In our previous cognition, as long as we talk about who is the first emperor in history, everyone will say in unison that it is Qin Shi Huang, indeed Qin Shi Huang is the first emperor to call himself an emperor, and it is also the first emperor in history to centralize the supremacy of imperial power. However, some people have raised a question, Qin Shi Huang was not the first to call himself emperor, before this there were two people who called themselves emperors, and it is true that before Qin Shi Huang, there were indeed two people who had already called the emperor, but they only called themselves emperors instead of calling themselves emperors. First of all, we must know that the emperor is very different from the emperor, and before Qin Shi Huang, there were the three emperors and five emperors that we know well.
The throne of the Three Emperors and Five Emperors is the praise of our later generations for their merits, is the honorific title of the future generations for them, so there has always been the saying of the Three Emperors of Merit, virtue and Five Emperors, of course, this is also the reason why Qin Shi Huang called himself emperor, because Qin Shi Huang unified the six kingdoms, and then carried out drastic reforms, such as the merits of car with the same track, the same text, the unified weights and measures, etc., thinking that the three emperors of gongmai, the five emperors of virtue and five emperors, and from the Qin Dynasty into the great unified imperial power dynasty, so Qin Shi Huang called himself emperor.
Emperor, this title, in fact, in the ancient and Xia Shang periods, are called Emperor So-and-so, such as Di Yao, Di Shun, we are familiar with the King of Shang, the correct should be called Di Xin. Emperor is the meaning of the Heavenly Emperor, the Shang used to be a theocratic state, the heavens are the emperor, and the supreme ruler is called the emperor. When it came to the Zhou Dynasty, the supreme ruler felt that he was under the command of the heavens, one level lower than the heavens, so he called the king not the emperor, so-and-so Zhou king, the princes under the division of the five titles according to the duke, hou, bo, son, male five title system, the fief is called the state, so the princes are what dukes, what hou.
For example, the State of Chu was not welcomed by the Central Plains because of its low title, and it was not welcomed by the Central Plains in the south, so it established itself as king, and later the State of Yue and the State of Wu successively became kings, and at the same time, the Zhou Chamber was weak, and it was impossible to manage the powerful princes, and all the princes wanted to get a king, and the Zhou Room simply went down the slope to the donkey, sent meat to all countries, and recognized the king.
Qin Shi Huang was the first two people to be called emperors, "Western Emperor" and "Eastern Emperor"
Qin Shi Huang, in Chinese history, was indeed not the first to be called emperor. Before the Qin Emperor, there were indeed two people who were called emperors. One was Qin Shi Huang's great-grandfather, King Zhaoxiang, also known as King Zhao, and the other was King Qi Min, also known as King Xiang.
During the Warring States period, King Zhaoxiang of Qin took the King of Qi Tang together as the emperor, namely "Western Emperor" and "Eastern Emperor", respectively, for a short time, the two took the initiative to give up, because the existence time was too short, and the history books recorded this matter only in passing, without elaborating.
Qin Qi's previous claim to the title of emperor was entirely a ruse, when the most powerful State of Chu among the princely states lost power, and at this time the State of Qin and the State of Qi were listed together as powerful princely states, and the State of Qin had always destroyed the hearts of other princely states, and the other princely states were forced by the strength of the State of Qin to try to unite against the State of Qin.
In 288 BC, the Qin chancellor Wei Ran took the lead in proposing that King Zhaoxiang of Qin be declared emperor, and in order to elevate himself and also to attack the Three Jins (Han, Zhao, and Wei), the King of Qin Zhaoxiang, in order to break up the relationship between the State of Qi and the eastern countries, accepted Wei Ran's suggestion, and sent Wei Ran to the State of Qi to persuade the King of Qi to declare himself Emperor Lianheng, with the King of Qin as the Western Emperor and the King of Qi as the Eastern Emperor, and the Second Emperor as the second emperor.
In the face of the temptation of the imperial throne, the State of Qi was first proclaimed emperor, and later the other princely states saw that the State of Qi had chosen to alienate the State of Qi, and the State of Qi knew that it had gone to the State of Qin's plan to disintegrate its alliance, and immediately revoked its imperial title, as did the State of Qin. Obviously, the state of Qin and the state of Qi briefly claimed to be emperors, and did not have the unified world of Qin Shi Huang who claimed to be emperor, nor did they control the princely states like Zhou Tianzi, but they were just an imperial title.
Although Xia Shang Zhou also had a king with the highest power, they were only human kings and heavenly sons, and they ruled the world by the sub-feudal system, and they were not the supreme dynasty of the great unification of imperial power in essence, that is to say, even if the Xia Shang Dynasty had a heavenly son and a human king who was called emperor, it did not conform to the title of emperor.
The time came to the era of Qin Shi Huang, Qin Shi Huang unified the six kingdoms to establish a powerful Qin Dynasty, a series of reforms allowed Chinese history to officially enter the era of the great unification of the central group, and the emperor system continued until the Qing Dynasty. Qin Shi Huang's system can be described as ancient and modern, the first emperor to achieve great unification, and it can also be said that the influence of Qin Shi Huang's position on history was the first person. Qin Shi Huang considered himself the Three Emperors of Gongmai and the Five Emperors of Virtue and Five Emperors, and took a word from each of the Three Emperors and Five Emperors and called himself Emperor.
The "Qin Shi Huang Benji VI" in the "History" once recorded that in ancient times, there were emperors, there were earth emperors, there were Thai emperors, and the Thai emperor was the most expensive. The subjects died on the throne, and the king was the Emperor of Thailand. Wang Yue: Go to Tai, the emperor, take the title of the ancient emperor, and call the emperor.
Through the above, we can clearly know that the first person in history to call the emperor was Qin Shi Huang, and the emperors before Qin Shi Huang were called human king, tianzi, and princely monarch, and The emperor called by Qin Qi was only the name of the two emperors of the East and the West, not the emperor.