Our common home, the earth, is a super-large ecosystem. In the geological history of billions of years, the earth has experienced four periods of continuous temperature decline, which geographers call "ice age".
During the "Ice Age", the global temperature became cold, water vapor moved from the ocean to the ice area, the ice layer on the land continued to expand and thicken, and the sea level dropped sharply, which directly changed the entire earth's ecosystem. The film Ice Age is the scene depicted. Animals and plants that can't adapt to this climate change are extinct in large numbers. Fortunately, this level of change lasted for hundreds of millions of years, and the last time happened around 2 million years, so we humans, as the largest population on the planet at present, don't have to worry about the end of the world for the time being.
However, there is still a theory that apart from the "ice age", there is also a little ice age that occurs every few hundred years. Every time the Little Ice Age appeared, the earth's temperature dropped sharply, the weather changed greatly, and extreme weather appeared frequently. This drastic climate change will greatly reduce global food production, which will lead to severe social unrest and a sharp decline in population.
According to the available data, China experienced four Little Ice Ages in history, from the late Yin and Shang Dynasties to the early Western Zhou Dynasty. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Three Kingdoms; Late Tang and Five Dynasties; Late Ming and early Qing dynasty. . . According to these data, the "Little Ice Age" had a direct impact on the historical process of China.
Moreover, there is an amazing fact. Every time the Little Ice Age appeared, there was a plague in China, which was very large in scale and spread widely.
Due to the lack of historical records of the pre-Qin period, we only look at the plague records of the last three "Little Ice Ages" in the history books:
1, during the Three Kingdoms period in the late Eastern Han Dynasty:
From A.D. 16 1 year to A.D. 186, during the reign of Emperor Huan and Emperor Ling in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the epidemic situation continued, and the yellow turban insurrectionary disorder made the world empty. Even the relatives of Dr. Amin Zhang Zhongjing were killed or injured by two-thirds.
Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties (220 to 58 1):
From 234 to 235 AD, during the reign of Wei Mingdi, a great plague occurred in Wei.
In 246 AD, when Sun Quan was in power, Wu was very popular, and nine times out of ten the army was killed or injured.
2. Late Tang and Five Dynasties:
In 755-763 AD, An Shi Rebellion occurred and there was a great epidemic in the world. More than half of the people died. Between Kaiyuan and Tianbao, there were tens of millions of households in the world. After the plague, the registered permanent residence was less than 2 million.
In 790 AD, during the Zhenyuan period in Tang Dezong, there was a drought in the south of the Yangtze River, and Jing Quan dried up. Many people died of thirst, and a plague broke out, which tortured the dead.
In 832 AD, there was a great epidemic in western Zhejiang, and the court sent coffins to the people who died of the epidemic. /kloc-people under the age of 0/0 cannot keep February food.
In 880 AD, a great epidemic broke out in Huang Chao's army, killing more than half of the people.
3. Late Ming and Early Qing Dynasty
1939- 1644 During the Chongzhen period of the Ming Dynasty, the plague was prevalent at the end of the Ming Dynasty. According to Wu Youke's "On Plague", it often spread to the whole family, and millions of people died.
Among them, the most exaggerated is the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. After the middle of Ming Dynasty, China's agricultural civilization developed into a quite prosperous period. One of the signs is that the population of the Ming Dynasty reached 200 million in Wanli (the father of Chongzhen), but after Wanli, the population showed a downward trend. By the time of Shunzhi (the father of Kangxi) in Qing Dynasty, the population of China might be less than 654.38 billion, with a loss of at least 400 million. Some scholars even believe that China lost about 40% of its population in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. It was not until the reign of Kangxi that the population exceeded 65.438+0 billion, and it was not until the reign of Qianlong (the grandson of Kangxi) that the population increased to 200 million.
Of course, this was accompanied by the Ming and Qing wars, including the peasant uprising in the late Ming Dynasty. However, the impact of natural disasters caused by the Little Ice Age on the whole social structure is undoubtedly fatal.
Qinling-Huaihe line is the dividing line between the north and south of China, and it is the southernmost dividing line of the isotherm of 65438+ 10, so the rivers south of Qinling-Huaihe generally do not freeze in winter. However, during the "Little Ice Age" in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Yangtze River was frozen for a month, and the thickest part of Dongting Lake reached a foot. The rivers in Zhejiang were as thick as ice. These extreme weather events occurred between 1450 and 1750.
Can you imagine the heavy snow in Guangzhou today? In December of the forty-six years of Wanli in Ming Dynasty (A.D. 16 18), it even snowed heavily in many places in Guangzhou. In Conghua County, "in the valley, the peaks stand tall and the forests are towering" is definitely a once-in-a-century event.
What is even more frightening is that the temperature drop will have a chain reaction, and the water vapor will be concentrated in the south, which will inevitably lead to drought in the north. In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, there was nine droughts in Henan, and the water margin and Anshan Lake in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River actually dried up. The duration and scope of drought in Chongzhen are rare in history. Years of drought have led to poor harvests of farmers, which has led to the tragedy of cannibalism. "Deping County Records" records that "drought, people eat vegetation, flesh and blood cannibalism".
The "Great Plague in the Late Ming Dynasty" in Chongzhen period happened in this period. Why is there a plague after years of drought? Most of these plagues are actually plagues.
Whenever there is drought, the temperature in the rat hole will also increase due to the decrease of rainfall, and bacteria will easily breed on rats, and food crops will be in short supply during drought. In order to find food, mice will migrate far away. In the summer of Chongzhen 14, a large group of rats even bit each other's tails and crossed the river in droves in China. After the mouse's range of activities is expanded, it naturally increases the probability of plague epidemic. During the drought, people are often hungry, and their physical resistance has declined. In the absence of food, they will take the initiative to look for rat holes and take food out of them, which increases the chances of human contact with rats. In extreme cases, humans will also use mouse meat as food to satisfy their hunger, thus increasing the chance of being infected with plague.
According to historical records, "from Chongzhen 14, there was a plague in Daming House, and nine times out of ten people died. There was a great famine in Guangping Prefecture, and people ate people. Great plague in Beijing and Tianjin. There was a great epidemic in Henan Province, and Wu Yang County of Kaifeng Prefecture died 19 people, killing countless people. Yang Rong, people die together, and there is no one on the road in March. "
Even the capital has not been spared. Xia Xie's "Tong Mingjian" records: "There was a great epidemic in the capital, and the dead were not counted." Countless people died of illness. "Records of Chongzhen" also records: "There was a great epidemic in the capital, and tens of thousands of people died." Despite the lack of accurate statistics, the above official records show that "nine of the ten rooms are vacant, and even all the households have been exhausted and no one has taken them in."
According to incomplete statistics of historians, the total population of Guangzhou provinces at the end of the Ming Dynasty was about 654.38 billion. There were two plagues in Wanli and Chongzhen years, and the death toll in Shaanxi, Shanxi and Hebei provinces in North China was at least 10 million. A quarter of the capital was killed by the plague, and 200,000 people went to the grave. The TV series "Ming Dynasty 1566" and the movie "Daming Robbery" both depict the doomsday scene of the bottom society in the late Ming Dynasty.
The epidemic of plague will not only reduce the population, but also the common people will seek survival by fleeing and migrating. Where these people gather, they will take risks and lead to peasant uprisings. The peasant uprisings led by Li Zicheng and Zhang in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties were all caused by famine.
This is still the internal worry brought by the "Little Ice Age" to Daming, and of course there are also external troubles.
Since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, Daming has had the ancestral motto of "the emperor guards the country and the monarch dies". The Central Plains dynasty was an agricultural civilization, which was relatively rich in ancient times. The northern region was an animal husbandry production mode, which led to conflicts under climate change due to different demands. Northeast agriculture has a high demand for heat, and the cold weather directly affects the animal husbandry in Northeast China. After entering the mid-Ming Dynasty, the cultivated land in Northeast China decreased obviously compared with that in Song and Yuan Dynasties, making it difficult to maintain animal husbandry. Naturally, we should choose to move south and establish a new regime, which will lead to conflicts. This is also the climate background of the Ming and Qing wars.
There are already many difficulties within Daming. Now, under the influence of the "Little Ice Age", we have encountered both natural and man-made disasters and foreign enemies. All kinds of contradictions broke out together, and finally they really couldn't support it. At this point, the history of China has turned a new page.
End of movement
In recent years, the expressions of "global warming" and "greenhouse effect" have flooded the news pages. "Little Ice Age" is an explanation given by academic circles that the earth's temperature has been rising, and it is believed that the change of the earth is due to its periodicity.
In fact, the "Little Ice Age" and the change of dynasties are historical processes. When history really happens, ordinary people can't be writers of history, so be witnesses and experiencers of history.
(End of the full text, thanks for watching, the picture is from the Internet)