Chapter 488 Chaotic Situation

Even if Emperor Xin died suddenly now, it would not save the Shang Dynasty. Instead, it would accelerate the demise of the Shang Dynasty.

How to say it, Emperor Xin’s sudden death now is actually a bad thing. It is easy for people to accuse him of offending God and thus being punished by heaven and dying.

If this rumor spreads, whether it is true or false, it means that the Shang Dynasty has lost its destiny and is doomed to be overthrown.

“Wen Zhong!”

At this time, Ao Bing could only sigh that Wen Zhong was unreliable.

He chose to go into seclusion at this time, instead of earlier or later, so he failed to dissuade Emperor Xin in time, which led to the current situation.

Of course, this is not Wen Zhong’s fault. He did not go into seclusion voluntarily, but was forced to do so.

The target of the backlash of humanity was not just Emperor Xin, but all the rulers and ministers of the Shang Dynasty. It was just that Emperor Xin bore the greatest firepower, but that did not mean that the rest of the people would not be affected.

This was the case with Wen Zhong. Due to the sudden rise in the fortunes of the Shang Dynasty, he showed signs of a breakthrough in his cultivation.

Originally, he had no plan to go into seclusion immediately. He planned to suppress his emotions for a while, and then when the time was right, it would not be too late to break through.

But his idea was good, but reality did not allow it. As the backlash of humanity worsened, Wen Zhong was gradually affected.

First he felt uneasy, then he couldn’t concentrate, and finally all kinds of hallucinations appeared before his eyes, making it difficult for him to distinguish between reality and illusion.

In this situation, he had no choice but to retreat. Retreat to break through and suppress the increasingly powerful backlash of humanity.

If he didn’t retreat, in his current state, he wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on Emperor Xin, let alone take care of himself. Therefore, even if Wen Zhong was unwilling, he had to retreat by force.

He has been in seclusion for tens of thousands of years and has not come out yet. Obviously, he is being held back by the backlash of humanity, and they are afraid that he will do something bad, so they have been unable to come out.

To achieve this, it is very simple. Just give him a little help and let him fall into the deepest level of enlightenment.

For Wen Zhong’s level, a secluded retreat lasting hundreds of thousands or even millions of years is nothing at all and is very common in the prehistoric world.

“It’s all trouble!”

Sighing, Ao Bing looked towards Zhou State. He wanted to know the situation of Zhou State. Because according to the original history, it was Zhou State that replaced the Shang Dynasty.

Therefore, as long as one understands the situation of the Zhou State, one will know to what extent the catastrophe has progressed.

“Hou Xibo is dead, Bo Yikao is also dead, Ji Dan has returned to the Zhou Kingdom, and Hou Xibo’s second son Ji Fa has succeeded him. He is now accumulating strength and is ready to rebel at any time…”

“Speechless!”

After seeing the situation of Zhou, Ao Bing’s mood became complicated again. He had previously called Xibohou and Ji Dan to Chaoge to ask them to help govern the country and strengthen the power of Shang.

At the same time, he also left Bo Yikao and Ji Fa in Zhou State, letting them fight each other to weaken Zhou State’s national strength. This plan was good, but Emperor Xin still did not cooperate.

It had already been agreed upon that the Duke of Xibo had made great contributions to the Shang Dynasty, and since he was already in Chaoge, there was no need to send a hostage to Chaoge.

But Xibo Hou was very smart. All other princes sent hostages, but he did not. In addition, he was the one who promoted the hostage system. If he really did this, he would easily become the target of the other princes’ concentrated fire.

Therefore, he tried his best to refuse Emperor Xin’s grace and insisted on sending his eldest son Bo Yikao to Chaoge as a hostage.

If Ao Bing were still alive, he would definitely not agree to Xibohou’s request, but the problem is that he is not here.

Therefore, seeing that King Xibo was so persistent, Emperor Xin could not refuse his request and allowed his eldest son to come to Chaoge to study.

Yes, to study.

All the princes came to Chaoge as hostages in the name of studying. Otherwise, it would be too harsh to say that they were going to be hostages.

There is not much to say about Bo Yikao after he was sent to Chaoge as a hostage. The key point is that he died, on the way to the expedition led by Emperor Xin himself, and died in battle with the other hostages.

Just like this, it was already very exciting. But what happened next was even more exciting. After hearing about this, Xibohou, who lost his son in his later years, could not bear the bad news. After leaving behind the Eight Diagrams, he also died of illness.

At this time, Ji Dan proposed to escort the coffins of his father and brother back to the Zhou State for burial. Emperor Xin had no choice but to agree.

Killing the father and son and not allowing them to return to their roots is clearly forcing the Zhou Kingdom to rebel.

Well, before this, there was another episode. The Shang rituals that Ji Dan worked hard to formulate for the Shang Dynasty were rejected by Emperor Xin.

The reason for his rejection was simple, because the Shang Li did not meet his needs. The core of the Shang Li formulated by Ji Dan was the distinction between the superior and the inferior.

That is, the nobles are always nobles, the slaves are always slaves, and the barbarians are always barbarians. Each of the three performs its duties and does not interfere with each other.

This is very good and perfectly meets the needs of all princes and nobles. It is exactly what they want to see.

It can be predicted that as long as this set of Shang rituals is promulgated, the Shang Dynasty will immediately gain the support of princes all over the world, and Emperor Xin’s personal prestige will also be raised to a higher level.

However, this set of Shang rituals only met the needs of the princes and nobles, but did not meet the needs of Emperor Xin.

What he wanted was centralization of power, but Shang Li supported the feudal system, which was completely against his will. It would be strange if he agreed to it.

So when Ji Dan confidently handed over this set of business gifts, he thought he would be rewarded handsomely, but what he received was an order of rejection from Emperor Xin.

Putting aside personal prejudices, the Shang rituals formulated by Ji Dan are indeed a groundbreaking product for the current era. They can greatly promote the development of civilization and consolidate the rule of the Shang Dynasty.

From this it is not difficult to see that Ji Dan indeed fulfilled his duties as a subject.

But unfortunately, Emperor Xin’s vision was too far-sighted. He wanted to skip the transition stage and directly end the feudal system and enter a centralized system.

With such thoughts in mind, how could he be interested in the Shangli formulated by Ji Dan? Therefore, no matter how good the Shangli was, he had to reject it because it did not meet his needs.

The fact that Emperor Xin had such thoughts only showed that he had completely lost himself and was completely dominated by the backlash of humanity.

Otherwise, with his wisdom, he would have seen that what he was doing was tantamount to taking too big a step and might easily end up in trouble.

“Forget it. Everything is fate. I have done my best. How the killing calamity will develop next depends on your own ability.”

Shaking his head, Ao Bing had no intention of going to Chaoge to save the situation, because there was no need. The Great Shang Dynasty had become so corrupt that it was beyond salvation. The only thing he could do was to preserve a bloodline for Emperor Xin after the demise of the Great Shang Dynasty, so that his inheritance would not be cut off.

However, there is also good news. At least, compared to the previous history, this time the immortal killing calamity has undergone great changes.

The biggest change was that Western religion, which had nothing to do with this catastrophe, was also drawn into it.

There is no way. According to the original history, if the West wants to preach in the East, it will have to wait until the next catastrophe.

But now, with Ao Bing’s intervention, the West has begun to preach in the East ahead of time.

More importantly, the core of their philosophy is the same as that of the Shang rituals formulated by Ji Dan, which is to divide people into levels. The rulers are always the rulers, and the ruled are always the ruled.

Naturally, such ideas were highly praised by the princes from all directions. They regarded the Western disciples who came to preach as their guests, and even took the initiative to create conditions to cooperate with them in preaching.

This led to the relationship between the Western Church and the princes in all directions becoming increasingly intertwined. Now that the princes wanted to rebel against the Shang Dynasty, they had no chance of staying out of it.

If they really wanted to stay out of it and not care about anything, then from now on, they would never be able to preach in the East. Therefore, they had to participate in this immortal killing calamity.

Moreover, Emperor Xin’s ideas were contrary to the ideas promoted by their Western religions, which made it difficult for them not to oppose Emperor Xin.

Because if Emperor Xin really succeeded in centralizing power, then according to his ideas, Western religions would no longer have the opportunity to flourish.

How could the Western religion tolerate such a result? Therefore, Emperor Xin and his people had to rebel. Even if the princes did not rebel, they would incite them to rebel against the Shang Dynasty for their own interests.

But doing so would undoubtedly cause the Western Church to sink deeper and deeper into the quagmire of the killing calamity of immortals and gods, and it went from being an affected bystander before to becoming one of the protagonists today.

This means that the insufficient vacancies on the List of Gods will be filled by disciples of the Western Sect, and no longer just the Orthodox Sect and the Unorthodox Sect.

“It’s a complete mess now. It depends on who has better skills.”

Ao Bing can no longer control the situation because history has completely changed and his memories from his previous life are no longer useful.

No one can predict who will be the final winner in this killing calamity of immortals and gods. It all depends on which of the three religions’ saints has better methods.

“Those who can achieve the mythical Daluo can at least be listed in the physical form, no matter how tragic the catastrophe is. They can even simply condense an avatar to be listed in their place.”

“Basically, it can be said that as long as one can cultivate to the mythical Daluo, the stage of immortal god killing calamity will be passed.”

“As for those who have cultivated to the level of Mythical Taiyi, it is hard to say whether they can pass the test, but their ability to survive has definitely been greatly improved. The probability of their physical body making the list will reach more than 50%.”

“Basically, as long as you are careful, everyone can make the list.”

“As for those disciples of the three religions who have not yet achieved the Mythical Taiyi and are still stuck in the Golden Immortal Realm, we can only say that their blessings are too shallow. More than 99% of them will not be able to escape the fate of having their true spirits listed.”

“Only a very few people can save their lives and be included in the list in the flesh.”

After quietly observing the current disciples of the three religions, Ao Bing silently divided them into levels.

Myth Daluo was no longer worried, and Myth Taiyi could have avoided being killed if he had been more careful. As for the Golden Immortal cultivator, it was not an exaggeration to say that he had become cannon fodder.

Since the immortal killing calamity has the word “kill” in it, someone must die. Myth Daluo is immortal, and Myth Taiyi is difficult to kill, so we can only choose someone from the Golden Immortals to kill.

As it happens, the most numerous of the three religions are the Golden Immortals. Because of the appearance of the Myth Daluo and Myth Taiyi realms, the realm of cultivation in Honghuang has changed.

All the Daluo Golden Immortals and Taiyi Golden Immortals fell back to the Golden Immortal realm. The disciples of the three religions were naturally no exception. The Taiyi Golden Immortals were all annihilated and fell back to the Golden Immortal realm.

Fortunately, those Daluo Jinxian-level disciples had a profound foundation. Not long after falling back to Jinxian, they were able to rebuild to the mythical Taiyi realm and did not become cannon fodder. But the others were not so lucky.

Under the intervention of Heaven, all their cultivation was transformed into stars and stored in their bodies. From then on, they became blood bags in the eyes of Heaven.

As long as we kill them and explode the stars in their bodies one by one, we can restore a lot of blood to the world.

In this situation, it is difficult for them not to become cannon fodder, because the heaven will not let them go and will do everything possible to send them to face disaster.

Otherwise, after the killing calamity of immortals and gods is over, with the talents of this group of people, they will be able to step into the mythical Taiyi realm sooner or later.

At that time, not only would the difficulty of forcing them to face the calamity be greatly increased, but because of their breakthrough, a wave of primordial spiritual energy would also be severely consumed.

To the Heavenly Dao, this is a completely losing deal, and He certainly cannot do this.

It is necessary to kill them before they can cultivate into the mythical Taiyi. This will not only give them a heavy blow, but also greatly reduce the number of people who will cultivate into the mythical Taiyi later, which can be said to kill two birds with one stone.

“Hmm? Feixiong has moved, Jiang Ziya has gone to Xiqi, the immortals and gods are about to completely break out, and the Shang Dynasty is finished.”

Suddenly, Ao Bing noticed that a huge flying bear, representing Jiang Ziya’s luck, suddenly left Da Shang and quickly headed towards Xiqi.

What this means is self-evident. Jiang Ziya completely gave up on Da Shang and defected to Xiqi.

Logically speaking, he shouldn’t be like this. After all, he made great efforts in annihilating the North Sea Monster Clan and has become a saint of the human race, with a status that is beyond the reach of the world.

In this situation, if he didn’t want to get involved in the chaos in Jiuzhou, no one would dare to force him to come forward and get involved in the killing.

However, even a saint cannot help himself sometimes. First of all, Jiang Ziya was born in the Chan school, and Yuanshi Tianzun asked him to go to assist Xiqi. Should he go or not?
Secondly, Jiang Ziya was a descendant of the royal family of the Lu State and was born into an aristocratic family. In addition, because he commanded troops, he gathered a group of aristocrats under him.

Now, Emperor Xin stood against all the princes and nobles. Jiang Ziya’s relatives and subordinates all asked him to rebel against the Shang Dynasty. What could he do?

First it was the master’s order, then the relatives, and then the subordinates. How could he erase the feelings of so many people?

Therefore, he had to rebel against the Shang Dynasty even if he didn’t want to. Even if he didn’t, his relatives and subordinates would force him to rebel and rebel under his banner.

Considering Jiang Ziya’s current status, he could be regarded as the pillar of support for the Shang Dynasty. His departure for Xiqi was undoubtedly a huge blow to the Shang Dynasty, directly plunging it into a precarious situation.

In addition, a certain prince who had been hesitant to make up his mind whether to rebel finally made up his mind to rebel after seeing Jiang Ziya leave.

This person is Dong Bohou, the former father-in-law of Emperor Xin. Why is he called the former father-in-law? Because Emperor Xin’s original wife, Queen Jiang, and her two sons were deposed by Emperor Xin because they opposed Emperor Xin’s centralization of power.

(End of this chapter)