Zhuanxu
Legendary ancient Chinese emperor

Zhuanxu (simplified Chinese: 颛顼; traditional Chinese: 顓頊; pinyin: Zhuānxū), also known as Gaoyang (simplified Chinese: 高阳; traditional Chinese: 高陽; pinyin: Gāoyáng), was a mythological emperor of ancient China.
In the traditional account recorded by Sima Qian, Zhuanxu was a grandson of the Yellow Emperor.
Association with Four Barbarians
At the age of ten with Shaohao, he was said to have led the Shi clan in an eastward migration to present-day Shandong, where intermarriages with the Dongyi clan enlarged and augmented their tribal influences.
He also was associated with a religious reform of the Jiuli (九黎) people, banishing witchcraft practised by the people.
Family
Zhuanxu was the grandson of the Yellow Emperor and his wife Leizu by way of his father Changyi (昌意). His mother was named Changpu (昌僕) from the Shushan clan (蜀山氏), according to Sima Qian, and Niuqu (女樞) according to the Bamboo Annals. Zhuanxu is also alternatively said to be the son of Hanliu (韓流) in the Classic of Mountains and Seas. However, it is recorded in suspicious part Haineijing (海內經) that was written last.
Zhuanxu was claimed as an ancestor by many of the dynasties of Chinese history, including the Mi of Chu and Yue, the Yíng of Qin, the Cao of Wei, and the Qian of Wuyue.
Reign
Zhuanxu is held by many sources to be one of the Five Emperors.
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This entry incorporates text from “Zhuanxu” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.