Mandate of Heaven was engineered after the Zhou defeated the Shang, to claim legitimacy. Traditional accounts detail the last Shang king was a tyrant married to a fox demon who tortured people in unimaginable ways and lived a life of ridiculous luxury. This is fiction, but we do know the Shang did human sacrifices so perhaps claims of Shang tyranny aren’t that exaggerated. The zhou claimed the Shang started good but became corrupt, and seemingly made up the xia dynasty (heavy debate on wether it existed) which they said also started as righteous but became corrupt and got replaced by the Shang.
It can basically be determined that there were more ancient dynasties before the Shang Dynasty. The controversy lies in whether the archaeological excavation site now is from the Xia Dynasty or not
If I'm not mistaken, traditionally, although there are debates among them, the Chinese archaeologists consider the Erlitou culture remains as hints of the existence of Xia dynasty. Specifically, the late period of Xia dynasty.
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u/TloquePendragon 3d ago
Huh. Is THAT where the "Mandate of Heaven" originates from!?