1816 is known as the year without summer, the river froze, and frost and snow fell in many places
Is summer inevitable? Sunlight, green leaves, flowers, everything we take for granted can disappear one day. Where will we go when the warmth of the past is replaced by the cold, and the calm is dispelled by the chaos?
More than 200 years ago, in 1816, a seemingly distant catastrophe changed the face of the world. How did we deal with the sudden snow and ice covering the land and the famine ravaging the city? What is the hidden root of all this? Perhaps, from this tragic history, we can also find wisdom in the face of disasters.
i.The cold wind was bitter, and the Jiaqing court could not hide its fear.
1816 was the twenty-first year of the Jiaqing Emperor of China.
At the beginning of Emperor Jiaqing's accession to the throne, he made great efforts, but the good times did not last long, and internal and external troubles followed. Under the surveillance of the Western powers, the White Lotus uprisings continued, and there were many factions within the Jiaqing Dynasty, and corruption in the officialdom was rife. Just when Emperor Jiaqing was beginning to lose his mind, in the summer of 1816, he was again exhausted by fever.
At the end of August, a cold wind suddenly rose and snow fell. In the Heilongjiang region, the earth is covered in silver, and the rice fields and crops are frozen like ice. In Jiangxi, Anhui and other places in the south, the Xia River also froze, and people refused to live. Many people can't believe their eyes. How could there be such terrible cold in the middle of summer?
Emperor Jiaqing was taken aback when he received a report in the Forbidden City. He has been to Guidi many times in person, and when he saw the scene of the river freezing and the sycamore cracking, he couldn't help but sigh secretly"I have been in power for many years, and I have never encountered such a strange thing, is this the punishment of heaven? Providence demands helplessness. "
The ministers looked at each other in astonishment, and no one could explain the sudden pain. Some people say that it is the yin qi that hurts the yang qi, and some people think that the heavens are warning Jiaqing that opening up to the outside world should be carefully considered. Jiaqing thought so, and he suspected that this cold magic would bring endless suffering and suffering to people.
In these sudden cold snaps, the people of the north suffered greatly. The cold caused the rivers to burst their banks and freeze, making them navigable and paralyzing the transport of goods. Food transportation was interrupted, the people of the north lacked supplies**, and countless people went hungry. Although it was not as cold in the south, the plummeting temperatures also damaged crops and caused poor harvests. Hungry people fled in all directions, causing social unrest.
The unprecedented suffering made the imperial court and the provinces feel powerless. Some people think that this is God's punishment for Emperor Jiaqing's stubbornness and rejection of the West, and some people think that this is God's condemnation of corruption. Emperor Jiaqing himself was also caught in self-blame and confusion. He was restless day and night, wondering if he had made any mistakes in his more than twenty years of reign that had led to such a catastrophe. He couldn't help but worry that this cold snap was the calm before the storm, and the country would fall apart because of it.
Napoleon II, who was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo, found the summer heat unbearable.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the continent, Napoleon suffered the Waterloo of his life.
In 1815, Napoleon was forced to sign an abdication after his crushing defeat at Waterloo, ending the Hundred Days. It was an unexpected event for the incomparable French emperor. He went into exile on an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, where he spent his days remembering his former glory and present destruction.
In 1816, Napoleon was still suffering defeat. He looked forward to the arrival of summer, hoping that the sun would dispel the gloom in his heart. But Napoleon did not expect that that summer, the entire European continent would be enveloped in cold.
At the beginning of July, a staggering amount of goose-feather snow fell in France. The blizzard lasted for two days, and it was wet and bitterly cold. Standing on a small island, Napoleon looked to the mainland and saw snowflakes blurring the horizon. The sight was incredible. How can it snow in the summer? Is Heaven laughing at my failures?
Not only France, but all of Europe was suffering from unprecedented cold. In Ireland and Switzerland, snow is up to several meters, rivers are overflowing, animals are freezing to death, and famine is spreading. In Germany, hailstorms also damaged many houses. Hungry people flocked to the towns, causing severe social unrest. The UK and Italy have also experienced severe flooding and crop failures. Unprecedented riots swept across Europe.
The sudden cold weather made Napoleon's mood even worse. He was stranded on a desert island all day, cut off from the outside world and unaware of what was happening on the mainland. He acted only on his instincts, believing that the heavens were laughing at him for failing because of the strange weather.
I have overcome the harsh winter of ** and the scorching heat of Egypt, and now Waterloo awaits me; Has my luck abandoned me? Napoleon looked out to sea and asked himself. He couldn't help but think of his invincible past, and why he came to this desert island that he couldn't even ask for in the heat of summer. Is this the punishment of his ambition given to him by God? Will he spend the rest of his life in this icy place?
Third, volcanic eruptions are terrifying and overwhelming humanity.
While Europe and China are cooling down, these seemingly unusual climate changes are taking place in the remote Indonesian archipelago.
In 1815, Mount Tambora erupted on the Indonesian island of Tambora. It was the most powerful volcanic eruption ever recorded; Smoke from the volcano soars into the stratosphere 44 kilometers high, echoing thousands of kilometers away. Thousands of kilometers away, Europeans saw stunning volcanic sunsets.
The large amount of ash and aerosols produced by volcanic eruptions block sunlight and lower the temperature of the earth's surface. The air flow swept across the globe, and the cold front swept across Europe and China, bringing unprecedented suffering.
Faced with such a sudden and distant disaster, people at that time could only let the cold wave intensify and pray for the return of warm weather. Today, we realize that the Earth is an interconnected whole, and that disasters anywhere have an impact on the world's climate.
People then faced the same sense of powerlessness as people now. We must learn to be humble, learn to respect the power of nature, not to get lost in the path of technological progress, not to think that we can conquer nature as we please. We will always be a part of nature, not its masters.
What is striking about this outbreak is its long-term effects. The eruption of Mount Tambora carried large amounts of sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere, where it mixed with water vapor to form extremely dangerous sulphuric acid particles. These particles can remain in the stratosphere for years, blocking sunlight for long periods of time and affecting the global climate.
At the time, people were not even aware of this phenomenon, and it was only in recent years that scientific research began to understand the profound effects of volcanic eruptions on the climate, in 1816"No summer"It's a direct proof of this. We also learned that the Earth's climate system is a dynamic whole, and changes in any one of its components can have far-reaching implications.
In this sense, 1816"No summer"The roots actually come from our common mother, the world itself. She gets angry at times, but eventually takes care of her children. We must be thankful for Her gifts, but we must also be in awe of Her discipline at times.
iv.At the end of summer, we will finally recover.
After the cold, summer has finally returned.
In the summer of 1816, the cold wave that had ravaged China and Europe for two or three months finally broke out. After mid-August, the temperature starts to rise, the snow melts, and everything recovers.
After this ordeal, the Jiaqing Emperor of China changed his positive attitude towards the West. European countries have also learned valuable lessons from the disaster, stepped up relief efforts, and reduced human losses. Humans are small, but they persevere. In the face of nature's catastrophes, we will eventually heal our wounds and regain our lives.
Summer is back, and life is slowly returning to normal. Farmers replanted their crops in anticipation of a bumper autumn; The blacksmiths rebuilt their tools, and the carriages were on the road again; The children returned to the fields and frolicked in the golden wheat waves. After the cold winter, everything comes alive, as if to celebrate and celebrate the triumph of the power of life over the invasion of death.
After the cold snap, humans began to think. In China, the Jiaqing Emperor realized that closing the country was a dead end, and that he had to open up and learn Western technology. European countries have also strengthened cross-border cooperation in disaster relief to reduce the harm caused by disasters. We grow in suffering and wisdom in calamity.
No matter what kind of wind and rain lie ahead, we must remember that the light of life will eventually dispel the darkness and the fire of hope will eventually dispel the frost. We will meet again to talk in the warm sunshine and laugh in the summer wind. The world is changing all the time, and we can only keep hope and move forward together.