How cold was the winter in ancient China 300 years ago? When was the Little Ice Age in Ming and Qing Dynasties?

From A.D. 1550 to A.D. 185 1 year, all kinds of ancient documents are stating the same fact: in this nearly 300 years, China has experienced a wide range of extremely cold weather, especially in winter.

So how cold is it under the cold wave? In short, not only the cold in the north has intensified, but also the snow has increased. Even the south, which has always been warm, such as Guangdong and Fujian, has experienced large-scale snowfall, and the rivers have frozen and it is impossible to sail. What's even more incredible is that it will snow in Hainan Island with pleasant climate!

According to records, in the year of Zheng Deyuan, Wanzhou (now Wanning County, Hainan Province) sprinkled salt and flew with the wind, and suddenly all over the mountains.

Because this period was from Jiajing in Ming Dynasty to Daoguang in Qing Dynasty, it was academically called "Little Ice Age in Ming and Qing Dynasties". But this is not the first time that China entered the Little Ice Age. As early as 1970s, Zhu Kezhen (1890~ 1974), a meteorologist and academician of China Academy of Sciences, had studied the climate in China's history and found that there had been four Little Ice Ages in the past 5,000 years. Every little ice age will bring social unrest and even regime change:

The first Little Ice Age occurred from the last years of Shang Dynasty to the early years of Western Zhou Dynasty (the establishment of Zhou Dynasty in BC 1046), and the annual average temperature was below 0℃. The second Little Ice Age appeared in Wei and Jin Dynasties (beginning in 220 AD), and freezing was very common in winter. The third Little Ice Age occurred in the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties (from 907 AD, five dynasties and ten countries), and the annual average temperature was about 1℃ lower than it is now. The last time was the "Little Ice Age of Ming and Qing Dynasties", and the annual average temperature was 1-2℃ lower than that of modern times.

The Little Ice Age of Ming and Qing Dynasties recorded in historical materials

Anyone who has studied geography knows that the zero-degree isotherm in China is usually bounded by Huaihe River and Qinling Mountain. Generally speaking, the river south of this line will not freeze in winter, let alone freeze very thick. However, during the Little Ice Age of Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Yangtze River was frozen for a month, and the ice thickness of Dongting Lake reached one foot.

Imagine that even the Yangtze River can freeze, and how helpless ordinary people who live in the picture of freezing weather and approaching winter should be. So let's talk about the Little Ice Age in Ming and Qing Dynasties recorded in historical materials:

1. According to Jiangnan Tongzhi, there were two winter cold waves (1499, 1502) during the reign of Emperor Xiaozong of Ming Dynasty, and the Qiyang River in Hunan Province was frozen, and the Yuyao River in eastern Zhejiang Province was frozen. The river can freeze, which shows how cold it was at that time.

2. According to Guangdong Tongzhi, in the fourth year of Zheng De in Ming Dynasty (1506), there was a heavy snow in Guangzhou. The snow may be a foot thick, and a foot is about 32 centimeters. You know, at most, you can see rare snowflakes in Guangzhou now, but by the Ming Dynasty, you can get knee-deep snow. It can be seen that Guangzhou is dwarfed by the Ming Dynasty.

3. According to Tan Qian's Travel Notes to the North in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, the Wujiang section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal was frozen for more than three feet in November of the lunar calendar 1654, and the area from Wujiang to Jiaxing was frozen. At that time, ships could only walk by cutting ice with strong men, but they could only travel 3~4 kilometers every day. You should know that the canal was frozen in November in the solar calendar, which is rare in history, so you can also see the cold weather in the south of the Yangtze River during the Shunzhi period. It seems that we should add "Rome was not built in a day", unless it is extremely cold.

4. According to Ye's Reading the World in Qing Dynasty, Jiangxi citrus has always been presented to the imperial court, and basically every household in the local area has planted it and made a living from it. However, during the Little Ice Age in Ming and Qing Dynasties, citrus often froze to death, not to mention expecting harvest. Some fruit farmers don't even dare to plant citrus anymore. After all, it's not stupid to know that business will definitely lose money.

In fact, the Ming and Qing dynasties were not the coldest time. When the timeline came to the 6th year of Guangxu (A.D. 1880), the south of China gradually warmed up. However, during this process, in the winter of 1892~ 1893, China once again experienced the rebound of extremely cold weather. After analyzing the previous extreme cold data, experts conservatively estimate that this winter may be the coldest winter experienced in southern China.

The weather in the north is cold, and it is not surprising that the vegetation was frozen to death at 1892. But the Huangpu River and Wusong River in Shanghai are also frozen in winter. Suzhou Taihu Lake is also about a foot thick; After it snowed in Jiashan, Zhejiang, it rained for two days and nights, and three feet of snow accumulated on the flat land, equivalent to 1 meter.

This is not the most exaggerated. If it rains, snows and freezes in Deqing, Zhejiang, it can be four or five feet thick. Imagine, if someone was going on a business trip at that time, it is estimated that it would be easy to get lost in Xue Hai. The whole earth is like a maze, full of heavy snow. In addition, it rained heavily in Nanchang1February, and the eggs became ice. In Yongning, Hunan, sparrows were frozen to death, countless;

According to the "Continued Records of Taiping County in Guangxu", rivers are frozen, ships can't sail, flowers and trees are withered, and centenarians have never seen them.

From this, it can be seen that the Little Ice Age in Ming and Qing Dynasties was really cold and desperate, with a wide influence, which was really rare. With the low temperature, people's life and social stability are adversely affected. The reason why the Little Ice Age can be remembered by future generations is actually the social unrest caused by such harsh natural conditions, which we have to remember. We should know that under the influence of the Little Ice Age in Ming and Qing Dynasties, disasters occurred frequently, the population dropped sharply, and the people were miserable. Some scholars even say that it accelerated the demise of the Ming Dynasty.

Actually, this is easy to understand. Imagine that although the natural conditions are very bad, people's daily life has not been affected, and ordinary people can eat and wear warm clothes. This ice age is uncomfortable at best, and of course this unusual weather will not be recorded everywhere. On the other hand, what disasters were there during the Little Ice Age in Ming and Qing Dynasties?

1. Frequent droughts and floods lead to food shortage.

It is now recognized that the Little Ice Age was characterized by dry Leng Xia in winter. Such weather is extremely unfavorable to the cultivation of crops, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is a disaster. According to records, in the late Ming Dynasty, due to the summer drought, plants died in a large area, resulting in insufficient food supply. The drought was followed by a plague of locusts, which made the output of food crops worse at that time.

In addition, during the Chongzhen period of the Ming Dynasty, the Yellow River Basin was drought year after year, and Hebei basically could not see the river, leaving only the river. Before the demise of the Ming Dynasty, there was also a drought in Zhejiang.

Under the severe drought, crops are bound to fail, and another cruel and helpless thing is that people eat people from time to time.

"Deping County Records" records: "During the drought, people eat vegetation and there are people who eat each other.

As the saying goes, there must be a great plague after a great disaster, and the plague began to break out, especially in the late Ming Dynasty, from Shanxi to Beijing. The plague caused a large number of deaths in Beijing, conservatively estimated at more than one fifth, and there were no children in the streets. The originally prosperous capital is in danger for everyone, and the epidemic situation has faded.

"A Brief Introduction to the North of Ming Dynasty": At the end of Chongzhen, a small house facing the street closed its door and the children in the neighborhood disappeared. There are coffins without coffins, nine doors count, more than 200 thousand.

Second, after natural disasters, there must be man-made disasters.

After natural disasters such as food shortage caused by the Little Ice Age, the population dropped sharply in the late Ming Dynasty, and refugees fled everywhere. In addition, corrupt officials were rampant in the late Ming Dynasty, and Lin Dong party member and eunuchs fought for power and profit, which made the people miserable. In order to fill their stomachs, ordinary people had to rise up to revolt, and man-made disasters began to appear. The peasant uprisings led by Li Zicheng and Zhang all started because of natural disasters.

In addition, for the northern nomadic Jurchen tribe, the cold climate caused the pasture eaten by horses, cattle and sheep to dry up and the drinking water source to dry up. The animal husbandry lifestyle that has been practiced for many years has been greatly challenged. In order to survive, it is inevitable to swing a knife south. Just at this time, the Ming Dynasty shook the internal ruling foundation because of the Little Ice Age, which led to the continuous peasant uprising. The imperial court needs to spend energy to suppress internal uprisings and alleviate social unrest caused by natural disasters.

Therefore, the entry of the Qing dynasty into the south is also a loophole in the collapse of Ming buildings. After all, in addition to counterinsurgency, the Ming Dynasty also squeezed resources to resist external pressure. Under the attack of internal and external forces, the already devastated Ming Dynasty was overwhelmed, leading to its death.

So what caused the Little Ice Age in Ming and Qing Dynasties? Some people think that after the discovery of the New World, the number of Indians decreased greatly, which led to a sharp decrease in activities such as burning straw, which led to the disappearance of the greenhouse effect and led to the Ice Age. This is a little bullshit. Does it mean that if we burn more straw now, there will be no more Little Ice Age on earth? So this view does not hold water.

On the contrary, I think the motion of celestial bodies makes it more convincing. Why do you say that? Because this little ice age is more or less periodic in time: according to Academician Zhu Kezhen, the interval between the first and second little ice ages is 1200 years; The interval from the second time to the third time is about 700 years; The interval between the third and fourth times is 700 years. Will there be a fifth time? This is not easy to draw a conclusion, so we have to take it one step at a time.

But in any case, the Little Ice Age of Ming and Qing Dynasties lasted nearly 300 years, which accelerated the demise of the Ming Dynasty, led to a sharp decline in population and miserable life for ordinary people. It is worth our vigilance to think about the emergency plan as soon as possible to avoid the recurrence of the tragedy.