In 2070 BC, China's first hereditary dynasty, the Xia Dynasty, began to appear, the emperor of the Xia Dynasty called himself "Hou", the first monarch was Xia Houshi, and the monarchs recorded in the Bamboo Book Chronicle would be named "Hou", such as "Hou Qi", "Hou Yi", "Hou Shaokang", "Hou Fa" and so on.
After the establishment of the Shang Dynasty, there was the title of "emperor", in the thinking of the ancients, "emperor" refers to the gods, so the only people who dare to call themselves "emperors" are Emperor Yi and Emperor Xin (King of Shang), and Western Zhou established ritual sacrifices, in order not to offend the gods, change the title of the king to "king", such as King Wen of Zhou, King Wu of Zhou, and even the title of Emperor Xin has become king of Shang.
The titles of successive dynasties and dynasties are not the same, during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, a variety of titles were derived, such as lonely, widowed, yu, unforgiving, chongren, and yuren... There are also many titles such as emperor number, year number, temple number, and courtesy name, and we are mainly talking about the title of ancient emperors today.
"Book of Poetry , Zhou Song Min Yu Xiaozi " contains : "Min Yu Xiaozi, by the family is not created, Huan Huan in the guilt", in the pre-Qin period, the heavenly son, princes, and commoners will call themselves Yu Xiaozi, which is a rather humble title, here "Yu Xiaozi" refers to the King of Zhou Cheng, "to one person" can be popularly understood as ten thousand people above, one person (referring to heaven).
The ancients still pay attention to the divine right of kings, even the kings must obey the heavens, the dynasties and dynasties in order to get the "name of great righteousness" of the army will often invent a myth, Xiang Yu was born with different pupils, Liu Bang called himself the Red Emperor, beheaded the White Snake Rebellion, Wang Mang claimed to be a descendant of the Yellow Emperor...
The king's self-proclaimed widow is not the meaning of "the high place is not cold", but the "widowed man" The ancients emphasized "ruling the country with virtue", so "the widowed man" is a kind of self-effacing title for the king, even the wives of the princes can call themselves widows, and the poem Shao Feng contains: The grace of the first king, to the widow. This is the self-proclaimed name of Duke Zhuang Jiang of Weizhuang.
From the Spring and Autumn Warring States to the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, the title of "widow" has always been there, liu bang as the king of Han, Han Xinfeng as the king of Qi, Sui Emperor as the king of Jin, all call themselves widows, but during the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, "widows" appeared more often, and some weaker princely states called themselves "orphans".
The title of "Zuo Chuan , The Fourth Year of the Duke of Zuo Chuan" ( " ) is not a grain for the sake of the good of the first king, and the good of the first king is the continuation, and the same as the grain, how? "榖" through the "valley", grain can feed people, so it is a good thing, history claims to be unforgiving people first very few, only the king of Chu called himself "no 榖".
朕, the earliest can be seen in the Shang Dynasty oracle bones, in the "Shuowen" said: 朕, I also, Que. 朕, congzhou, the most original meaning refers to the crack of the boat, after Qin Shi Huang unified the world, he thought of himself as "the three emperors of virtue and the five emperors", created his own "emperor", called the first emperor.
In order to sanctify the status of the emperor, Qin Shi Huang also adopted a series of measures to "honor the emperor", the Tianzi called himself "朕", and the "History of the First Emperor of Qin" contains: The subjects and others died on the honorific title, the king was 'Emperor Tai', the order was 'system', the order was 'Zhao', and the Son of Heaven called himself 'Yuan'.
It was the self-creation of the First Emperor, so why didn't the future generations change their names again? In fact, to take it apart is to see the moon and the pass, in the ancient text through the "boat" and "灷", the boat is a small boat, the fire is fire.
"Xunzi Wangzhi" has clouds: the king, the boat also; the shuren, the water also. The water carries the boat, and the water covers the boat. The fire seed represents the new life, and the fire in the boat can protect the peace of the world, so the emperors have similar ideas, so they use the "朕".