Chapter 6 investigates the rise and expansion of the Shang state and the political circumstances under which pre-Shang social memories were transmitted through the second half of the second millennium BCE. The archaic lower Yellow River drainage system provided the armature for understanding the pattern of social interactions leading up to the rise and decline of Shang hegemony. Three legacies are particularly important for understanding the cultural assumptions in the wending narrative, namely the shifting configuration of political landscape, the ritualization of bronze ding vessels as the symbol of political authority, and the multiple sources of historical knowledge. The deliberate choice by Shang state builders to adhere to this distinctive Erlitou form and to make it as the primary symbol of Shang kingship sets the Shang apart from its peers in Bronze Age China. An archaeological investigation on the configuration of political landscape and social structure of the broadly defined Shang society provides critical insight on the sources of Zhou historical knowledge and the diverse ways that the pre-Shang legacy figured into the Zhou notion of the Sandai history.