From right to left, there are thirteen emperors: Liu Fuling, Zhao Kuangyin in the Western Han Dynasty, Liu Xiu, Guangwudi in the Eastern Han Dynasty, Cao Pi, Sun Quan, Liu Bei, Sima Yan in Jin and Xian Di, Chen, Chen Bozong, Chen Shubao in Chen Houzhu, Yu Wenyong in the Northern Zhou Dynasty, Sui Wendi and Sui Yangdi. All the emperors wrote titles in regular script in front of the screen, and some also described their reign years and attitudes towards Buddhism and Taoism, and all had followers with different numbers, forming a relatively independent 13 group of characters, totaling 46 people.
What we are seeing now is not the original, but a copy before the Northern Song Dynasty. The original had disappeared as early as the Northern Song Dynasty.
Yan, the author, had a smooth career when he was in peace with Emperor Taizong, and has always been the right prime minister. He was probably the most famous painter at that time and best represented the official mainstream consciousness. It is also said that this painting was painted by another painter in the Tang Dynasty, Lang Yuling.
At that time, the author may have inferred the facial features of 13 emperors, as well as their personalities, political actions and different situations and fates, and then found models around them to draw. We now seem to think that the costumes and faces of several emperors are similar, but if we look closely, we can find that each emperor is different. Everyone tries to express their different personalities through appearance details, such as expression, eye shape, beard length and hardness, different perspectives of eyes, different postures, or some simple scenes. For example, Yuwen Yong and Chen, the Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, stand opposite each other in the painting, and the latter seems to be scared by the Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty to hide his face and shrug his shoulders. With Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, he was half shorter and looked weak, without the imposing manner of an emperor.
? We don't know whether there are only 13 emperors in the original painting, and we don't know what the criteria for choosing emperors in past dynasties are. For example, Qin Shihuang did not appear. Among these emperors, there are both talented people and weak people. They chose a variety of emperors to draw a scroll, taking these historical figures as examples of political history, so that the rulers could "see good and abstain from evil, see evil and think good" and play a role in maintaining their rule.
It turns out that the imperial maps of past dynasties have been collected by celebrities of past dynasties since the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, which can be described as an orderly inheritance, but they have changed in the hands of Liang Hongzhi in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. Liang Hongzhi is the last imperial map collector in China. According to records, this painting is the man's exile and is now in the Boston Museum. As a national treasure, it's a pity that the maps of emperors have been exiled overseas. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Liang Hongzhi was sentenced to death for treason.