Was there really a Little Ice Age in Ming Dynasty?

Yes, you should have learned the classical Chinese "Looking at the Lake and Pavilion Snow" in the middle school textbook. It is said that it snowed heavily in the West Lake for three days, and all the birds in the lake died. Think about it, when is it so cold in Hangzhou now? Last year, there was a rare snowflake in Guangzhou for a hundred years, but in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, it was "snow falling and thick feet."

The Little Ice Age was characterized by global cooling. It is generally believed that the Little Ice Age began in the13rd century and ended in the19th century, and then a relatively warm climate and environmental period appeared, reaching the coldest peak from the middle of16th century to the middle of19th century. The climate characteristics of low temperature in the Little Ice Age are quite obvious, especially in high latitude and high altitude areas, the environmental effects of climate-sensitive ecological fragile zones are very prominent, which affect plant growth and agricultural production and bring serious consequences to social and economic development.

Look at Europe.

Since16th century, the expansion of glaciers and the advancement of glacier tongue have generally appeared in the high mountains, Scandinavia and northern regions of Europe, destroying farmland and mountain villages. Rivers replenished by glaciers often have catastrophic floods, accompanied by landslides and collapses. 1500- 1650 years, the winter temperature in central England was about 1.5℃ lower than today, and it was especially cold in the last 10 year of the 7th century. In May, the mountains in central Switzerland (900 meters above sea level) were still covered with snow. Glaciers in Alps expand, and glacier tongue extends to 2000m grassland. The unusually cold climate, war, famine and epidemic reduced the German population from160,000 to 9 million.

Look at China.

From 1550 to 185 1, there was a large-scale extremely cold weather in China during Jiajing in Ming Dynasty and Daoguang in Qing Dynasty. At that time, the lack of experience and untimely defensive measures led to a large-scale crop reduction, followed by a series of chain social effects such as famine and peasant uprising, which had a great impact. This event is also recorded in Historical Records, which is called "Little Ice Age of Ming and Qing Dynasties" in China.