Helen, the wife of Menelaus, king of the ancient Greek city of Sparta, was abducted by Paris, prince of Troy. This incident enraged all the Greeks, and the Greek army, led by Menelaus's brother, King Agamemnon, prepared to launch an expedition to Troy to reclaim the beautiful Helen. Odysseus was king of Ithaca, one of the Greek city-states. Unwilling to get involved in this war, he feigned madness. He drove pigs, horses, cattle, and sheep onto the sandy beach, yoked them to plows, and tilled the barren land, then scattered salt as seed. Needless to say, such farming would yield no results.

Yu the Great was the founding emperor of the Xia Dynasty, which lasted for over 400 years. The last emperor of the Xia Dynasty was Jie of Xia, a tyrant infamous in history.

In 91 BC, the "Wugu Affair" (a witchcraft conspiracy) plotted by the ruthless official Jiang Chong and the scheming Li family closed in on the 45-year-old Crown Prince Liu Ju. Gentle and broad-minded by nature, and unskilled in political intrigue and power struggles, Liu Ju was soon driven to a dead end and committed suicide in August of that year (This shows that honest men are unsuited for politics.) Liu Ju's two sons died alongside their father. Liu Ju's mother, Empress Wei Zifu, died even earlier than her descendants, passing away with resentment on the Gengyin day of the seventh month.

For Zhao Ji, becoming the nation's supreme leader was indeed an unexpected windfall. His father (Emperor Shenzong of Song) had passed away, and his half-brother Zhao Xu ascended the throne (Emperor Zhezong of Song). Although this imperial brother had a short life, dying at the age of 25, the imperial crown seemed to have no chance of falling upon Zhao Ji's head.