The first person in history to be called emperor was Qin Shi Huang.
However, due to the fact that his mother and the false eunuch Concubine Yi had secretly given birth to a child, the young Qin Shi Huang left a shadow in his heart.
This also led to Qin Shi Huang not being crowned empress in his lifetime.
Therefore, the first person in history to be called empress was left to Lü Yan, the wife of Liu Bang, the founding emperor of the Han Dynasty.
On the afternoon of February of the fifth year of the Han Dynasty (202 BC), Liu Bang proclaimed himself emperor at Panshui zhiyang (in present-day Heze, Shandong), with the capital luoyang, and soon moved the capital to Chang'an, establishing the Han Dynasty, and renaming queen Lü Yan as empress and his eldest son Liu Ying as crown prince.
In April of the twelfth year of Emperor Han gao (195 BC), Liu Bang died, and the sixteen-year-old crown prince Liu Ying took the throne, known as Emperor Hui of Han.
Lü Yan regarded his son Liu Ying as a puppet and controlled the military power alone.
Emperor Hui of Han died of illness after seven years on the throne, and Lü Yan made Emperor Hui's son, the three-year-old Liu Gong, emperor, and Lü Yan, as empress dowager, remained in power.
During this period, Lü Yan wantonly enfeoffed Zhu Lü, and the affairs of the DPRK and China were decided by the empress dowager.
In the eighth year of Gao's reign (180 BC), Lü Yan died of illness at the age of sixty-two, ending a fifteen-year dictatorship that later generations called "the first person to rule the empress dowager".
Lü Yan and Han Gaozu were buried together in Changling Tomb, which is located in Sanyi Village, Yaodian Township, Weicheng District, Xianyang, Shaanxi.
More than 2,140 years later, in September 1968, in the village of Wolfjiagou in Hanjiawan, Xianyang, Shaanxi Province, two miles from Changling, the "Seal of the Empress", symbolizing the power of the Western Han Dynasty, was accidentally discovered by a primary school student.
One evening, Kong Zhongliang, a student of Hanjiawan Primary School, came home from school and when he passed wolf's house ditch, he found that there was something on the soil ridge in the south of the canal, shining under the glow of the sunset.
The child was full of curiosity, and Kong Zhongliang, who was fourteen years old at the time, ran forward, used his hand to cut out the half-exposed luminous object, cleaned up the dirt, and saw that it seemed to be a kind of writing, but he did not recognize it.
After Kong Zhongliang returned home, he showed the treasure he had picked up to his brother, and the younger brothers discussed smoothing out the printing surface and then engraving their names.
However, after half a day, the jade seal was too hard, and the ordinary method did not work at all.
A few days later, Kong Zhongliang's father, Kong Xiangfa, was going to Xi'an to run an errand, and the bear child took out the jade seal and begged his father to go to Xi'an to find an engraving shop, smooth out the words on it, and then engrave his name.
Kong Xiangfa carefully inquired about the origin of the jade seal, and then looked at it carefully, but unfortunately he did not know the text on it, but he always felt that this object appeared near Changling, which was extraordinary.
Kong Xiang sent to Xi'an City, immediately came to the Shaanxi Provincial Museum, explained the process, and asked experts to help identify.
According to the identification of experts, this jade seal is the seal of the Western Han Dynasty, and the four seal scripts are "Seal of the Queen".
Experts believe that this object may have originally been enshrined in the toilet hall of Lü Yan's mausoleum, but the later toilet hall was damaged and washed away by the flood.
Kong Xiangfa expressed his willingness to donate cultural relics to the museum, and the museum rewarded the Kong family.
The Han Old Yi records: "Empress Yuxi, Wen and Emperor Tong, Empress's Seal, Golden Ant Tiger Button." ”
This Western Han Dynasty "Queen's Seal" jade seal is exactly the same as the regulation recorded in the history books.
The jade seal material is Hetian mutton fat white jade, crystal lustrous, pure throughout, not qin, hard texture.
The jade seal is square, the inscription is the seal book "Queen's Seal", and the seal is a creeping tiger, with a powerful image, a healthy posture, protruding eyes, and a cloud decoration on the tail.
This jade seal is known as the earliest empress seal in the academic circles, which is a physical material for studying the seal of the Western Han Emperor, and is now treasured in the Shaanxi History Museum, which is one of the treasures of the museum.