Before the Xia Dynasty, it was the era of legends in our country.
The Age of Legends is divided into two phases. The first stage is the Chao, Suiren, and Fuxi eras, which date from 2 million to 10,000 years ago, that is, the archaeological Paleolithic period.
The biggest feature of this era is that human beings have just parted ways with apes, and their survival skills are very low. The economic model of the Rumao diet limits the growth of the population. Although in the late Paleolithic period, human society gave rise to the clan system, but in general, there was very little communication between the various clans, let alone wars.
Legend has it that Shennong was the embodiment of the inventor of agriculture, so the Shennong era is regarded as the beginning of the Neolithic Age. The emergence of the production economy has brought great changes to all aspects of society. By actively exploiting the renewable resources of nature, the number of people that can be carried by the land has greatly increased. And with the increase in population, in order to survive, the clan took the step of external expansion. During this period, contacts began to occur between different clans.
Judging from the relevant historical records, there was already a war at this time. It is said that Shennong once cut down the (axe), but the cause and process are unknown. Unlike later generations, the wars of the Shennong era were not for plunder and enslavement, nor for the protection of one ownership against another, but for the revenge of blood relatives.
Why blood revenge? This is because in ancient times, human production technology was extremely underdeveloped. For the people of the time, nature was strange, antagonistic, and incomprehensible. It's hard to survive alone. The emergence of the clan system allows people of the same clan to "huddle together for warmth", which greatly improves people's survival chances. Therefore, in the eyes of the clan members, everyone in the clan is not only their own relatives, but also the guarantee of their own survival. The death of a person may be the beginning of destruction for a living clan member. Therefore, whoever kills this man, the clan members will take revenge on him. This is not only the obligation of blood relatives, but also the instinct of self-defense.
In the later part of the Age of Legends, war had another layer of meaning in addition to blood revenge - plunder.
With the gradual abundance of material goods, people began to chase wealth. Initially, it was the skilled craftsmen who accumulated more surplus wealth, but as the pursuit of wealth developed into greed, the clan nobles soon used their power to possess more wealth than all of them. The clan system, based on public ownership, gradually collapsed.
Human greed is unlimited, and once it is expanded, it is like opening a "Pandora's box", and it is difficult to limit it. After the nobles had scavenged the people's fat and ointment in their own clan, they set their sights on other clans in order to gain more wealth and occupy a wider territory. Plundering through war became the norm in the late Age of Legends.
After entering the era of copper and stone use, with the progress of **, the intensity and frequency of wars have greatly increased.
At this stage, Huaxia, Dongyi, and Miaoman were the three most active tribal groups in China.
The main representatives of the Huaxia group are the Yellow Emperor and the Yan Emperor, whose ancestors originated in the northwest region, and later the descendants prospered and scattered, due to the different production methods and lifestyles, some became the ancestors of Rong Di, and some became the core of the Huaxia people. Such as the Zhou Dynasty's Lirong and Hurong; Bai Di's Xianyu and the Yellow Emperor are all surnamed Ji, and the ancient Qiang people distributed in the vast northwest area share the same ancestor as Emperor Yan surnamed Jiang.
Among the descendants of the Yellow Emperor, the famous clans are the Emperor Yao Tao Tang Clan, the Xia Hou Clan, the Hu Clan, the Xun Clan, the Shen Ge Clan, etc., and the Zhou tribe that later rose in the west is also the surname Ji, which is the branch of this ancient tribe left in Shaanxi to develop. Those who belong to the Yandi clan include the Gonggong clan, as well as Feng Boling, the "grandson of the Yandi" who entered the distribution area of the Dongyi Group.
Originally belonging to the Huaxia Group and having a close relationship with the Dongyi Group were Zhuan, Youyu, Zhurong, etc., and the descendants of Zhurong moved to the Jianghan region and became the ancestors of the Chu people. The main representatives of Dongyi Group are Taihao, Shaohao, Chiyou, and the later Gaotao also belongs to this group.
The most famous representative of the Miao Man Group is Sanmiao.
In antiquity, the great wars we know as we know them are all related to these three groups. The first shot was fired by the civil war of the Huaxia Group, the Battle of Hanquan. We'll get to that later.