First of the Wu Di, the legendary Five Kings of China.

Although in the 23rd Century BC empires hadn’t yet been invented, he is popularly called the Yellow Emperor because ‘huang’ means yellow and ‘huangdi’ means emperor. The Chinese can never resist a pun.

Huangdi was a skilled tactician and inventive inventor who created many useful things, including the wheel, bricks, and astronomy.

He was fascinated to discover mysterious black rocks that seemed to have amazing properties. When you moved them close to each other, they would stick together or jump out of the way. Surely, he thought, these things must have some practical use apart from keeping the royal palace amused on long winter evenings. And so he invented magnets.

Some tales suggest that he also invented tea after a leaf fell into his mug of hot water. His wife Leizu invented silk but we don’t think a silkworm fell into hers.

The Yellow Emperor’s glorious reign had its ups and downs — he was the target of terrorist activity by his arch enemy Chiyou. Luckily he was smart enough to call upon a Drought Goddess for military backup.

His sons and grandsons were not nearly as clever as him, but ended up on the throne anyway.

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Article last revised on April 21, 2019 by the Godchecker data dwarves.
Editors: Peter J. Allen, Chas Saunders

References: Coming soon.

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