In traditional Chinese opera, the emperor is called “wansuiye” and people have to exclaim “wansui” (ten thousand years old) three times when they meet the emperor. As the living condition was poor in ancient times, to live a long life was the greatest wish for all people. In ancient times, except for “wansui”, there were some other forms of address for the emperor as listed below:

“tianzi”: it means the son of the heaven. In order to solidify the rule, the rulers molded the theory that “the monarchical power was given by the heaven” so as to enable all the people to be at the order obediently.

“zuxia”: it means under my feet. It appeared in the Spring and Autumn Period. It originally represented a man that the ruler paid great respect to, it gradually evolved into a respectful form of address. The emperor held absolute power; therefore people used this to address the emperor later.

Beside these, “bixia” (your majesty), gexia (your excellency), dianxia(your highness) , “huangshang”(the king) were also used to address the emperor. But all of those may be different in different dynasties, and in many classic books, there are still some others forms among the minor groups. What’s more, the emperors also had different kind of way to call themselves, such as “gua ren”(the only one), “gu”(me), “zhen”(the emperor).