During Xia Jie's reign, the king was debauched and depraved, cruel and tyrannical. He indulged in pleasure, treated his people harshly and without mercy, and showed neither virtue nor compassion. He invented excuses to extort money and brutally slaughtered the innocent. As a result, the kingdom gradually declined from its former prosperity... Seeing Xia Jie's loss of virtue, seeing how the people could no longer make a living under his rule and how riots continually erupted across the land, Cheng Tang followed the will of Heaven and raised an army against Xia Jie. He seized the realm and replaced Xia with Shang. By now, some six hundred years had passed!
Yet in recent years, the Great Shang dynasty had also begun to show increasingly serious signs of decline...
First, King Di Xin of Shang was cruel and tyrannical, and the court's affairs had fallen into disarray. He neglected domestic affairs, continually expanded Chaoge, increased taxes, strictly enforced the cyclical ancestral rites, changed his policies for selecting officials, and introduced harsh laws and punishments. Abroad, he repeatedly sent armies to attack the tribes of Eastern Yi, wasting the nation's strength. On top of that, natural and man-made calamities had followed one after another, while the feudal lords rebelled. The government fell into ruin and the land was filled with wailing. Demons also ran rampant throughout the realm, and immortals roamed everywhere. Earthquakes, tsunamis, locusts, and fires struck frequently, leaving most of the people across the Great Shang dynasty in dire poverty and hardship. The realm was gradually approaching total collapse!
Unlike the people under Chentang Pass's rule, who lived in peace and contentment, enjoyed bountiful harvests, and had tens of millions of acres of fertile farmland stretching as far as the eye could see—enough to feed hundreds of thousands of Shang