Chapter 78 Little Glacier in the Late Ming Dynasty

The Little Ice Age refers to a relatively cold period in the earth's climate, but it was much warmer than the Ice Age that destroyed a large number of animal and plant life. Its notable features are a substantial drop in temperature and extreme climate anomalies.

The Little Ice Ages that occurred in human history all caused a significant reduction in global food production, and triggered violent social unrest and a sharp decline in population.

China has experienced a total of four Little Ice Ages in history, from the first at the end of the Yin and Shang Dynasties to the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the second at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Three Kingdoms to the Western Jin Dynasty, and until the third at the end of the Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties period. These were precisely the periods in Chinese history when wars were most frequent and society was at its darkest.

The Fourth Little Ice Age appeared in the late Ming Dynasty and reached the peak of catastrophe during the Chongzhen period.

During this period, severe droughts and floods occurred one after another in the summer, and the winter was extremely cold. Blizzards even hit Guangdong, and geological disasters also joined in the fun.

The result was that the whole of China was hit by major disasters every year and everywhere, and the feudal dynasty based on agriculture was simply unable to cope with it.

There was even a rare locust plague caused by drought in the ninth year of Chongzhen (1636), which lasted until the eleventh year of Chongzhen, and finally evolved into an area stretching from Shaanxi in the west, to the Huaihe River in the south, and to Hebei in the north for thousands of kilometers from east to west, and 400 kilometers from north to south - The disaster area is 500 kilometers away and continues to spread to the Yangtze River Basin.

The result of long-term severe food shortages is that social conflicts have sharply deepened, the original social distribution system cannot be maintained at all, and social order has completely collapsed.

Then there were gangs of bandits, and uprisings and riots continued one after another and became more and more intense, and could not be suppressed at all. In addition, the northern barbarians also desperately went south to plunder in order to survive, further squeezing the already extremely scarce social resources, and the small peasant economy and feudal system of the Ming Dynasty simply could not Withstanding such great changes and challenges, the entire dynasty was finally on its last legs.

Regarding the Little Ice Age, Li Ping, who is not proficient but very interested in history, obviously knows it and understands it to a certain extent, because history has too many regrets because of it.

Whether it is the Yin Shang Dynasty who created the splendid bronze culture, the Eastern Han Dynasty which kept pace with Rome, the Tang Dynasty when all nations came to dynasty, or the Ming Dynasty which created the most complete and mature cabinet system in China, their fall cannot be simply explained. Judging from man-made disasters, it doesn’t make sense.

Especially in the Ming Dynasty, its mature and perfect cabinet system made it impossible for continuous major decision-making mistakes to occur without particularly major changes, which means that it was impossible to make decision-making mistakes that would lead to the collapse of the country.

Why do you say that?

Many people say that most of the emperors of the Ming Dynasty were unreliable.

Maybe right, maybe not.

Let’s not argue about right and wrong. Anyway, during the reign of the most unreliable Emperor Wanli, who did not come to court for 28 years, the living standards of the people of the Ming Dynasty still maintained a very high level.

Chen Shun's "Luan Li Seeing and Hearings" recalls the scene in the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty: I was born on August 26th, the 46th year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty, at Mao hour, and my parents were both 23 years old. There was a lot of money in the world, and the Cape was home, a land of plenty. I fought for money for rice. Before twenty, one or two cents for a catty of fish, two cents for ten betel nuts, one cent for ten bundles, six or seven cents for a duck within a catty, ten cents for a bucket of salt, everything is easy.

What does it mean that prices are so cheap? It shows the great abundance of materials and the prosperity of people's lives. At the same time, a large number of foreigners living in China also proved this in their writings. Almost without exception, they were full of admiration and envy for the Ming Dynasty.

This shows that the governance of the Ming Dynasty was very good, and its governing body, the cabinet, ran very well. It didn't matter whether there was an emperor or not.

This kind of living standard was completely beyond the reach of the Qing Dynasty, which was touted by some as a saintly king and had no domestic wars and chaos for a long time. The fact that all foreigners who arrived in China during the Qing Dynasty were full of contempt for the Qing Dynasty's backwardness and ignorance speaks volumes.

Back to business.

Several such regrettable great empires happened to be in the Little Ice Age when they fell, which definitely explains a lot of problems and makes everything no longer just a coincidence, just like the current predicament of the Ming Dynasty.

You must know that Ming Dynasty actually did not make any particularly unreasonable mistakes in quelling civil unrest.

The main reason why the recruited peasant armies kept surrendering and revolting was that they could not get enough food, and the problem of lack of food could not be solved at all.

Without food, it’s self-evident what the consequences will be.

Of course, this does not mean that the final demise of the Ming Dynasty had nothing to do with man-made disasters. After all, the Ming Dynasty was not the only country in the world. At least many royal families in Europe still survived tenaciously.

The main problem of the Ming Dynasty was that it was too big, much bigger than any other country in the world at that time. As a result, the reaction arc of the decree was too long, the cumulative influence of the policy was too strong, and the backlog of problems and contradictions could easily become too large.

huge.

Excessive territory is undoubtedly a bad thing at this time.

In a normal year, no matter how blindly Chongzhen gave orders, he would not have caused the life and death of the dynasty. But unfortunately, his entire reign was the peak of Xiaoglaihe's disaster.

A period where the fault tolerance rate is very, very low.

The Little Ice Age undoubtedly exponentially amplified the consequences of the ruling class's erroneous policies. Man-made disasters were more destructive and destructive than any period in history and dynasty history. Those in the Ming Dynasty did not seem to be particularly unreasonable or far from adequate.

Fatal policy mistakes started to look fatal, and very fatal.

Therefore, the Ming Dynasty can be said to have died due to man-made disasters, but its roots were still in the Little Ice Age.

Li Ping has never been able to determine whether this time and space is completely consistent with the history of his original time and space, or the direction of the universe.

And when he first came to this time and space, he didn't think of this at all, but the rapidly and abnormally cold weather quickly brought back his memory, but he still had to collect some disaster data to support all of this.

By simply collecting official records from the government and verifying the memories of some merchants, Li Ping quickly compiled the data on major disasters in the Ming Dynasty from the first year of Chongzhen to the fourteenth year of Chongzhen.

When he was really in this time and space and looked at the shocking data every time he read it, in addition to knowing that the direction of time and space has probably not changed, Li Ping sighed from the bottom of his heart: "It's really good for Ming Dynasty to persist until now."

In the first year of Chongzhen, there was a drought in Jifu, and the red land was thousands of miles away. There was a famine in Shaanxi. On Ding Mao in the ninth month, there was an earthquake in the capital.

In the second year of Chongzhen, there was a famine in Shanxi and Shaanxi.

In the third year of Chongzhen, there was a flood in Shandong. In September of 1898, there was an earthquake in Nanjing.

In the fourth year of Chongzhen, there was a flood in Shandong. In June, there was an earthquake in Lintao and Gongchang in Yichou.

In the fifth year of Chongzhen, there was heavy rain in June. In August, it rained again, which damaged Qingling. There was hunger in Huai and Yang prefectures, and people carried their corpses. There was no rain in Hang, Jia, and Hu prefectures from August to October 70.

In April, there was an earthquake in Nanjing and Sichuan. In October, there was an earthquake in Shanxi. In November, there was an earthquake in Yunnan.

In the sixth year of Chongzhen, there was a drought in the capital and Jiangxi, and there was a severe famine in Shaanxi and Shanxi. There was a famine in Huai and Yangming, and there were couples who pheasants clung to trees and people threw themselves into rivers. In July, there was an earthquake in Shaanxi.

In the seventh year of Chongzhen, there was a famine in the capital, so Gong Ting, the imperial censor, painted "Picture of the Hungry People" for publication. There was a great famine in Taiyuan, and people ate each other. In the fourth month, Renxu, Changzhou, and Zhenjiang rained and hailed. In the fifth month, there were floods in Qiong and Meizhou counties.

In the eighth year of Chongzhen, there were locusts in Henan in July. In winter, there was an earthquake in Shanxi.

In the ninth year of Chongzhen, there was an earthquake in Fujian. There was a great famine in Nanyang, and a mother cooked her daughter. There was also a famine in Jiangxi.

In the tenth year of Chongzhen, there were locusts in Shandong and Henan. In the summer, there was no rain in the capital and Hedong, and there was a severe drought in Jiangxi. There was a great famine in Zhejiang, and fathers, sons, brothers, and husbands and wives ate each other. On Bingwu of the first month, there was an earthquake in Nanjing. On Renwu in the seventh month, there was an earthquake in Yunnan. On October 2

Mao, earthquake in Sichuan. In December, earthquakes occurred in Xi'an and Haila, Shaanxi at the same time, which continued for several months.

In the eleventh year of Chongzhen, there was a severe drought in two capitals, Shandong, and Henan. There was a drought in two capitals, Shandong, Shanxi, and Shaanxi. In September of Renxu, there was an earthquake in Liaodong.

In the twelfth year of Chongzhen, it rained heavily in Zhejiang, and the streets became flooded. Jinan, Shandong, Henan, Shanxi, and Zhejiang were drought. Liangji, Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Jiangxi were famine, and Henan was famined, and people were eating each other. In the second month of Guisi,

The earthquake in Beijing.

In the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, there was a severe drought in two capitals, Shandong, Henan, Shanxi, and Shaanxi. There was a drought in two capitals and three prefectures of Deng, Qing, and Lai. Beiqi, Shandong, Henan, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Zhejiang, and Wu all suffered from famine.

From the Huaihe River to the north to the south of Jinan, the bark of the trees is eaten up, and the gizzards are grown for food.

November Wuzi, Nanjing earthquake.

In the 14th year of Chongzhen, in June, there was a severe drought in two capitals, Shandong, Henan, and Zhejiang. There was a drought in two capitals, Shandong, Henan, Huguang, and Xuan, and in Dabian. In March, Wuyin, there was an earthquake in Fujian. In April, Bingyin, there was an earthquake in Huguang.

Earthquakes. In May, there was an earthquake in Gansu. In June, there was an earthquake in Fujian. In September, there was an earthquake in Sichuan.

Such terror and such intensive disasters, which continue year after year, cannot be described as shocking, but are completely unheard of.

Not to mention that the feudal Ming Dynasty could not withstand it, it would probably be difficult even in modern times!

Regarding this kind of information, Li Ping had to inform the fellow travelers out of emotion and reason, as this was related to everyone's future decision-making and survival preparations.

The most urgent thing is that everyone must prepare for winter! Otherwise, everyone will freeze like a fool if they prepare winter clothes based on the approximate temperature of Xiangyang in the original time and space.

Therefore, Li Ping quickly rushed to Zhao Jin's station in Xiangyang City to inform everyone about the matter. The reason why they did not use letters was because they could not yet guarantee the absolute safety of letter communications.

Song Baolai and Zhao Lanyue also came together, but Gao Lei did not come with them. Originally, Li Ping didn't want Zhao Lanyue to bother him, but Zhao Lanyue insisted on going out for a walk. She had an active temper and couldn't stay any longer.

After Li Ping introduced the situation of the Little Ice Age and the disaster data of the Ming Dynasty fourteen years before Chongzhen, everyone except Song Baolai and Zhao Lanyue had good expressions (the two of them had learned about it from Li Ping before), everyone became

Very solemn, this kind of information is obviously beyond their knowledge, and it also makes everyone's future life full of more uncertainties and challenges.

The first person to recover was Li Shengcai. This guy was sitting on a chair and suddenly asked, "Hey, Li Ping, you said Xiao Glacier, it's cold when it's cold! Why are you talking about the demise of the Ming Dynasty again?"

Oh, what does this have to do with the weather? The Ming Dynasty was destroyed by the Qing Dynasty. It was a war. It’s possible that it wouldn’t have been destroyed even if it wasn’t cold.”

"The Ming Dynasty died due to the peasant uprising, not the Qing Dynasty. I have told everyone this before. Believe it or not is up to you. But it was Li Zicheng who captured Beijing, not the Qing soldiers. This is an objective fact." Li Ping is very serious.

He said that he did not show any displeasure with Li Shengcai's attitude.

"Oh! Is it Li Zicheng? Are you sure?..." Li Shengcai asked suspiciously.

"This natural disaster is too weird! I really can't even think about it. Do you know anything about the situation abroad?" Shi Ming suddenly interrupted and Li Sheng intervened.

Li Ping then ignored Li Shengcai and faced Shi Ming and said: "It's the same abroad. I remember that Europe and Japan are also in the midst of famine, especially the century-old famine in Europe, which should have started in the last century.

here we go.

I once read a study by a foreign scholar. According to his statistics, a series of events and disasters such as revolutions, droughts, famines, invasions, wars, and regicides occurred all over the world in the mid-17th century. Crisis ranged from Britain to Japan, from Russia to

Sub-Saharan Africa has spread all over the world, and even the American continent has been affected.

According to incomplete statistics made by this scholar, in the decades of the mid-17th century, a total of forty or fifty large-scale rebellions and revolutions occurred in various parts of the world, including more than twenty in Europe, several in the Americas, and a total of ten in Asia and Africa.

Several times. That is to say, there are more in Europe than in Asia.

It is estimated that in just a dozen years around 1650, one-third of the world's population died.

Many people think that there were many wars in the 20th century, but in fact there were not many wars, and there were not many in the 19th century either.

Among the six centuries from the 15th to the 20th century, the century with the most wars was the 17th century.

This cannot be a coincidence, there must be strong external factors.

What is it?

It was probably caused by the Little Ice Age.

In other words, there is no safe place in the world now."

After Li Ping finished speaking, Shi Ming sighed deeply, and then fell into deep thought. However, Wang Chengwu then asked: "But if this is the case, isn't the Manqing also short of food? How can they pay for it?"

Are you willing to invade southward?"
To be continued...