炎帝
No written records are known to exist from the era of Yan Emperor's reign. However, he and Shennong are mentioned in many of the classic works of ancient China. "Yan" literally means "flame", implying that Yan Emperor's people possibly uphold a symbol of fire as their tribal totems. K. C. Wu speculates that this appellation may be connected with the use of fire to clear the fields in slash and burn agriculture. In any case, it appears that agricultural innovations by Shennong and his descendants contributed to some sort of socioeconomic success that led them to style themselves as "di" (), rather than "hou" (), as in the case of lesser tribal leaders. At this time it appears that there were only the bare beginnings of written language, and that for record keeping a system of knotting strings (perhaps similar to quipu) was in use. The Zuo Zhuan states that in 525 BC, the descendants of Yan were recognized as long having been masters of fire and having used fire in their names. Yan Emperor was known as "Emperor of the South"