The Dingwuqi Famine refers to a severe famine that occurred in the last years of the Qing Dynasty. In Chinese history, this catastrophe has been recorded as a year of hunger and cannibalism, and has become a symbol of the earth's transformation into hell. Although there are only five words in this period, there are thousands of tragic lives hidden behind it.
In 1876, China's North China Plain experienced the most widespread drought in history, covering almost all provinces in northern China, especially Shanxi, Henan, and Shandong. There were more than 400 million people in China at the late Qing Dynasty, and 200 million of them were affected by the drought, especially in Shanxi. The drought in Shanxi province has left more than 5 million people starving to death, equivalent to a third of the province's population in just a few years. From the first year of Guangxu to the second year of Guangxu, there was almost no rainfall in the north, resulting in the inability to water crops, and even the water that people drank became a luxury. The history books record that "there is no rain all year round, the seedlings are withered, and every inch of grass is bitter".
In the belief of feudal society, people have a deep superstition about natural disasters, which are generally believed to be God's punishment. In order to redeem the wrath of the heavens, some ** even resort to drastic masochistic behavior in order to seek forgiveness from the gods. For example, a county magistrate in Shandong once used an iron chain to ** himself, let his subordinates beat him with a whip until he was covered in blood, and then knelt down step by step to the Longwang Temple, asking the heavens to rain rain, but such a prayer did not bring rain, and even the Yellow River was on the verge of drying up. Under these circumstances, people began to turn to foreign gods, such as Timothy Lee, a missionary from Shanxi, who told people to believe that God could rain. Although many people believe in the ** religion, even with daily prayers, the rain still does not come.
During the drought, food was drastic, leading to great changes in society. Valuable items such as rosewood, antiques, calligraphy and paintings were rendered worthless in the disaster. As the victims fled one after another, the houses lost their former value, and many former wealthy families became one of the victims.
In order to survive, the victims had to resort to extreme measures and began to eat everything they could eat. Tree bark, weeds, and even their own kind have become their food**. Some tragic scenes are recorded in the picture of the tears of the Jin disaster, such as someone cutting off the corpse of a loved one to eat the flesh, and even someone trying to dig out the heart of another person to eat.
In this famine, the social order collapsed, and there were robberies, ** and all kinds of chaos. Young women and children are the most vulnerable, and there is even a phenomenon of a "human market" in which people are bought and sold as commodities. The Dingwu Desert is a dark and harrowing period in Chinese history, which has left a profound lesson and made us deeply reflect on the tremendous impact of natural disasters on society.