During the reign of Tang Xuanzong (685-762, r. 712-756), the Yuzhu Xiaojing was issued twice to try to unify older annotations. The Xiaojing huangdi gan found in the Dunhuang manuscripts is a folk derivative text of the Yuzhu Xiaojing. Its popular style and the unorthodox source of the text are completely different from the canon promulgated by the imperial court. This article focuses on the two forms of the Yuzhu Xiaojing to discuss the spread and acceptance of the emperor’s authority among the people. On the one hand, judging from the content of the two texts, Yuzhu Xiaojing conveys Xuanzong’s interpretation of the “subtle meaning” of the classic: that “the monarch and his subjects are the same.” Its annotations serve to unify the ideological relationship between the monarch and his subjects. However, Xiaojing huangdi gan is a combination of the summary verses of the Yuzhu Xiaojing and the traditional annotations of Zheng Xuan, which had remained popular at the local level. On the other hand, from the point of view of the text generation and dissemination process, in Five Dynasties Dunhuang, Zheng’s annotations remained in use, and there were very few copies of the Yuzhu Xiaojing. Instead, the Xiaojing huangdi gan, which was spontaneously created in folk music venues in imitation of the Summary Verses of the Diamond Sutra, was quite popular. Thus, the emperor’s intentions were fulfilled in an indirect way. Although this text completely away stripped the original meaning of the Yuzhu Xiaojing, it successfully became an imperial symbol, conveying the emperor’s authority.