Yan–Huang Alliance and the Battle of Zhuolu

Ancient China preserved many myths and legends of remote times, the best known of which concern the Yan Emperor and the Yellow Emperor. Tradition holds that five or six thousand years ago, large tribes such as those of the Yan Emperor, the Yellow Emperor and Chiyou lived in the Yellow River basin, constantly attacking and merging with one another and eventually forming tribal alliances. The Yan Emperor's tribe was active in the Wei River valley in Shaanxi; he is said to have taught people to clear land and farm, made the lei and si plows, planted the five grains, tasted hundreds of herbs and invented medicine, and made pottery and taught people to trade goods. The Yellow Emperor, named Xuanyuan, is said to have built houses, made clothing, dug wells, made boats and carts and invented the bow and arrow; his wife Leizu raised silkworms and reeled silk, and his historian Cang Jie created writing. According to the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji), “Basic Annals of the Five Emperors” and other sources, the Yellow Emperor fought the Yan Emperor at Banquan; the Yan Emperor was defeated and submitted, and the two great tribes formed an alliance. The Yan and Yellow tribes then fought Chiyou, leader of the Jiuli tribes in the east, at Zhuolu (in present-day Hebei) and finally defeated him, and the Yellow Emperor was chosen leader of the tribal alliance. This alliance gradually absorbed neighboring tribes and developed into the later Huaxia people; for this reason the Yan and Yellow Emperors are revered as the common ancestors of the Chinese nation, and Chinese at home and abroad often call themselves “descendants of Yan and Huang.”