have you ever wondered what came before china's first dynasty the shia dynasty well in this video i will talk about the mythical rulers of ancient china the three augusts and five emperors it is unlikely that these people existed nevertheless the narrative is very important because it tells us about how the chinese people in the past made sense of their origin and they are also considered by confucius to be moral exemplars whose wisdoms and deeds we need to emulate i am also laying the groundwork for us to understand confucianism better in future episodes as a bonus i will also talk about how the khmong vietnamese and korean mythical origins intersect with the chinese there are a few different roster lists for the three augusts and five emperors in some versions nua is not part of the list the yellow emperor is bumped up to be one of the three augusts and his son saw ha is the first of the five emperors but for this video i will use the most commonly accepted version from zuma chan's record of the grand historian the most influential history book in ancient china and also the first book in the official 24 histories of china the section about the three august was actually added later by silmatin during the tang dynasty but it still serves as a good reference point oh yeah before we go forward let me explain the term emperor used over here as we know jin su huang is usually called the first emperor of china but more accurately he was the first huang di a title he invented by combining the term huang and di from the three augusts and five emperors sun huang uti i don't know why they are both translated into emperor but i will just use the accepted translation to make it easier for everyone the three augusts are credited with the invention of many of china's cultures they are the cultural heroes of ancient china while the five emperors are people of outstanding moral virtue who ruled over a great era of peace confucius references them a lot in his text fusi and nua are the first two of the three august they were described to have human heads and snake bodies in this record they are depicted as kings who ruled in different time periods but in other sources such as taiping yulan a book written 1000 years later we can find the version many people are more familiar with they are often depicted as married brothers and sisters and was claimed to be the creator gods of chinese people well to be honest it really was just nuwah who did most of the job molding humanity out of yellow earth but as you can see there are just a lot of contradictory accounts about these figures but don't worry i will address all this discrepancy later in the video for now let's just go with the orthodox narrative the three augusts fusi or the fusi clan superseded swayren or the sweden clan and became king after heaven he was credited with the invention of marriage hunting net fishing bhagwa and sacrificed to heaven nua or the nua clan's rule came several generations after fousey's rule in the last year of nua's rule nuwa fought with the rebellious lord gong kung who is known as the water god in other sources gong gong then also fought with turong who was known as the fire god in other sources gong gong was defeated and in his anger he broke the pillar of heaven nua then fixed the heaven with five colored stones and cut off the legs of a turtle known in other sources as or to create the four directions north south east and west sannon or the sennung clan came after nuwa his name literally means god farmer and he was also known as yendi the flame emperor he had a man's body and a bull's head he taught humanity farming created farming tools experimented with herbs by tasting them and used it for medicine he also created markets that allowed people to barter as for the five emperors this is where summa chen's original text started the yellow emperor or huangdi is known as the ancestor of all chinese people he was born a genius and grew up to be humble by his generation xenon or the senun clan's power had waned the dukes raided and harassed the people and he couldn't do anything about it so the yellow emperor used weapons of war to punish them after that the lord started to pay homage to the yellow emperor instead except for tsuyo the fiercest one of them all seeing this turn of events cenong invaded the dukes so then the yellow emperor came to that defense he controlled the five elements cultivated five grains trained bears tigers and other animals and after three battles he defeated cenung at the battle of banchuen after that ceo rebelled and he was in turn captured and slain at the battle of tuolu the yellow emperor then replaced zanon as ruler and he subdued those who would not submit it is commonly claimed that the descendants of sannong and yellow emperor intermixed and formed the chinese people that's why they often call themselves the descendants of yen huang as for ceo's clan some of them stayed and intermixed while the others moved away to form the miya or the khmong minority group in china the hmong people actually have a different account of the legend where the yellow emperor is depicted as the bad guy and tsuyu was the hero but historically ceo was also worshipped in china as a war god even by leopon the first emperor of han dynasty some french theorists in korea also claim that tsuyu or chiwu was their ancestor but it was based on wandangogi a document that had been proven to be a forgery nevertheless the idea stuck and can sometimes be seen in popular media i will talk more about this shared myth later in the video huangdi was also commonly credited for creating traditional chinese medicine and many other things as i've said before in another version sahar the son of yellow emperor was actually the first of the five emperors but in summa chin's version his relationship to the other emperors was unclear although some scholars identified him as his eldest son schweinshor the yellow emperor had two sons schwenshaw and tangi the second of the five emperors was tangi's son emperor juanchu suanju was calm collected and well-versed in all matters he recorded the seasons the movements of heavenly bodies and expanded his rule further into the four directions after he died his cousin's son became the third emperor emperor ku again ku was born a genius yeah yeah they're all geniuses apparently he was also selfless thrifty humane fair and dignified he invented the calendar and there was no one in the empire who did not respect him he married two women the first one bore him a son who would become emperor y'all but before yaw became an emperor his brother ji ruled before him but she ruled poorly and died soon after yaw was famous for being meritus and benevolent him and the next emperor sun is often used as the model of the perfect ruler by confucius and many other confusions after him yaw brought harmony to his nine degrees of kin and he employed people to the right position by meritocracy he even refused to let his incompetent son hold office it was also on his rule that china was starting to be plagued by floods and he employed gwen the father of you the great to control the floods but after nine years gwen failed to accomplish his mission and became a pariah you will try to control this flood much later yo soon you are very important figures in confucianism what confucius really admired about yaw was his commitment for meritocracy yaw did not pass on the throne to his son tantu who was unfit to rule but he looked for the most suitable candidate instead he was then informed of the existence of sun a distant relative from zhonshu's line by then he was just a commoner and from a disreputable family to boot his parents and brother behaved appallingly and even tried to kill him but due to his failure piety he was able to reform them so yaw sent his two daughters to marry him and observed his behavior he was impressed that sun treated them with due ceremony but yaw wasn't satisfied yet after putting swan through a series of tests which he passed brilliantly yaw finally decided to give authority to his son-in-law the most meritous man instead of his incompetent son after your's death soon put tansu on the throne and moved to the southern river however the dukes did not attend tantu's court they went to sun instead singers also sang his praise instead of tanzu so he took this as the will of heaven and returned to rule as emperor as your valued meritocracy so did soon soon appointed you to control the floods that had been plaguing the empire since your's time you worked tirelessly for 13 years and he did not even visit his own family until his work was done this is seen as a virtue by confusions but it also pretty much became the basis for toxic asian work culture after you succeeded in taming the floods history repeated itself swan made you his minister and after his death the dukes ignored swansea's son and made you the ruler instead and that's how the shia the first mythical chinese dynasty started actually you also followed the tradition and gave the rulership to a minister the minister then passed the throne to you son chi but as it turned out she was more popular than the minister and he retained power and that's how the dynasty became hereditary of course since these events took place over 4 000 years ago it is near impossible to prove them to be true we have oracle bones that date back to the sung dynasty that partially proved the dynasty's existence but there are no archaeological evidence that corresponds with the shah dynasty or the earlier emperors there are plenty of prehistoric human settlements around china such as the early toe culture and the long sun culture which existed from around four to five thousand years ago but there is no definite proof that these people are the citizens of the shia dynasty the problem is that this kind of prehistoric settlements are not very rare there are just too many candidates and the link between the narrative and the settlements still needed to be proven even chinese historical skeptics from 100 years ago claim that the three augusts and five emperors are most likely euhumarized to fit a political narrative some of you may not be familiar with this term but euhemerization is just the opposite of deification which is the process of depicting a god as a historical human figure because in earlier accounts the yellow emperor was worshiped as a god before he was depicted as a historical person this euhumarization trend only started around the warring states period so it is very unlikely that these augusts and emperors existed as historical people this is why the august and emperors are commonly considered to be mythical and legendary by modern historians but even if they didn't exist the narrative is still very powerful especially when they are considered to be moral exemplars by confucius that's why various confucian societies may want to draw link to these legendary figures in a later vietnamese history book tsuki twantu the first king of the hungbang dynasty king zhuang was claimed to be a descendant of zenon the yellow emperor yaw and yu were also referenced in the introduction when explaining how the name yue or vit as in vietnam originated kim busik the korean historian who wrote some gun sagi during the curio dynasty also noticed that there are historical records that claim that the king of silla claimed to be the descendants of yellow emperor's son sarho and the geguryo claimed to be descended from emperor ku rightfully he was skeptical of this claim but this kind of unsubstantiated connection were pretty common the reason for this was probably because the confusion classics was the subjects of imperial examinations and virtually all scholars and historians in those countries were confusion so they probably claim these connections to increase the prestige of their own dynasties but there could also be other political motives too silmachin claims that the xiongnu are descended from chonwei a descendant of the shia royal family at the time it was a part of the anti-war faction in hanumuti's court so he might have made that unsubstantiated connection to discourage war against the xiongnu the confusions may not have been the ones who invented the three augusts and five emperor's narrative but they certainly latched onto it hard that's why even when an alternative narrative was presented because the story of your sun and you may not have been as ideal as it was presented in the orthodox version according to the legalist philosopher han fei soon yusuf yaw and in turn you usurped soon so he suggested that there was actually a power struggle back then there was also a document called the bamboo annals which was buried in the tomb of king xiang of way before jin seong unified china and burned the ancient history books and mars the document was discovered almost 600 years later in the jing dynasty according to the bamboo annals swan imprisoned yao and prevented your son tansu from seeing his father so it goes completely against confucius's narrative the ancient world may not have been as utopian as he claimed after all and it was probably real politic all the way back however there are also issues with this document because scholars noticed that during the ming and qing dynasty the content seemed to have changed so the modern text of this document may have been altered additionally just because an alternative account exists it doesn't mean that it had to be true since we are talking about legendary figures after all it just means that an alternative account exists and it also needs to be proven to be true anyway now that we have got this topic out of the way i can talk about confucianism on the next episode so if you don't want to miss it then subscribe if you like what we are doing then you can also support us on patreon until next time stay cool my bros