page_title: Emperor of China
section_title: Origin and history
hierarchical_section_title: Emperor of China / Origin and history
caption_attribution_description: This depicts Emperor Taizong of Tang (唐太宗).
context_page_description: Emperor of China was the title given to the monarch of China during the Imperial Period of Chinese history. In traditional Chinese political theory, the Emperor was considered the Son of Heaven and the autocrat of All under Heaven. Under the Han dynasty, Confucianism replaced Legalism as the official political theory and succession theoretically followed agnatic primogeniture. The Chinese emperors who shared the same family were classified into historical periods known as dynasties.
  The absolute authority of the emperor was notionally bound with various duties and obligations; failure to uphold these was thought to remove the dynasty's Mandate of Heaven and to justify its replacement. In practice, emperors and heirs sometimes avoided the strict rules of succession and dynasties' ostensible "failures" were detailed in official histories written by their successful replacements. The power of the emperor was also often limited by the imperial bureaucracy staffed by scholar-officials and eunuchs and by filial obligations to surviving parents and to dynastic traditions, such as those detailed in the Ming dynasty's Ancestral Instructions.
context_section_description: During the Zhou dynasty, Chinese feudal rulers with power over their particular fiefdoms were called gong (公) but, as the power of the Shang and Zhou kings (王, OC:*‍ɢʷaŋ, mod. wang) waned, the dukes began to usurp that title for themselves. In 221 BCE, after the then-king of Qin completed the conquest of the various kingdoms of the Warring States period, he adopted a new title to reflect his prestige as a ruler greater than the rulers before him. He called himself Shi Huangdi, the First Emperor. Before this, Huang (皇) and Di (帝) were the nominal "titles" of eight rulers of Chinese mythology or prehistory: The three Huang (皇, OC:*‍ɢʷˤaŋ, "august, sovereign") were godly rulers credited with feats like ordering the sky and forming the first humans out of clay; the five Di (帝, OC:*‍tˤeks, also often translated "emperor" but also meaning "the God of Heaven") were cultural heroes credited with the invention of agriculture, clothing, astrology, music, etc. In the 3rd century BCE, the two titles had not previously been used together. Because of the god-like powers of the Huang, the folk worship of the Di, and the latter's use in the name of the God of Heaven Shangdi, however, the First Emperor's title would have been understood as implying "The Holy" or "Divine Emperor". On that account, some modern scholars translate the title as "thearch".
  On occasion, the father of the ascended emperor was still alive. Such an emperor was titled the Taishang Huang (太上皇), the "Grand Imperial Sire". The practice was initiated by the First Emperor, who gave the title as a posthumous name to his own father. Liu Bang, who established the Han dynasty, was the first to become emperor while his father yet lived. It was said he granted the title during his father's life because he would not be bowed to by his own father, a commoner.
  Owing to political fragmentation, over the centuries, it has not been uncommon to have numerous claimants to the title of "Emperor of All China". The Chinese political concept of the Mandate of Heaven essentially legitimized those claimants who emerged victorious. The proper list was considered those made by the official dynastic histories; the compilation of a history of the preceding dynasty was considered one of the hallmarks of legitimacy, along with symbols such as the Nine Ding or the Heirloom Seal of the Realm. As with the First Emperor, it was very common also to retroactively grant posthumous titles to the ancestors of the victors; even in Chinese historiography, however, such grants were not considered to elevate emperors prior to the successful declaration of a new dynasty.
  The Yuan and Qing dynasties were founded by successful invaders; as part of their rule over China, however, they also went through the rituals of formally declaring a new dynasty and taking on the Chinese title of Huangdi, in addition to the titles of their respective people. Thus, Kublai Khan was simultaneously Khagan of the Mongols and Emperor of China.
  In 1911, the title of Prime Minister of the Imperial Cabinet was created to rule alongside the Emperor, as part of an attempt to turn China into a constitutional monarchy.
  The Xuantong Emperor (Puyi) of the Qing dynasty, the de jure last Emperor of China, abdicated on 12 February 1912. He was briefly restored for almost two weeks during a coup in 1917 but was overthrown again shortly after. He later became the emperor of Manchukuo, a Japanese puppet state, and was captured by the People's Liberation Army as a prisoner of war after World War II and held in Chita, Soviet Union. He was returned to China and rehabilitated in Fushun War Criminals Management Centre, and after he was released lived until 1967.
  Yuan Shikai, former President of the Republic of China, attempted to restore a monarchy with himself as the Hongxian Emperor, however his reign as Emperor ended on 22 March 1916.
caption: The Emperor Taizong of Tang in a regal garb of the Tang dynasty
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