Ding Wu famine
According to official data, the famine in Ding Wu began in 1877. But in fact, as early as 1875, there were signs of drought in North China.
The spring of 1875 should have been a good day for everything to recover and start farming, but the people of Hebei couldn't laugh. Because the long-awaited spring rain did not come. Not only the spring rain, but also the precipitation in the whole 1875 Hebei Province is extremely rare. This autumn, the drought spread to Shandong, Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces, and the whole land of North China was shrouded in the haze of drought.
The next year, things got worse. Not only did the situation in the disaster area deteriorate, but the disaster also spread to northern Jiangsu, northern Anhui and northern Sichuan. The grain planted in all parts of the disaster area eventually failed to harvest.
1877, mass famine broke out. In the first two years, it was all over the country? Famine warm-up period? Grain reserves have been exhausted and there is a shortage of food. At the beginning of the year, people began to eat grass roots and bark to fill their stomachs. Later, things that filled their stomachs gradually disappeared, and the phenomenon of cannibalism appeared.
People begin to eat people who have just died, or kill old people and children to satisfy their hunger and fill their stomachs with human flesh. In addition, people in some areas ganged up to rob the Qing government of food relief, which was established? Machete meeting? And other non-governmental organizations, armed to wage a struggle.
Yan Jingming, the disaster relief minister sent by the Qing government to Shanxi, recalled after visiting Shanxi, the hardest hit area. What I see is the shape of Yuanyang's face, and what I hear is nothing more than men crying and women crying. Dead bones blocked the road, walked around the car, gasped for help, looked at the ground and froze. ? The whole of Shanxi has become a hell on earth.
1878 drought persisted in the first half of the year. After the short rainy season in June, there is another dry period. It was not until July of the following year that the rainy season really came and it began to rain.
After the famine in Dingwu, the population of the whole disaster area plummeted. During the period of 1875- 1879, according to official statistics, 20 million people were displaced and left their homes. 100000 people died, of which the death toll in Shanxi was as high as 5 million. This is a terrible story. In these areas, young and middle-aged laborers are particularly in short supply, villages are barren, farmland is barren and devastated.
It can be said that this disaster has dealt a heavy blow to the densely populated middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, and it was not fully recovered until the Republic of China decades later.
Did Ding Wuqi really starve 10 million people?
The famine in Dingwu really killed 10 million people. However,10 million people did not really starve to death. This figure is added to the number of people who died of plague and earthquake at that time.
The reason why the famine was called a catastrophe in the history of China lies in famine, plague and earthquake? Triple blow? .
According to legend, the ghost Hiderigami not only brought drought, but also brought plague. This is not an absurd statement that is groundless. Although Hiderigami does not exist, it does. Since ancient times, plagues like to break out after droughts, especially in spring and summer.
Because people don't have enough to eat, their resistance drops sharply. At the same time, the bodies of people who starve to death pile up like mountains, which can not be solved in time and are easy to breed bacteria. Coupled with the plague of locusts and climate warming, the plague is naturally prone to break out. At the same time, a large number of people fleeing for begging will spread the plague and make it ravage the world.
Such was the plague during Ding Wuqi's famine.
1878 At the turn of spring and summer, a plague broke out. The rapid plague swept through most towns in the disaster area, taking away many hungry people. Nine out of ten people in Henan Province are sick, and the number of people who died of plague in Shanxi Province is as high as 20% to 30% of the total population. There are corpses everywhere in Shaanxi Province, like no one's land.
One year later, in July, 1879, the drought had come to an end and the epidemic gradually subsided. Just as people's lives in the disaster area are about to return to the right track, an earthquake of magnitude 8 occurred in Wudu, which borders Gansu and Sichuan. The disaster areas that have begun to resume agricultural production have been hit hard again.
Under the attack of plague and earthquake, plus the famine that lasted for many years before, about100000 people died in the disaster area. This is a reliable figure recognized by academic circles, and it may be the closest to the truth.