<Tr> <Td_colspan="8"> <Ul> <Li> view </Li> <Li> talk </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> view </Li> <Li> talk </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> The Xia dynasty is the legendary, possibly mythical first dynasty in traditional Chinese history . It is described in ancient historical chronicles such as the Bamboo Annals, the Classic of History and the Records of the Grand Historian . According to tradition, the Xia dynasty was established by the legendary Yu the Great after Shun, the last of the Five Emperors gave his throne to him . The Xia was later succeeded by the Shang dynasty . </P> <P> According to the traditional chronology based upon calculations by Liu Xin, the Xia ruled between 2205 and 1766 BC; according to the chronology based upon the Bamboo Annals, it ruled between 1989 and 1558 BC . The Xia--Shang--Zhou Chronology Project commissioned by the Chinese government in 1996, concluded that the Xia existed between 2070 and 1600 BC . The tradition of tracing Chinese political history from heroic early emperors to the Xia, and on to succeeding dynasties, comes from the idea of the Mandate of Heaven, in which only one legitimate ruler exists at a given time . This political philosophy was promoted by the Confucian school in the Eastern Zhou period, later becoming the official position of imperial historiography and ideology . </P>

Who was the first emperor of the xia dynasty