This is a family tree of Chinese monarchs during the

Warring States period The Warring States period () was an era in ancient Chinese history characterized by warfare, as well as bureaucratic and military reforms and consolidation. It followed the Spring and Autumn period and concluded with the Qin wars of conquest ...

Warring States period

In 771 BC, a coalition of feudal lords and the Western Rong tribes overthrew

King King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

You In Modern English, ''you'' is the second-person pronoun. It is grammatically plural, and was historically used only for the dative case, but in most modern dialects is used for all cases and numbers. History ''You'' comes from the Proto- ...

and drove the Zhou out of the Wei valley. During the following Spring and Autumn and

Warring States The Warring States period () was an era in ancient Chinese history characterized by warfare, as well as bureaucratic and military reforms and consolidation. It followed the Spring and Autumn period and concluded with the Qin wars of conquest ...

periods, the major states pursued independent policies and eventually declared full independence claiming the title borne by Zhou rulers. All claimed descent from the

Yellow Emperor The Yellow Emperor, also known as the Yellow Thearch or by his Chinese name Huangdi (), is a deity ('' shen'') in Chinese religion, one of the legendary Chinese sovereigns and culture heroes included among the mytho-historical Three Soverei ...

through cadet lines of the royal houses above, although the historicity of such claims is usually doubted.

Qin

The kings of

Qin Qin may refer to: Dynasties and states * Qin (state) (秦), a major state during the Zhou Dynasty of ancient China * Qin dynasty (秦), founded by the Qin state in 221 BC and ended in 206 BC * Daqin (大秦), ancient Chinese name for the Roman Emp ...

claimed descent from the Lady Xiu, "the granddaughter" of "a remote descendant" of the Emperor

Zhuanxu Zhuanxu ( Chinese: trad. , simp. , pinyin ''Zhuānxū''), also known as Gaoyang ( t , s , p ''Gāoyáng''), was a mythological emperor of ancient China. In the traditional account recorded by Sima Qian, ...

, the grandson of the

. Similarly, in the next generation, Lady Hua was said to be descended from

Shaodian Shaodian () was the father of Huangdi (黄帝), the Yellow Emperor according to the Records of the Grand Historian. He started the Youxiong family (有熊氏), whilst Shaodian's wives were Fubao and Nüdeng of the Youjiao clan. Fubao later gave ...

, Sima Qian. ''

Records of the Grand Historian ''Records of the Grand Historian'', also known by its Chinese name ''Shiji'', is a monumental history of China that is the first of China's 24 dynastic histories. The ''Records'' was written in the early 1st century by the ancient Chinese his ...

'' translated by Nienhauser, William Jr. ''The Grand Scribe's Records: The Basic Annals of Pre-Han China''
pp. 87 ff
Indiana University Press, 1994. Accessed 4 December 2013. the legendary figure who is sometimes the father and sometimes the foster father of the

Yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In the ...

and

Flame Emperor The Yan Emperor () or the Flame Emperor was a legendary ancient Chinese ruler in pre-dynastic times. Modern scholarship has identified the Sheep's Head Mountains (''Yángtóu Shān'') just north of Baoji in Shaanxi Province as his homeland and ...

s. Although Nüfang (lit. "Lady Fang") is counted as Elai's ''son'', some scholars have claimed the figure was Elai's daughter and, along with the numerous important women in the early pedigree, indicates that early Qin was matriarchal. The surname

Ying Ying may refer to: People * Yíng (嬴), a Chinese surname, the ancestral name of Qin Shi Huang, first Emperor of China in the Qin Dynasty, and some contemporary rival royal families such as the Zhaos * Yīng (应), a Chinese surname from the Z ...

(lit."Abundance") was said to have been bestowed by

Shun Shun may refer to one of the following: *To shun, which means avoiding association with an individual or group * Shun (given name), a masculine Japanese given name *Seasonality in Japanese cuisine (''shun'', 旬) Emperor Shun * Emperor Shun (� ...

upon Dafei (the husbandman Yi). If it was ever held by any of his descendants, it had fallen out of use by the time of

Feizi Feizi (; died 858 BC), also known by the title Qin Ying, was the founder of the ancient Chinese state of Qin, predecessor of the Qin Dynasty that would conquer all other Chinese states and unite China in 221 BC. Mythical origin of Qin Accordi ...

, who was granted the name anew by

Xiao of the Zhou.

The Three Jins

Han

Wei

Zhao

Qi

House of Jiang

House of Tian

Chu

Yue

Yan

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chinese Emperors Family Tree (Warring States period) Chinese monarchs Dynasty genealogy