High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Yan Emperor, or Yandi, lived in China about 4,000 years ago. According to a folk tale, Shennong was the first Chinese tribe. The Yan Emperor was a descendant of Shennong. Or, more likely, the term Flame Emperor was a title, held by dynastic succession, with Shennong, at least posthumously, being known as Yandi. Accordingly, the term Flame Emperors would be generally be more correct. The succession of Flame Emperors, from Shennong, the first Yandi, to the last, defeated by Huangdi, may have lasted some 500 years. Shennong, the "Divine Husbandman," and first Yandi, whose image appears to be a sort of Chinese Green Man, is credited in Chinese Mythology with introducing systematized agriculture as a method of livelihood. He is also known as Yandi, or Flame Emperor. K. C. Wu speculates that this appellation may be connected with the fire used to clear the fields in slash and burn agriculture.