Jie was the last monarch of the Xia Dynasty, and since he ascended the throne, he had been lightly benevolent, martial, and used violence to control the government, making the whole land of China smoke everywhere and the people not happy. Many tribes chose to compromise in order to avoid constant aggression and paid tribute to the Xia Dynasty every year. The Shi tribe in the east was weak and did not dare to make enemies of the Xia Dynasty, and also chose the path of tribute. However, shi's contribution is not a rare treasure, nor a slave fief, but the beauty of the country. Brutal and lustful, every year there are some tribes to offer beautiful women, but the beautiful women contributed by the Shi tribe are unique.
The beautiful woman given by Shi Shi is named Meixi, and there has been no conclusion about her origin and identity in history. There are historical records that she was from a lowly background and was a commoner, and there are also historical records that she was a member of the royal family of the Shi tribe.
Sister Xi looks like a new hibiscus, beautiful and natural, bright eyes and bright teeth, fairy jade appearance, as soon as she appears, she compares other concubines, and naturally gets the favor of Jie. In order to please Mei Xi, Jie did everything to the extreme, and tried his best to meet any request of her, and with such a spoiled person, it was not surprising that Mei Xi became arrogant.
With the company of his sister Xi, Jie indulged in song and dance and wine pools all day long, releasing the desire to open the floodgates in his heart, and leaving the important affairs of the government behind, and at this time, the courtiers of the Xia Dynasty either went away discouraged and disappointed, or turned against each other to prepare for the uprising, or followed Jie and Mei Xi to mix up their lives. In short, the hearts of the people in the court were scattered, and the destruction of the country was already a predestined thing.
In fact, there are few records about Meixi, and most of them are recorded in books such as "Biography of Lienu" and "Century of Emperors". Therefore, the history of Meixi that people see today may be somewhat biased and not completely objective. But for a woman who spends her days enjoying herself with the king of the fallen kingdom, history has never wanted to forgive her.
Since masashi has few records of Meixi's affairs, there are many versions of Meixi's experience that have been passed down to the present, whether it is the purpose of her coming to Jie's side or the evaluation of her. However, the most widely circulated and interesting is the story of spies. Proponents of this view believe that the emergence of Meixi itself is a political conspiracy, a key step in the plan of the foreign tribes to overthrow the tyrant, and the strongest evidence is the record in the "Chinese Jin Yu I": "Xixia had a shi, and there were people who gave people to sisters and daughters; sisters were favored, so Hu and Yi Yinbi died xia."
Yi Yin was one of the heroes who achieved the throne of the Shang Tang Emperor, and was known as the "First Xiang". At that time, Yi Yin saw that the number of Qi qi had been exhausted, so he offered a plan to Tang, pretended to be a rebel merchant and went to Xia, and quickly reached a consensus with Mei Xi to destroy Xia, so Mei Xi's task was not only to confuse Jie's public opinion, but also to identify some information that was beneficial to Tang to attack Xia. With the full cooperation of Meixi and Yi Yin, Xia Chao could not die. From this point of view, Mei Xi is a major contributor to Shang Tang's destruction of Xia. But in the end, it was difficult to escape the fate of being killed. The "History of Yin Benji" quotes the HuainanZi as saying: "Tang was defeated at Lishan, and he was in the same boat as his sister Xi on the floating river, and died on the mountain of the South Nest." Most of the later generations believe that Shang Tang gave death to Sister Xi, first, to tell the world that Xinjun would not indulge in beauty and would not repeat the mistakes of the past; second, Sister Xi knew too many secret things about soup and had to die, just in response to the sentence "Cunning rabbit dies, lackeys cook".
A beautiful woman who has ruined the country and the people always seems to have some outrageous bad habits. Legend has it that Mei Xi has several special habits: listening to the sound of silk tearing, watching people have fun in the wine pool, and wearing men's official hats.
The "Century of Kings" records: "The sister likes to laugh at the sound of cracks, and to make a crack in order to conform to her wishes." It is said that Mei Xi once heard the sound of the silk drapery tearing, and she thought it was very good, and she has been addicted to it ever since. In order to make Bomei smile, Jie took out a large amount of silk from the treasury and ordered the palace maid to tear it up for her sister. The treasury was not enough silk, so they levied tyrannical taxes and levies, and caused the people to complain.
Because Mei Xi liked to watch people crowding into the wine pool to drink, in order to make the beauty happy, she ordered a large pool to be dug up in the palace and filled the pool with fine wine, and the wine was continuous, and the pool never dried up. Usually, Ji and Meixi sat on a dragon boat and drove in the wine pool, and made the three thousand palace girls dance together, and the two of them drank while enjoying the song and dance. However, Mei Xi was not satisfied, she asked Ji to find three thousand servants, and indulged in drinking in the wine pool, the servants were drunk, ugly, and even many people died drunk at the side of the wine pool.
As for the sister xi wearing a man's official hat, I am afraid it is not as simple as a habit, and behind it is the mentality of a boy who is eager to participate in politics. This is very much in line with the statement that Meixi is a spy, she has carried a political task from the moment she appeared next to Jie, which shows that this woman has a trace of heroism in her bones. But most historians believe that this point is probably a fabrication of the Biography of the Daughters of Lie.
Whether Meixi came to Xia as a spy or as a tribute slave, she had obvious captive overtones, and in the final analysis, she was just a poor woman who could not live freely. And Jie also became the first tyrant recorded in Chinese history, absurd, and eventually lost his country and lost his life.
Meixi has always been known as "China's first water disaster", and people habitually blame Meixi for the demise of the Xia Dynasty. However, even without the appearance of Meixi, the fact of the demise of the Xia Dynasty would not change, and the root cause of a country's decay was the system, not the woman.