How were Confucian ideas merged into shinto

The Confucion ideas were merged into Shinto in the following manner: Many rituals practised in Confucianism resembled with that of Shintoism. The idea of honoring the life over everything else preached in Confucianism was conventionally incorporated in Shintoism through believing the deities to be alive and worshipping them as the supreme most. The idea of respecting the elements of nature in Confucianism and the idea of respecting multiple gods in Shintoism was deemed to be one and the same.