A global natural event, why did the Ming Dynasty perish?

In the fifth year of Chongzhen, in 1632 AD, a heavy snow fell in the Jiangnan area of the Ming Dynasty. The snow fell for three days, and Zhang Dai, a writer in the late Ming Dynasty, witnessed the heavy snowfall. When the heavy snow stopped, the West Lake outside Hangzhou was filled with the sound of people and birds, a scene that modern people had never seen hundreds of years later.

The day is more fixed, Yu took a small boat, hugged the stove fire, and went to the lake pavilion alone to see the snow. The rime is thick, the sky and the clouds and the mountains and the water, up and down are white. The shadow on the lake, only a trace of the causeway, a little pavilion in the center of the lake, and a mustard in the remaining boat, and two or three people in the boat. On the pavilion, there are two people sitting opposite each other on the carpet, and a boy shochu stove is boiling. Seeing Yu, he was overjoyed and said: "There is more such a person in the lake!" "Pull the rest to drink together. Yu Qiang drank three white and parted. Ask his surname, he is from Jinling, and he is here. and got off the boat, Zhouzi muttered: "Don't say that you are stupid, there are even more people who are stupid!" Zhang Dai's "Dream Memories of Tao'an".

What is Xiaoice?

The concept of "Xiaoice Little Ice Age" was first proposed by Matthes in 1939 and was first used to describe the period after the warmest period of the Holocene, after which glaciers experienced a period of relative warmth and reached their peak between the mid-16th and mid-19th centuries. In China, the late 15th century - the end of the 19th century is usually regarded as the cold period of the Xiaoice, because this period is the Ming and Qing dynasties, so it is also called the "Ming and Qing Xiaoice periods" in China. Mr. Zhu Kezhen is a pioneer in the use of historical documents to study ancient climate change in China, and in his article "Preliminary Research on China's Climate Change in the Past 5,000 Years", he conducted an in-depth study of China's climate change in the past 5,000 years, and established the basic structure of China's climate change in the past 5,000 years. On the basis of Zhu Lao's research, scientists have further refined the four cold periods after deeper and more detailed research, which appeared in "".Centuries around 2000 BC, 800 BC, 400 AD, and around 1600 AD”。Of the four cold periods, the cold period was particularly strong around 1600. Every climate change will have a certain impact on Chinese society, and the Xiaoice climate will lead to frequent natural disasters, reduced agricultural and animal husbandry production, population migration, and even regime change and political boundary changes.

The climate change performance of the "Xiaoice Age" in the Ming and Qing dynasties was:Anomalies in climate changes in warm and cold and wet and dry changes。During this period, China's winters were very cold, and summer droughts and floods were frequent, and among many industries, agriculture was much more sensitive to climate change than other industries, and ancient China was an agriculture-based country, "like China, a country whose economic development is based on agriculture, is particularly vulnerable to climate change." According to the research of experts in the history of the Ming Dynasty: "No matter in terms of the total number of famines, or the frequency of disasters, as well as the destructive power of famines, the famines of the Ming Dynasty are unprecedented, and only in terms of the frequency of famines, the Ming Dynasty also bore the brunt. The historical facts show that the conclusions are credible.

The frequency, scope and extent of natural disasters in the late Ming Dynasty were rare in the world. From Wanli to the fall of the Ming Dynasty, natural disasters such as floods, droughts, and locust plagues have not been interrupted, and among these natural disasters, droughts and floods have occurred most frequently and the most destructive. In the "Ming Shilu", "Ming History", "Ming Huidian" and other documents, such as "long drought", "no rain", "thousands of miles like burning", "excessive drought" and so on. In ancient China, the records of famine in the official history were mostly limited to the areas directly under the jurisdiction of the dynasty, but few were taken into account in the border ethnic minority areas. In the Ming Dynasty, especially in the late Ming Dynasty, which was at the peak of the Xiaoice Age, climate change had a strong impact on the Jurchen tribe who lived on nomadism, fishing and hunting at high latitudes. The changes in the climate of the Xiaoice Age are mainly manifested in the changes of temperature and precipitation, and the fluctuation of temperature and precipitation are undoubtedly affecting the whole body for grassland vegetation. The arrival of the Xiaoice period will lead to a sudden drop in temperature, and the winter is extremely cold, and when it reaches a certain level, it will cause a large area of pasture to die, resulting in a "white disaster", which is fatal for nomads.

The Xiaoice Period was a severe test for both the Daming Dynasty in the Central Plains and the Later Jin Jurchen in the far northeast. In particular, the decrease in temperature and the fluctuation of precipitation have made the growing conditions of crops harsh, resulting in a large-scale reduction in crop yields or even no harvest, forage death and other fatal blows. In ancient times, the level of productive forces was low, science and technology were underdeveloped, and agriculture (in a broad sense) was the basis for the survival and development of the agrarian and nomadic regimes. The "Xiaoice Age" and social unrestFor the late Ming Dynasty, which was at the peak of the "Xiaoice Age", climate change led to frequent natural disasters and deterioration of the living environment, which was undoubtedly catastrophic for the Ming Dynasty, which was founded on agriculture. In Deng Yunte's "History of China's Famine Relief", there is a discussion on the relationship between famine, social unrest, and peasant uprisings: "Once the peasants' poverty and hunger have reached the extreme, and the phenomenon of displacement and death continues to expand, general riots in the countryside and cities are inevitable. Such riots often brew gradually and become more and more dramatic. When it first appeared, its momentum was still weak, andIn the end, it is often the size of the armed forces, and the peasant revolts that have occurred repeatedly in the history of the revolution, no matter how large or small they may be, or how long they have been, have not been caused by famines, that is, they are all set against the background of famines, and this has become a historical precedent.

Several large-scale famines in the late Ming Dynasty were accompanied by serious civil uprisings.

(Wanli) In the first month of the spring of the twenty-second year, the edict was to the provinces of the disaster, Shandong, Henan, Xu, Huai are especially bad, thieves are everywhere, there is a division to play with the edict, the imperial court edict is not good. ""In July of the 44th year of Wanli) is the month, Shaanxi is dry, Jiangxi, Guangdong water, Henan, Huai, Yang, Chang, Zhen locusts, Shandong thieves rise. ”

Although the main reasons may not be climate and famine, these two were undoubtedly important factors in the management of avalanches in the late Ming Dynasty.

The pot of the defeat in the war in Liaodong, can you bear it due to the climate?

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the war against the Houjin was mostly in a losing position. The victory of a battle requires "the right time", "the right place" and "the right people", and by giving full play to the subjective initiative of people, the situation of the latter two can be changed to turn to the side that is favorable to oneself, while the "time of the day" cannot be controlled by manpower at all. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the "time of day" was the "Xiaoice period". Although the "Xiaoice Period" treated both sides equally in wartime, and there was no theory of benefits and disadvantages, it can be found that for the Ming army, its disadvantages were more obvious than those of Later Jin. The Jurchen people of the Later Jin Dynasty are also far better than the agrarian people in terms of their adaptability to climate change. Most of the wars between the Ming and the Later Jin took place in Liaodong and other places, which were in the northeast region, and for the Ming army, the climate gradually became colder from the south to the north, while for the Later Jin army, they fought in warmer places. In the "History of the Ming Dynasty", there are many records of the Ming army affecting the march because of the weather. For example, "the sky is snowing heavily, the soldiers are not advancing, and the division is leaking", "the ground is muddy, and the time is poor, the wind and snow are cracked, and the soldiers have no solid will." These historical records seem to be pushing towards a conclusion that the climate affected the Ming army's operations in Liaodong. But is that really the case? In fact, if this conclusion is studied in detail, the accuracy will be greatly reduced. Could it be that on one side, the Ming army endured the cold and marched hard, and the Jianzhou Jurchens on the other side were eating hot pot and singing songs to wait for work?

In the Battle of Sarhu, which decided the situation of the battle in Liaodong, the root cause of the Ming army's crushing defeat was not the weather, but the lack of hard power. The Ming army lost because of insufficient preparation, lost in combat strength, and lost in absolute strength. The military dispatch made by the commander of the Ming army at that time was already the best choice that could be made in that environment.

Similarly, the famine of the Mongol tribes brought about by the severe cold was not grasped by the Ming court. When the climate of Mingjin changed, and suffered from various natural disasters such as cold and drought, the Mongolian tribes in Hexi were also suffering from drought. At this time, Yuan Yingtai, the general manager of the Ming Dynasty, proposed to collect the hungry Mongolian people and save the Mongolian people from fire and water, in order to collect the hearts and minds of the people in the Ming and Jin battles, win over the Mongolian nobles, and help Mongolia, so that at least they would not hinder the Ming army's military attack on the Later Jin. However, this suggestion was firmly rejected by the representative of the civilian clique, Tobe Langchu Fukuni. In this way, the hungry Mongolian people who were about to be in a famine and in urgent need of help were ruthlessly rejected by the Ming court. Later Jin had a more far-sighted view of this issue than Fu Guo, and they coincided with Yuan Yingtai's idea to help the hungry Mongolian people suffering from drought, and never gave up helping Mongolia even when Hou Jin itself suffered from severe natural disasters. It was this act of righteousness that filled the Mongolian people with gratitude and remembered the Houjin, so that the Jin and the Zarut Mongol alliance were formed four years after the Mandate of Heaven. "During the oath period, Mongolia repeatedly went to Kaiyuan and Tieling to plunder grain because of lack of grain. or plundered the grain, or were captured, and took away their livestock, and every seven or eight times they received more than a thousand cattle. At this point, the Mongols had completely fallen to the side of the Later Jin and confronted the Ming Dynasty in the Battle of the Ming and Jin, which greatly enhanced the strength of the Later Jin, and the Ming Dynasty's war against the Later Jin became extremely difficult. It can be seen from this that although climate change will not play a decisive role in the course of war, it will inevitably affect the course of war.

A healthy regime is the only way to deal with sudden crisesIn the third year of Tang Zhenguan, Mobei suffered a huge natural disaster, and Tang Taizong immediately took the opportunity to make arrangements and destroyed the Eastern Turks in one fell swoop.

During the reign of Ming Chongzhen, Mobei also suffered a huge natural disaster, and under the dispatch of Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty, the Mongolian tribes surrendered to the newly established Later Jin regime in one fell swoop.

This is the contrast between a healthy regime and an unhealthy regime that reacts to a sudden crisis. The Xiaoice period at the end of the Ming Dynasty actually prompted a new wave of Chinese migration to Southeast Asia. In the Lingnan region, the effects of the Xiaoice period were equally severe. There is very little snow in Guangdong, but in the mid-19th century, there were many such snowfalls, and there were many consecutive snowfalls for three consecutive years. Climate change has caused a major blow to the development of agricultural society in the Pearl River Delta region, with frequent natural disasters and economic depression. In the history books of the mid-19th century, droughts and frost disasters appeared frequently, and the ensuing agricultural failures, famines, and even armed fights and peasant uprisings were not uncommon. All these factors combined to cause the Great Depression of the agricultural society in the Pearl River Delta region during this period.

The land is not enough to accommodate people", "the land is narrow and densely populated, and the so-called natural products are not enough to support their wealth", and Guangdong, which is narrow and densely populated, has been hit by natural disasters, and these factors have caused the hungry people who cannot survive in their hometowns to turn their attention overseas. This is also the wave of immigration along the coast of Guangdong that occurred during the Ming and Qing dynasties. They chose the United States, Nanyang and other places, and the record of Taishan County said: "There are many mountains and few lands, and the people's lives are difficult. It was the Ming and Qing Xiaoice periods that made the Chinese really take root overseas for the first time. This may be a new window of opportunity for the Ming Empire, but due to decay, turmoil, and other reasons, this window was missed.

In the 50s of the 20th century, the famous British historian Hobsbawm put forward the concept of "general crisis in the 17th century", believing that Europe in the 17th century experienced a transition from the Middle Ages to modern times, and crises such as declining agricultural production, economic recession, frequent famines, plague outbreaks, and social unrest were generally seen in various countries. Since then, scholars have analyzed the causes and nature of the general crisis of the 17th century from the perspectives of politics, economy, society, culture, and war, and some scholars have explained the occurrence of the crisis in the 17th century from the climate change of the "Xiaoice Age". In the early modern period, climate changes affected crop growth, reduced food production led to famine, affected human health, and may lead to the rampant spread of infectious diseases. In order to cope with the challenges posed by climate change, it is necessary to reform agricultural production, enact relevant laws, strengthen administrative functions, and formulate effective measures.

Europe at the same time was also plagued by the Xiaoice period. Extreme weather events were frequent in France during this period. In January 1651, due to a cyclone and a depression, the weather was very humid, and the rivers of Normandy and Brittany**; In the 60s of the 17th century, there were several years of dry spring and summer, and the rain did not stop in autumn and winter, and the Garonne River was flooded; In 1675, affected by two volcanic eruptions in Southeast Asia, it became a summerless year; The period from 1687 to 1700 was the coldest decade of the Mondstadt minimum, with an average temperature of 10 in Paris15 degrees Celsius; There were 152 days of rain in 1692 and 163 days in 1693; In the winter of 1708-1709, there were a total of seven cold spells, the fourth of which swept across the north and south of France, and from the night of January 5 to 25, 1709, almost the whole of France was covered with snow and ice, the temperature in Paris and Versailles dropped to minus 20 degrees Celsius, and the wine in the king's glass bottle froze. However, the fact that is in front of posterity is thisThe troubled seventeenth century eventually became the leading era of French development。The Enlightenment was also in full swing in France during this period, lighting up the entire Western civilization. The so-called Xiaoice Age did not destroy France, Britain, ** at the same time, on the contrary, climate, famine and other problems, but forced society to implement changes to solve the problems of that era. So, do we need to reflect on why the same unpredictable natural event finally promoted the development of other countries, but became the cause of China's decline from prosperity?