There are four main reasons for the rapid fall of the Shang Dynasty:
The Shang Dynasty was the second dynasty after the Xia Dynasty, and the issue of succession was not fixed, sometimes the elder brother followed the younger brother, and sometimes the son inherited the father's business, and the chaos of the inheritance system caused turmoil within the ruling class, and finally caused the Ninth Rebellion. In the later period, it gradually moved closer to the primogeniture inheritance system, and the Shang kings also paid more attention to the strengthening of royal power.
To strengthen the royal power and improve the degree of centralization of the Shang king, it is inevitable to use people outside the clan, such as slaves, such as the lowly but capable evil and feilian, etc., have been reused by the Shang king, which directly affects the interests of the aristocratic clan, making the aristocratic clan more and more detached from morality, such as Wei Ziqi, the opinion is very large. The competing interests of the clan nobles weakened the ruling power of the Shang Dynasty to a certain extent.
When later generations talk about the king of Shang, they will immediately think of extravagant pictures such as wine ponds and meat forests, which may be exaggerated, but the extravagance of the upper class is undoubted.
King Shang is a strong, face-saving king, born in the imperial family, do not know how to be diligent and thrifty, all aspects want better, in this regard, the personality of the king of Shang is similar to Yang Guang, Emperor Yang of Sui.
The extravagance of the upper class of society will inevitably increase the burden of the people at the bottom, and over time, layers of exploitation and resentment will shake the foundation of the Shang Dynasty.
During the Shang Dynasty, in addition to the areas directly under the jurisdiction of the Shang Dynasty, there were many surrounding Fang States, and after hundreds of years of development, some Fang States gradually increased in power, challenging the authority of the Shang Dynasty, and even gradually encroaching on the rule of the Shang Dynasty.
During the period of the Shang king, he used troops against foreign countries for many years, and made too many enemies abroad, prompting them to form an alliance against themselves; Internally, the people are overwhelmed and living in dire straits.
Historically, Dongyi's power was once very strong, and in the middle and late Shang Dynasty, Dongyi continued to encroach on the territory ruled by the Shang Dynasty and compress the living space of merchants.
"The merchant wears the elephant, for the abuse of Dongyi",
"Shang is the collection of Li, and the east is rebelled".After the Shang King succeeded to the throne, he intensified the war against Dongyi, which became the most important direction of war during the Shang Dynasty, and the victory on the battlefield curbed Dongyi's westward advance into the Central Plains.
However, the Fang state in the western part of the Shang dynasty gradually became stronger, and during the reign of King Wen of Zhou and King Wu of Zhou, they gradually united against the Shang state of Fang and began to challenge the rule of the Shang dynasty to the east. King Wu of Zhou assembled the princes and took advantage of the main force of the Shang Dynasty to march eastward to attack the Shang Dynasty.
When King Wu's army arrived near Chaoge, King Shang did not have much troops at hand, so he had to temporarily cobble together slaves to fight against King Wu's coalition of princes. Because many slaves were captured in recent wars, they resented the Shang Dynasty and were unwilling to work for the Shang Dynasty.