In Chinese Deity System, Hou Tu was being appointed (after manifested) to look into issues that happened in the Mortal Worlds (such as birth of living beings, fertility, grains harvesting, life and death of all living beings, etc).
Besides that, Hou Tu was also know to have the ability of looking into Negative Issues such as events that were closely associated with the Yin Element 陰 (such as Funeral, buried land, etc).
In the initial Period of the forming of Taoism, Hou Tu appeared in a Male form, but after the revolution of the Culture of Taoism, during Tang Dynasty (唐朝), Hou Tu changed from a Male form to a Female form (in-order to accommodate the saying of Huang Tian Hou Tu (皇天后土) – Huang Tian as Positive, meaning Male and Hou Tu as Negative, meaning Female).
And so from then, the Earth was being addressed as Mother Earth, this was how our Planet Earth became or known as "Mother of all Mortals" (大地之母).
According to Song Dynasty Taoist Records (宋朝後期道教記載), Hou Tu got 36 Assistants, which were address as Tu Huang (土皇). Each of the Tu Huang was being appointed to look after an area or level of Earth (in Taoism, it was believed that there are 36 levels/direction of Earth 三十六地)
In Today’s Deities belief, Hou Tu had manifested a few Deities that are closely associated with the movements on Mortal World, they are:
1 – Nv Wa 女媧 (which is only a myth)
2 – Di Mu Niang Niang 地母娘娘 (Mother Goddess of Earth)
And it was believed that, all Tu Di aka Deity of Earth (土地神) will have to report to Hou Tu once a year for the result of the Harvesting of the area under their inspection.
