'august', originating from 'augustus', may not be that suitable a term to use here. Many more other websites use the term 'sovereign' and that term should be used here. People googling for a video on this topic may have a difficulty finding your video as a result.
@Dord Dord 'August' may have originated from 'Augustus' but the former is an adjective and its meaning is 'respected/venerable'. I think Cool History Bros had used some mis-translated text.
Furthermore, these three mythical figures were not even at the emperor level,
@Dord Dord 「野死」seems like it means like Shun died in a wilderness, probably means he got assasinated when he was travelling outside his capital.
@Dord Dord according to some other posters, Yao was usurped and imprisoned by Shun, Shun died in the countryside, so he maybe got assasinated by Yu. He did exile Yu's father.
Is there any doubt that it also warps our perspective that China is the only human nation at the moment, so history of Chinese things is the only human history, but what everyone calls "the future" is defined as what they consider will be Chinese?
As a Hmong Person, I clicked as soon as I saw that word. We aren't talked about a lot in Modern History unless it's The Vietnam War.
For being ancient people and having 5000 years of history don't you ever wonder why we are only knowledged of today's daily life and what's only happened in the past 40 years.
@@AsianAmericanGuy because we've always been a secluded people. When the han's advanced to the south, instead of staying and assimilation into the population, we migrate even more south into the mountains of laos and Vietnam. We literally lived off the land and didn't try to modernize and keep up with the world
The Hmong has a long history as old as the Han Chinese. Had the Hmong ancestral Tribal Leader defeated the Yellow Emperor of Han Chinese, history of Han Chinese would have been different. Thousands of years ago the Yellow River Plain was settled by many rivalling tribes.
@@johntan8455 absolutely. All the major empires and dynastys have their own ethnic groups. Hmong people should be proud to have survived to this day and have bloomed towards modern society. We've had multiple US mayor's including current Oakland mayor, to gold medalist sunisa Lee. Cant forget the Vietnam war and our involvement also
@@AsianAmericanGuy But the rest of us people don't know.
Hold your heads up too. Both of you. Your people survived a long time and are still here.
So the five emperors are a lot like the early Roman kings. Sort of pseudo-historical/mythical figures who major aspects of society could be connected to.
A lot of Roman noble houses claimed descent from Trojan hero Aeneas.
Its even more complicated. This myth was written down by Sima Qian in ~100BC. 100 years after the unification under Qin Huangdi, when numerous independant kingdoms with local cultures were merged into an empire.
We think that Sima Qian was a relatively diligent historian, recording what he found and inventing very little. But we have no surviving sources from earlier times. The inconsistencies in the myths and the fact that after Sima Qian various bits and pieces where added and modified makes it unlikely that the myth has a single source.
It is generally assumed that those stories and characters are merged together from multiple regional cultures and their mythologies and circulated in many variation before Sima Qian picked one consolidate version.
So its more like a "Justice League - ultimate edition" - director Sima Qian. Each of the character had its own genesis in some part of China based on some king and hero of old. And often a merger of many such characters.
@@michaelrenper796 Sima Qian did mention in his own words: I read the histories about Yao and Shun, and the gentlemen were talking about history of Huang Di. However, those text are unstructured and poor in quality and even the best teacher could not explain well. I went about the country and found many stories about Huang Di and his descendants,which I believe Huang Di and his descendants have left a powerful impact and can be seen as of today. Thus, I compiled those records which I find closest to the ancient text, and does not deviate much from the orthodox understanding as Chapter 1 and the beginning of this book.
@@kennywong4239 haha this. I think you're the only guy in the whole bunch of posters and even the video makers that actually have a good enough aptitude on the Chinese language to actually read Xima Quan's works. The rest of us are just people who read online articles or books on Chinese history written by a bunch of western writers. So kudo to you.
@@kennywong4239 ancient text even for Sima Qian's standard. It must be quite old then, probably late Shang dynasty or even early Zhou dynasty. So there must be records of of Xia dynasty and the three sovereign and 5 dynasty period in the earlier dynasties. If only there were actual surviving written records of the Xia Dynasty, then the western scholars wouldn't keep saying we are lying about those periods.
Many mythological people might have been great leaders of tribes and tribal confederations, before the advent of writing, and thus was mythologized in oral tradition.
Agreed. Oral traditions were what were passed down before the invention of writing. And these traditions must be rooted somewhere, although would be highly embellished through the centuries. In ancient times, stories were not invented out of thin air just because people were sitting around with nothing to do. By Sima Qian's time, he was recording what to him was already ancient history. Just like the figure of Jesus. A billion people believed in him and yet there are no direct archaeological evidence to show that he ever existed, other than the 4 Gospels which were supposedly written some 40 -50 years after his death.
@@jivvyjack7723 Sima Qian is a 2000 years old figure himself, so by the time he was writing those books, there were probably still some people that have oral traditions of passing history though oral means, especially since fictional stories are less widely spread back then.
Yellow Emperor was most likely a Neolithic chieftain, much more simpler than the later emperors and their stories. You just need to take a look at how people lived during that time, much simpler and you will see millet cultivation and rammed earth fortifications. And that was his environment. You may be able to say Han Chinese practiced human sacrifice during their beginnings.
@@jivvyjack7723 we actually do know if Jesus existed a better example would be Moses instead for Jesus check out the Metatron's video on it.
@@abdiabdi3225 That is a good point. Adam & Eve, Noah, Abraham and his line, Moses - stories upon which entire cultures and belief systems are based.
I was waiting so excitedly for this! I keep seeing videos talking about all the emperors of China and calling three sovereigns and five emperors “Neolithic dynasty” and I’ve been correcting it everywhere! Thanks so much :)
And also I know this is a bit out of your comfort zone but could you make a video about puyi as puppet emperor of manchuoku.
It would be really long down the timeline, but I'm game. LOL!
@@romeforeverr Is it the official name by records?
@@celestialdiscord2716 I may have spelt it wrong it is manchukuo which was ruled by the Japanese empire and they made puyi a puppet emperor.
@@romeforeverr I meant the pre-Xia thearchs and sovereigns
I appreciate your effort to launch a channel on Chinese history, which is under-presented in the English-speaking world. And your animation skills are amazing! I learnt much from you guys’ videos and can’t wait to apply it to mine!
Bruh, It's not Chinese alone. It's Chinese-Hmong history.
Hmong people aren't Chinese because of the damage the Chinese people have done. A good example, Hanifcation. Chiyou is our king and he is our ancestor Abrahamic-father figure.
@@KevinVang1000 I’m 1/4 Hmong and from Guizhou(with the most Hmong ppl worldwide). Chinese can be a cultural and historical term. The stories and ppl of all ethnicities living in the land consist Chinese history. Basically, Chiyou, Yan Emperor and Yellow emperor are the genetic sources for all Chinese ppl.
@@thegreatbufan6158 Yes. Hmong and Chinese have crossed paths before.
@@thegreatbufan6158 👍👍👍👍👏👏👏 !
@@KevinVang1000 Your ancestor been defeated by the Chinese ancestor, what a huge embarrassment for your people
According to the myths, Shennong also invented tea. If that's the case, I'll have to be very grateful to him for that.
And his wife invented silk about the same time.
@@peterwindhorst5775 I think it was Huang Di's wife.
Shennong did not invent anything. Legend has it that after some poor weather condition (can't remember was it flood or draught), there were severe shortage of food. Shennong decided to embark on a mission to find something edible. He brought along a special whip to tell if the fruit/leave/root was poisonous before tasting and record the after effect after he ingesting it (legend has it that he was poisoned hundred of times per day to fulfil his quest). He found crops such as mallet which is suitable for farming, tea etc. one day, he came across a plant known later as Intestine breaking grass. Not too sure why the whip failed, and so after consuming, Shennong died tragically with all his organ damaged. The compilation he left behind was the first medical encyclopedia of the Chinese traditional medicine.
@@kennywong4239 lol nice read about poison.
I only remember the version of where a leaf drop into a cup of hot water the emperor was chilling
YOU MUST BE BRITISH
I'm quite interested in the section about the neighboring countries (Korea, Hmong, Vietnam) tracing their ancestry to the mythical rulers of China for legitimacy purposes. It reminds me of how Alexander the Great also underwent a similar process in Asia, like how some Asian dynasties trace their lineage back to Iskandar/Alexander.
The Vietnamese not really traced our ancestry to this myth, it was accepted as Chinese myth and popularized through Confucius teaching actually. Vietnamese myth is completely different. Lac Long Quan and Au Co is our myth.
You might be surprised….
phii can't relate coz no recorded history HHH
@@100schlingensief6 my condolences as your southern neighbor
@@warhammervietnam5770 But I have seen many Vietnamese nationalists claim that Shennong belong to Vietnam as one of those "Bách việt" claims...Here is a example: ua-cam.com/video/6cUAw9K3Ymg/v-deo.html Are these Bách việt claims popular in Vietnam?
Thank you for all your work, I really enjoy history anyway and finding decent sources for Asian history in English sucks. My 19-year-old son was adopted as an infant from Vietnam and I enjoy passing these videos to him as American high schools don't teach diddly for history, much less Asian history.
Thank you for this detailed coverage. Recent archaeology has done a lot to confirm existing pre-Qin Dynasty beliefs about pre-Dynastic Chinese rulers. The best interpretation of these god-kings is that they're ancestral deities -- divine figures who double as ancestors of humanity. There's also a possibility that these figures were not a single family, as the current myths now depict, but three distinct families of gods from three different pantheon systems.
Yandi and Huangdi both belong to the Xia-Zhou pantheon, where the main divine line resulted in Gun (whose name means "big fish"), his son Yu, and his grandson Qi, who established the Xia Dynasty, the first lords of China's "Central Plateau". A secondary line of descent from Huangdi resulted in Houji (Lord of Crops) and his descendants, who formed the Zhou royal line. Yandi, as Huangdi's brother, was the ancestor of the Qiang people. Chiyou was Huangdi's son, who was assigned to be ancestor of the Hmong. There is no creation myth associated with this pantheon, except for brief mentions that Huangdi and his subordinate gods created the various body parts of humanity. According to the Lost Book of Zhou (逸周书), the Yellow Emperor was supreme ruler of the Heaven and Earth, but the other four Emperors plotted against him, so he grew three more faces/heads to fight against them. His son Chiyou rebelled against him, so the Yellow Emperor fought and killed Chiyou. The deluge myth, as written in the Tsinghua Bamboo Slips and the engraving on a bronze storage vessel, stated that there was a time when humanity became evil and incurred the wrath of Heaven, which sent down a flood. Gun attempted to stop the flood but died in the process. Yu the Great then terraformed the earth, changing the arrangement of mountains and rivers, resulting in nine provinces. The Yellow Emperor then taught humans correct ways of life which would bring the five elements back into harmony and prevent further natural disasters.
Fuxi, Nuwa, and Zhuanxu belonged to the Chu Kingdom pantheon. Their descendants were the Chu royal family. The Chu Silk Manuscript contains their creation myth, which states Fuxi and Nuwa formed atop a chaotic watery expanse. Their four children, the gods of the seasons, built a canopy over the world, which was Heaven. Their descendant Zhuanxu became king of the gods. HIs son was the white-haired god Laotong, and Laotong's sons were Chong and Li. Li was the god of fire, also called Zhurong. The god Gonggong challenged Fuxi's descendant Zhuanxu for the right to rule. Li defeated Gonggong, but Gonggong, in his anger, headbutted Mount Buzhou and broke the sky. The seasons and hours became disorganized, the gods abandoned their posts. Nuwa patched the sky, and Zhuanxu proceeded to set the hours and seasons back into order. He then sent his two grandsons to complete the creation of the world by forcing Heaven and Earth further apart, with Zhong pushing against Heaven and Li pushing against Earth.
Shaohao, Shun, and maybe Yao belonged to the Shang-Qin pantheon. The main divine line went from Shaohao to Xie, forming the Shang Dynasty. A secondary line descended from Gaoyao, China's first legal expert, and Boyi, a flood-taming hero, to form the Qin royal family. Shaohao was god of a kingdom of birds located across the Eastern Sea (and he's clearly called a god in Shanhaijing). Some sources identify him with King Yao's older brother, who was overthrown by Yao. The earliest records of Shun actually identify him as Xie's ancestor and one of the progenitors of the Shang Dynasty. He might be the same deity as the heavenly god Di Jun from Shanhaijing. There is no specific creation of flood myth surviving from this pantheon, but Di Jun was the father of ten suns and twelve moons, and both Xie and Gaoyao were born when their mothers swallowed swallow eggs.
Religion before the Qin Dynasty was very much based in ancestor worship. People did not worship a full pantheon of gods, only the ones relevant to them and their families. By the Zhou Dynasty, only the king worshiped Heaven and Earth, the ruling nobility worshiped the mountains and rivers, and everyone else just worshiped their ancestors. During the Warring States period, the myths from the three regions began to mix, forming essentially a crossover pantheon which would be the basis of Chinese mythology. The breakdown of the existing class system and feudal states also meant that people began to worship whatever god suited them, regardless of descent. As a result, Shanhaijing lists myths of all Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors as coexisting and interacting with each other, such as the the Dongyi hero Yi shooting down Di Jun's sons, then usurping the Xia Dynasty (Yi was a single figure in pre-Qin texts). By the Han Dynasty, people had assigned these ancestor gods specific posts in the pantheon: Houji was god of farming, Yu was god of the Earth, and Yi the monster-slaying tyrant king was the guardian god Zongbu.
Been waiting for this. I'm especially obsessed with ancient Chinese history. GREAT JOB!
Same.
I prefer ancient Chinese nature setting and Wars
Shen Nong was worshiped in Vietnam as well. He's also considered an ancestor of Hong Bang period in Vietnam (2879 BC -258 BC)
The reason that Sima Qian wrote all these God Kings to be real Kings because he was quite a skeptical person and a realist. He probably believed that it is much more accurate to think of them as real people than to think of them as Gods, even if the topic is deemed super sketchy by him. Many of the periods before the late Xia period has no actual records, they were all based on oral stories and oral folklores, so he needed to travel across China, interviewed many many people, many accounts were highly mystified and inaccurate, many were conflicting, so he probably tried his best to compile all these folklores into some logical history. And I do believe that he tried his best to be as accurate as possible, for example he recorded Xiang Yu to be a better person than Liu Bang, the first emperor of the Han Dynasty and the direct ancestor of Han Wu Di, despite knowing Han Wu Di to be kinda crazy and could kill him anytime, he still wrote it as such.
And Chinese scholars are experts of hiding obscure meaning in between lines. So we as modern readers may not completely understand what obscure meaning that Sima Qian was trying to hide in his work. What seemed as a recording of a seemingly righteous king may not be all that good in the right context.
Sima Qian wrote about Xia and Xiongnu. About Xiongnu being related to Xianbei dynasty. Should we believe him?
Love the art style, and the timeline at the top of the screen is very helpful to keep track of where we're at :)
3:36 Is this the original infinity stones?
"One whose intentions and thoughts are cultivated will disregard wealth and nobility"
- Xun Zi (荀子)
This channel is really too underrated.
Understanding Chinese history is like beating lu bu in a one-on-one fight to the death.
not that hard if you study it in time period order.
@@demonfromhell2022 Yep.
I remember the Han helped the Mongol to defeat the Ming especially the siege warfare.
@@condorX2 you mean defeat the song dynasty? because the Ming was the one that ended the mongol yuan dynasty not the other way around.
@@mxn1948 I didn't know that!
I must have mistaken with something else.
I remember when the Mongol defeat the last China defender , it was call the southern ming.
The guy make the kid emperor jump with him into the river.
That's the one I remember that lost to the Mongol.
@@condorX2 yep, that was the Song dynasty not the Ming.
The prime minister held the last (child) emperor of the Song and jumped into the water along with the rest of what remains of the court, after the southern Song had just lost the Battle of Yamen to kublai khan.
The last emperor of the Ming was a grown man, and he hung himself as the capital fell to peasant rebels.
I did not expect hmong to be included
I've always wondered about the pre dynasties of China. Thank you for this documentary 🙏
Thank you for mentioning the Hmong and Chi You.
The power struggle between Yao and Shun, Shun and Yu were recorded in the Grand Records of the Historians, but you have to read between the lines. For Yao and Shun, after Shun was given power as a regent due to Yao failing health, Shun started to eradicate people who can threaten his power, such as Yu father Gun. He killed many people and chased many away from the Court. As for Shun and Yu, it was recorded that the old frail Shun left the palace to study the country and died along the way. I believe the court historians just recorded based on what the government narrative. It need not be that the histories are beautified.
So Shun was deported.
@@alexlo7708 deported to the underworld is more like it.
There were no written records of the three sovereign and five emperors, the only reason why all these authority figures were deemed paragons is because Sima Qian could only record these people based on interviews on the local people. And these local people believe that all these people believed them to be some kind of mythical god kings, so he has no choice but to write them in such a way.
@@limitlesssky3050 if you look at the Book of Han, on the chapter known as Yi Wen Zhi, or Chapter on Literature, there were many history books that existed during Sima Qian's time. Some were written by his contemporary, but some were very ancient. It is unfortunate that many of these books were lost in time, or we could have known much more about those ancient times.
Listening to you and learning about my matriarchal ancestral line… makes my heart sing. Thank you plenty! 💛
Nuwa & Fuxi has been altered a lot; But the story of the emperors hasn't been changed at all.
Shennong was seen as the ideal king by the Agriculturalist philosophy in the pre-Qin period! A farmer who's only profits come from his own labor, and who was only in power over the people because the people believed in his ability to lead! If only we had better records of the Agriculturalists now, they definitely seem to have been influential among the peasants, and seems like a forebearer to Chinese peasant revolutionism!
😁👍 Nice read
“Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors” might be a more common translation
both 皇 and 帝‘s extensive meaning is more like Prime/Supreme, and sovereign can be a pretty good world for it.
Emperor, the imperator in the context of European history, really means something quite different from 皇or 帝.
The Yellow Emperor's surname is XuanYuan: "chariots & YouXiong, many nomadic ethnics that entered China & ruled later e.g the Toba Sabir, Khitan(Liao) linking themselves to the Yellow Emperor, as his descendants to acquire the "Mandate of Heaven": righteous authority to rule...
there are different versions, but in my opinion, the best is:
3 augusts =
青帝伏羲/Green Emperor Fuxi,
炎帝神農/Red Emperor=Yandi Shennong
黃帝軒轅/Yellow Emperor=Huangdi Xuanyan,
five emperors =
the five descendants of Huangdi,
Yandi and Huangdi should be in the same category,
it would be weird that Yandi belongs to three augusts, meanwhile Huangdi belongs to five emperors,
What an excellent video! Such a clear presentation from a deep research.
Amazing and so interesting as always. Thank you so much for your content. History books about China in English are quite popular in the west these days. I just bought one called the shortest history of China. They are all written by Western authors who lived in China. I think one written by a Chinese with lots of western knowledge would be more interesting.
This history Documentary drama is amazing.
Cool history and very informative
Thanks cool bros. I'm Miao/Hmong (USA)
Two interesting things to note: 1. Danzhu, son of Yao is said in legend to be the inventor of the board game weiqi 围棋 also known as Go. His statue in Yao's temple is depicted as holding a Go chess piece in his hand, between his index and middle fingers. It is probably because of his obsession with Go that he became unfit to rule and thus Shun took over.
2. The royal family of the Qin kingdom of the warring states period (to which Qin Shihuang the 1st emperor of China came from) was said to have descended from Zhuanxu, as Zhunaxu's descendant has one by the name Boyi, who helped Yu to fight the floods. Shun rewarded Boyi by bestowing him the maternal family name of Ying 嬴 (not to be confused with their paternal family name Zhao 赵) which is the royal surname of the Qin kingdom. The minister to whom Yu gave the throne to was Boyi, but Boyi gave it to Qi instead. Boyi's clan was said to be closely related to the royal family of the Shang Dynasty, which explained why the Ying clan fought alongside Shangtang, the 1st king of Shang, to defeat and overthrow the Xia Dynasty. But the Ying would suffer enslavement when Shang was replaced by Western Zhou Dynasty, and was expelled to the Western fringe of the Zhou kingdom, modern day Shaanxi Province, known in China as the old lands of the Qin. There they fought off the nomadic barbarians, established their own fiefdom, but was still not bestowed by the Zhou kings as dukes/marquis/barons/earls. It was only after the disaster in 772BC when Western Zhou was replaced by Eastern Zhou that King Ping of Zhou formally bestowed the Ying their ducal state, named Qin, which would later become a kingdom, and then an empire over the course of the next 560 years.
thanks for the deep dive
Can you do a video about Chi You and the Hmong people? It will be great to know about my ancestors past in China. Thank you
No chiyou is not mong or Hmong chiyou is belong to the miao hun cultures! All mong is Huang di childs the beginning we Hmong hnow that
Miao people are Chi You people and it's mong people not hmong people. They don't have much history on Miao people or mong people.
@@Xcaliburization its a accepted knowledge that hmong and miao are one and the same. Hmong people got to let it go that they dont want to be bunched together with other people
hierarchy was seen as a solution when factional power struggles became rampant... that caused many mysterious deaths...
I love creations myths because they have the most out of pocket events happen and you have to sit there like, “Yeah, that makes sense.”
A butthurt god broke heaven? Fix it with five shiny rocks, then cut the legs off a turtle to establish cardinal directions. That makes sense.
I don't think we will ever found out if there's a link between the Neolithic settlements with the early Emperors and Xia. Not without some form of writing from that time period to give us clues of the social environment of that time. The Shang Oracle bones don't go that far back enough (only later part of 13th century BC) and doesn't reference anything that that could reflect those early myths/legends.
Chinese is really careful to claim the proves of Xia, Erlitou culture is one candidate, but still under intensive research.
Illustrious historical figure: Exists
Koreans: My ancestor.
This was really cool! Any chance you're planning on some in depth videos on pre Qin China?
Playing warriors Orochi and I was wondering who all these random gods were and I recalled you mentioned some of the names. Now I have historical contexts for these very clearly stylised interpretations of Chinese dieties.
Hope you make series for Korean 3 Kingdoms
well，ancient sites have been unearthed to substantiate the existence of these generations，but more study is always welcome，even San Xing Dui culture has been positively linked to a tribe that prolly witnessed these events
The figure that disappeared from hands of the big figure bronze in San xing dui might be a snake.
Great to see more ancient chinese content!
I believe that might be existed in some capacity and in time they were given some legendary or mythic status.
Hmong person here and its weird when you pronounced the H in the name. It is nice to know see and knowing more of the history of my people even thou we are just a small but important part of history
Amazingly well-researched video!
Hi, bro. Are you Vietnamese? Can I ask you a question about Vienamese community?
I have seen many Vietnamese nationalists claim that Shennong(Thần nông) belong to Vietnam as one of those Bách việt claims...and double eyelids are a Vietnamese privilege etc...
Here is a example: ua-cam.com/video/ozrIcoM4Jpo/v-deo.html
Are these claims popular in Vietnam?
Could you please make a video about Bronze Age China? I know there aren’t many information about this time, but You could surely pull it off.
I read that Yao appointed a Taoist hermit to be emperor, the first hermit refused, the second hermit accepted
I have always felt each legend and myth in our distant past is based on reality. The more I read and study our history and of our ancestors, the more certain this is true.
you guys are awesome!
In wuxia webnovel subculture it usually translates as Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors
Great video
It's interesting to look at the political basis for very early Taoism and Confucianism.
Hi Cool History Bros, I'm glad that you finally uploaded this video! By the way, it seems that the names of the rulers in this video were taken from _Shiji (Record of the Grand Historian)_ by Sima Qian, since there were many versions regarding the names and identities of these mythical/legendary rulers as stated in the beginning of this video. By the way, it is interesting to note that Qin Shi Huang created the title "Emperor" (皇帝 Huángdì) by combining the titles of these mythical rulers after he unified China.
Because Qin Shi Huang sought to find a higher title than all "wang" that he had conquered.
Wasnt it called "The Three Sovereigns And Five Emperors" ???
Thank you!!! I'm Hmong and loved to hear about this. Have you or have you made a video about Chi Yu?
u'd better not confuse ur ancestor
@@bluetoochan8718 its still speculation, but with acceptance of having a link to chi you is nice. Its a accepted historical fact that after chi you was defeated his people dispersed and migrated south to the current locations of the miao people.
nice topics bro your the best more please
Yu's toxic work culture of not going home until the flood project was done.. It's done for the "greater good", what is a little sacrifice of not seeing his family now and then to him?
The flood projects probably killed many many people, and he also need to cleanse his father's tarnished reputation and also his own reputation, should he failed. That's not toxic culture, that's his ass on the line.
he saved millions peoples at least.
Millions will die
I've been watching vids and reading book sections on the beginnings of China and it's alot like asking 100 random people about the lost city of Atlantis.
i love your chanell!
I think it would be really cool if you did a video on date masamune or the sanada clan
5 stones, let me check the gauntlet
Nice video
Love your content hope to see the eight princes story
Can you tell us what years these historical figures occurred in? I’m assuming before 1000 BC as the Xia empire?
Xia was around 2000 bc to 1600 bc, and the yellow emperor is supposed to be around 2600 bc.
The yellow emperor wanted more land. Chiyou god of war was undefeated and unstoppable he was only defeated because one of his ppl betrayed him, not sure if it was his brother or a woman for the yellow emperor. They tore his body to many parts and buried it separately so hmong could never unite and be powerful again.
After I am watching this video. I am very interesting to know more may you talk more about hu di yan do and chi you
I witnessed your growth, share your experience of the channel.
In outher wird the first 5 Emperors were all a family. One was a far away relative but they were al related. Why are seen as the first dynasty? Why are the Xian not seen as the 2. Dynasty?
In books such as Zuo Zhuan, there was mentioned about Yu, Xia, Shang and Zhou and how the court culture changes between the 4 periods. As the latter 3 are dynasties, it was suspected the five emperors belong to the Yu (虞, different from Yu the great）dynasty. But there is no concrete evidence for this thus far.
In Hmong, we use Huab Tais (Huang Tai) for emperor and Vaj (Vang) for King. Chi You (txiv yawg) is ancestor of the Hmong people according to legend. In Hmong the word for Han Chinese is “Suav” meaning barbarian, lol.
Suav does not mean barbarian. It just means "Xia" aka Sha. Just like the Hmong called the Zhuang as Yiv which is "Yue". The Hmong called the Lolo people as Mab "Man" which is barbarian.
on the contrary han Chinese call other tribe at past its barbarian
Vaj/Vang is exactly Wang王, Huang Tai is Huang di 皇帝
Shanhaijing and Kunlun mountains may shed some light to these ancient mythical figures.
Can you do a video about the historicity of Sun Tzu? I've read that he probably didn't actually exist, but interestingly the surname "Sun" was popularly synonymous with generals at the time.
Sun Tzu might be the pens name to whom the writer of "Art of war".
"Sun Tzu" means grandson? I don't know about the exact characters though.
@@khai96x Sun 孙 means grandchildren, 子 means child in Chinese, oftenly used a male, just like 儿, it represents child/son, but by the other way, at Zhou and Qin dynasty, 子 can be added after a person's name, to mean something like ''mister''.
Incorrectly used in Japan as ending of girl's name ''ko''
Later, people just use title of their job or as ''mister'', 先生Xiansheng ''early born'' means teacher, later used a ''mister'' for common men and few 19-20 century heroines. In Japan 先生 Sensei is still used as ''teacher''
@@khai96x And the family name 孙 grandchild is because when the last king of Shang killed Bi Gan, his uncle.
Lots of related people escaped from the kingdom, this family is named grandchild because their ancestor was a member of the royal family of Shang, probably the grandson of a King.
@@riza-2396 So let me summarize to see if I understand it correctly:
" + 子" means "Son of ". It is used to address people formally by their family name.
"Sun Tzu" means "Son of the Sun family".
The most fascinating part of Chinese history.
Very cool
For those who don't know, there are different kinds of Hmong lol
White Hmong Black Hmong XD
Chinese Hmong, and a vartiation mix of Laotian, viet and Thai. We don't even really have a alphabet (sort of not really)
Then China kicked us out XD
Right. Our Hmong language is just pidgin word borrowing from neighbor.
Why I remember the game
"Soul Knight" by Chillyroom
from this?
😅😅😅
So well presented! I cannot applaud this effort enough! Though they are beautiful origin stories (who does like the story of Nuwa fixing the sky, Yu the Great saving the people from the floods, or Shennong discovering medicines and tea?), they are just that, and believing them to be historical is just unscientific hyper-nationalism. The written gap of pre-Shang times to when they are the earliest records is huge. The Chinese should be duly proud of its 3200 years of Civilization (that is a culture that has written records, not proto-writing) with the start of their writing (however rocky and discontinuous the governments were) and even pre-writing cultures on its own without having to resort to accepting legends as truth. It is as crazy as believing in Merlin in the UK. Science should guide history, not false pride.
I don't disagree with what this comment says but you sound incredibly preachy and patronizing so I still don't like it lmao
Why? This is just like Christians and Jews believing in the Old Testament. They believe that the Kingdom of Israel to be some great mythical kingdom tracing their origin from Mesopotamia, when according to some scholars, they are no different than some small tribal town.
@@miri283 Yet the West dared to trace their origin to Mesopotamia, when in fact they're not even the same people. Changing Eyptian's faces to look like a bunch of white Arabs, when we all know they were in Africa continent. Downplaying Chinese civilization is literally their only expertise at this point in time.
Shennong is called Thần Nông in Vietnamese, he is the father of Lạc Long Quân, and Lạc Long Quân is the father of Kinh Dương Vương the founder and the first emperor of Vietnam under the name "Xích Quỷ".
Shennons homeland from west of the yellow river.
Vietbamese or baiyue peoples Homeland was in south east of china which is thousands miles away from shennons.
This doesn't add up to your claim.
China was like the Rome of Asia and had culturally influenced it's neighbors and many neighbors admired china and they tried so hard to associate with china through myths
@@dearcoolz Well it's just a myth, like some Roman emperors saying they are son of Zeus
@@riza-2396 Unfortunately many nationalists take these myths as bible and attack each other.
Take this Vietnamese nationalist channel for example:
ua-cam.com/video/ozrIcoM4Jpo/v-deo.html
The racism and ignorance in the comments shocked me. I can't believe Vietnamese nationalists even believe that double eyelids are a Vietnamese privilege😵💫
Was Suiren a ruler before the 3 sovereigns and 5 emperors?
Yeah, not sure who he was.
His name is translated as Fire Starter, the founder of fire. In alternative list for the 3 Augusts, it would be Fuxi, Suiren and Shennong. There is another guy, Youcao, the homemaker who is supposed to found the treehouses for people to hide from animals to be part of the 3 Augusts.
@@CoolHistoryBros 燧人氏 flint men clan, a man who discovered used of flint for starting a fire, so his family clan was named flint men
@@CoolHistoryBros The yellow emperor's name is 轩辕氏, while his name is also 姬, because 姓 is family name from old matriarchal tribes, 氏 comes from other things like title, place they live, merit of accomplishments, or just invented when needing a family name.
These are later the same family name姓氏 after middle period of 夏, but used differently at early stage of Chinese history.
For Sima Qian claim that the Xiongnus were descended from Xia, he did not entirely make it up. There was indeed the story of a Xia Prince Chun Wei went into the Steppes. However, what happened to him eventually no one knows. The Xiongnus were marrying the Han princesses for many years. It won't be surprising that some of the aristocrats of Xiongnus learnt about this and told the Han court for some political advantages.
By the way, in the 4th century when a Xiongnu tribe rebelled against the Jin dynasty, their leader claimed to be maternal grangson of the Han and seeking revenge. The logic is exactly the same.
Attila, king of the Huns in the West, says that I am the newest of the Xia family 😂😂
Every myth and legend have "core truth" in it. People back then tells history not like modern world, they add and remove things to make it enjoyable. They dont care about truth, only story. Thats why i believe all people in 5 emperor existed, but maybe not as magnificent as the legend tells.
do you know who are are Mong or Hmong anient and they emperor, may you fit back
the horn god like shen nong who taught human beings farming is common in most of human history. Is it a coincidence
BTW, The Yellow Emperor and Yao's ruling capital has both been found...
Yellow Emperor's capital is called the "Ruins of the West Slope", is located at Yangpingzhen in Henan...
Yao's capital is called Taosi, it's located at XiangFen County in Shanxi...
The good part is if you are Chinese, you can easily trace which ancient clan your family comes from... And my family is descendent of Shao Hao's clan...
Is that in Xinzheng
@@GL-iv4rw West Slope ruins is located in LingBao city's rural township.
My family was probably from Kang, or or 16rh brother of Wu king of Zhou.(from the other branch in the video, Ku's wife had a kid with someone else then abandonded, named 弃, literally abandon)
I am chinese from overseas too,but is it really that easy? One of my relatives attempted to trace his ancestry (he didn't even go so far to trace his clan,he just tried to trace where his ancestors lived before migrating out of China and maybe locate some distant relatives). He tried hard and used lots of money and time but still can't find it. He gave up at the end.
@@ytweirdgameryt6907 As long as you know your family name and where your last know clan hall were located, then it's as simple as grab a cold one from a corner store...
Anyone who said that they can't trace it are ether have no clue where to look, or they have been away for far too long and no longer have the right information of where their family comes from...
This reminds me of how even the Romans (in the Aeneid) also claimed descendant from the exiled Trojans after they fell. Everyone in the Western classical world claimed descent from some god or other, or Alexander the Great. (Even the Malay sultans also claimed descent from Alex, in the Sejerah Meleyu.) Associating yourself with powerful mythical and divine figures is universal.
Alexander said that his grandfather is Xerxes, an Achaemenid emperor who tried to invade Greece and failed. Why did Alexander say this? Did he love the Persians?
@@عليياسر-ذ5ب Probably a tactic to boost his credibility and build his legitimacy in the eyes of his new Persian subjects, after he conquered the Persian empire.
@@silverchairsg Alexander said that when this Persian king came to the region of Macedonia, the ruler of Macedonia declared his surrender to the Persian king and made his sister marry the Persian king
@@عليياسر-ذ5ب Source?
@@silverchairsg Memoirs of Ptolemy, one of the commanders of Alexander's armies, and he said that he was a half-brother of Alexander from his father Philip, because the Macedonian king Philip was a womanizer of women who was raping women
Most importantly, the Chinese term which translates to "emperor" is "huang di". Both the "huang" and the "di" make up the term. "Di" by itself when used to describe the five chieftains does not mean "Emperor".
🇨🇳Chinese history is glorious!
"A gentleman who returns good for evil should not cling to old enemies. The army and people of Taiwan are also the descendants of The Chinese emperor Yan and Huang(炎黄子孙). If they are willing to submit, How can we bear to add the swordblades to them then?" -- Emperor Kangxi
This was said in the 17th century when the Kangxi Emperor sent Shi Lang eastward to conquer Taiwan. So please stop spreading rumors.
This was said in the 17th century when the Kangxi Emperor sent Shi Lang eastward to conquer Taiwan. So please stop spreading rumors.
@Rena Zhang
CJ, when you cover the five hegemons,
please cover all ten hegemons from different sources
Fuxi, Nuwa, and Shennong did the most that's why they are the three august.
The mythology of this history fuels many Chinese fantasy lore, such as the Gujian game.
dynasty leadership became hereditary for the ancestral legacy/ies to be ensured intact generation to generation...
why "it is unlikely that they existed"...
Thanks for telling the truth. I am Hmong-MONG 100% not mieo
It is MIAO 苗 (seeds, agriculture), not Meo/MAO猫 (cat). Miáo (seeds) and Meo/Māo (cat) are totally different characters and tone . The MIAO 苗character consists of 卄(grass) and 田 (farm). The ancestor of Miao agricultural people who cultivated the rice. After the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, all minorities were given the right to determine their ethnicity name. Miao people still choose the name Miao, because Miao is recorded in history for more than 2000 years. whereas the Hmong only have 300 years of history. And most importantly, the term miao has no negative connotations, at least in Chinese.
I noticed something strange about the geniuses on this video and they all seem to have died young.
“Apparently all genius” 😂😂😂
Don't forget the subjugation or Genocide of the Miao/Hmong people in the time line enforced by the Emperor.
So THE Most Accurate Translation is the First August Emperor.
Confucius was a humanitarian, but he worshipped the old dyasties. What would he have thought and said if he had known how the Shang and Zhou committed massive human sacrifices?
@Hnn D Now that's not entirely true. Confucius specifically was against human sacrifices.
"Confucius said, ‘May he
who first fashioned figurines to be interred with the dead be
without descendants!’ He said this because these forms were made in the image of people and so used. "
This is from Mencius, which was compiled at roughly the same time (if not earlier) than the Analects (of Lu and Qi) A commentator puts it wonderfully that these actions (both of human sacrifice and figurines) were mere dressing to make someone's death more "beautiful" at the cost of one's life (and spiritual life, if those figurines binded their spirits to serve for all time).
Wasn't human sacrifices already very rare by the middle Zhou Dynasty? And halted towards the tail end of the Zhou period?
@Hnn D «When the stables caught fire, Confucius returned from court and asked: “Was anyone hurt?” He didn’t ask about the horses.»
Chapter 17 of Book 10 of the Analects of Confucius. This is a famous quote, and shows that he cared for the slaves, not for the (much more expensive) horses. Which was very rare for his time!
@@ANTSEMUT1 Sure, that is true. And I suppose that is probably why Confucius was not aware that his idols and models, who lived just after the end of the Shang dynasty or before, like the Duke of Zhou, were ok with large scale, aztec-size human sacrifice.