As one of the four ancient civilizations in the world, ancient Egypt was turbulent due to the decline of the power of the pharaohs, ancient Babylon has long disappeared into history, and ancient India has also disappeared in the long river of history with time. And the only thing that can really maintain the continuous inheritance of culture is our Chinese civilization.
However, the 5,000-year history of our country is only more than 3,500 years of history starting from the Shang Dynasty, and even the Xia Dynasty has not been able to find a single word of record about this period in history, let alone the earlier Yanhuang period, which is one of the reasons why many international scholars criticize the origin of China's history.
To say that in the past 1,500 years, we can roughly divide them into three periods, namely the flood period, the Yanhuang period, and the Xia Dynasty. Each of these three periods has the most representative legends handed down, which also provides some indirect evidence for this 1500-year blank period.
First of all, during the flood period, the more representative ones are Nuwa who created people, Shennong who tasted a hundred herbs and Suiren who drilled wood to make fire, in addition to Fuxi who used heaven and earth to perform gossip, knotted ropes and made nets, and taught people how to use tools for hunting and fishing.
The Suiren clan further brought human beings from the era of drinking blood to the era of cooked food by drilling wood to make fire, and played an immeasurable role in promoting human civilization. Shennong is the originator of China's agriculture and has opened a precedent for agricultural civilization.
The time passed through the flood era and entered the familiar Yanhuang era, the symbol of this era is that human civilization has become a prototype, there are many tribes, the war between the Yanhuang tribe and the Chiyou tribe is to open a new chapter of Chinese civilization, and the descendants of Yan and Huang have become our new synonym.
The earliest record of Emperor Yan and Emperor Huang can be found in Sima Qian's "Records of the Historians", and many people doubt the authenticity of the "Records of the Historians" on this part of the account before the Shang Dynasty, but believe that in the spirit of Sima Qian's old pedant, he disdained to use some unrealistic records to complete his life-consuming work.
According to the records of the "Historical Records", the two tribes of Yandi and the Yellow Emperor, because of their proximity, did not obey each other, so they carried out many wars, but in the end, the Yellow Emperor tribe completely subdued the Yandi tribe, and the Yandi tribe was attached to the Yellow Emperor tribe, which began the legend of the Yanhuang tribe.
The Battle of Hanquan, which achieved the integration of the two tribes, became a major turning point in Chinese civilization, which is also regarded as the predecessor of ethnic integration. At this time, another tribe in the north, the Chiyou tribe, also accelerated their westward expansion, and there was a war with Emperor Yan.
Emperor Yan was defeated and asked the Yellow Emperor tribe for help, and finally the Yanhuang tribe merged into one, defeating the Chiyou tribe in the battle of the deer, this war can be said to be the origin of Chinese civilization, since then the Chinese civilization began to develop rapidly, gradually surpassing most of the world's civilization groups at that time.
But with the development of agricultural civilization, the wrestling with nature has become inevitable, and the flood disaster once again threatens the survival of human beings, and the emergence of Dayu at this time has alleviated the survival crisis of human beings, and under his leadership people have cured many years of floods.
Later, Dayu with the credit of water control, Shun gave the position of the tribal leader to Dayu, in this era the tribal leaders between the transmission is generally the capable people, under the governance of Dayu, the tribe gradually transformed to a slave society, and gradually has the prototype of the dynasty.
Later, when Dayu gradually grew old, he began to prepare to change the "public world" into "the family world", and by vigorously cultivating his son Qi, let him establish merit, and naturally sit on the throne of the leader when he was old, after Qi ascended the throne, he opened the era of the Xia Dynasty.
But about the historical records of this period of the Xia Dynasty, our country is still lacking in relevant supporting materials, we only know that Dayu passed the throne to Qi, and the subsequent Xia Ji was desolate and brutal, was defeated by Shang Tang through the battle of Mingtiao, and the Xia Dynasty perished, but the history of the Xia Dynasty has been a blank period for hundreds of years.
It was not until later that the excavation of the ruins of Erlitou made our country have a clearer understanding of the history of this period, in addition, an ancient flood layer was also found in a site in Hubei, after the identification of professional institutions, this geology is very similar to the age of Dayu's water control.
Not only that, when the ancient flood layer in Hubei was discovered, some places in the country have also found the ancient flood layer similar to the age of Dayu's water control, and these evidence also confirmed the reliability of Dayu's water control from the side, and the Xia Dynasty is the last period of this blank period.
Although there is no relevant written record of the Xia Dynasty and the previous years in China, just as foreign scholars denied the existence of the Shang Dynasty before the oracle bone inscription was unearthed, we can only maintain our cultural and historical self-confidence, believing that in the near future, this history will always see the light of day again.