To identify elite soybean germplasm resources showing cold tolerance at the seedling stage in the northern part of China’s Heilongjiang Province, in this study 158 soybean germplasm resources from China and Europe were evaluated through a comprehensive analysis of seedling emergence rate, final seedling emergence rate, relative seedling emergence rate, and seedling emergence index under artificial low-temperature stress treatment conditions and early low-temperature stress treatment conditions in the field. With the preliminary results, the relative seedling emergence rate might be deployed as an index for evaluating artificial cold tolerance with an efficiency up to 60%. We suggested four grades with variations on cold tolerance: grade I (high cold tolerance) containing 10 accessions, with a relative seedling emergence rate of 75–100%; grade II (moderate cold tolerance) containing 22 accessions, with a relative seedling emergence rate of 45–75%; grade III (moderate cold sensitivity) containing 33 accessions, with a relative seedling emergence rate of 20–45%; and grade IV (high cold sensitivity) containing 93 accessions, with a relative seedling emergence rate of 0–20%. A highly significant linear positive correlation between the final emergence rate and relative emergence rate in artificial cold tolerance identification experiment was observed, and a significant positive correlation between relative emergence rate and emergence index (EI) in the Heihe experimental site was observed. The European germplasms showed cold tolerance better that of Chinese germplasms. Except one Chinese germplasm (C63, Heihe 5), in six cold-tolerant germplasms five were from Europe (A28, ESSenator; A54, Tajfun; A65, AUGUSTA; A75, GLHermine; A76, Josefine). These cold-tolerant soybean germplasms may provide a material basis for cold-tolerant soybean varieties breeding and mining the functional genes with cold tolerance in the early-maturing cultivation areas of China.