When was the Little Ice Age of Ming Dynasty?

In the seventeenth year of Chongzhen in Ming Dynasty (1644),? King? Li Zicheng led the army into the pass, and Emperor Chongzhen hanged himself in Jingshan Park in the north of the Forbidden City in despair. The Ming Dynasty ended history. There are many theories about the reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty. There is a mainstream view that the late Ming Dynasty coincided with the climate. Little Ice Age? As a result, the food supply was insufficient, and farmers could not fill their stomachs, so they were forced to rise up and eventually overthrew the Ming Dynasty. So is this really the case? What happened during the Little Ice Age? Reading history books tonight, I'll talk to you about the Little Ice Age of the Ming Dynasty.

The Little Ice Age, as its name implies, refers to a period when the temperature was colder than normal years. These causal relationships seem quite reasonable because abnormal weather has led to a sharp reduction in grain production, which in turn has led to social unrest. However, the statement of the Little Ice Age in Ming Dynasty, which is often claimed by Ming history lovers, is actually not correct, because the time span of this Little Ice Age began in the early Yuan Dynasty and ended in the Kangxi period of Qing Dynasty, which lasted for more than 400 years.

Through the carbon isotope test of glaciers on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, scientists found that glaciers began to advance from about 1270 (the Yuan Dynasty was founded in 127 1 year), which means that the Little Ice Age began at this time. The lowest point of the first cooling stage appeared around 1370 (the Ming Dynasty was founded in 1368), and the temperature rose slightly in the next century. Around 1470, the global temperature became cold again, and it began to snow in some places where it seldom snowed. The extremely cold weather lasted until 17 15 (the fifty-fourth year of Emperor Kangxi of Qing Dynasty). During this period, the coldest stage appeared between 1650 and 1700, which was half a century after the demise of the Ming Dynasty.

According to some records in the official history and local chronicles of the Ming Dynasty. In the fourth year of Jingtai (1453), it snowed heavily in winter, and in April of the following year, the Ministry reported it in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Does freezing count? Among them, Changshu County on the south bank of the Yangtze River alone froze to death 1000 people. In the winter of the 13th year of Chenghua (1477), it was freezing, and the canal was frozen, which was several feet thick, so that the traffic in the south of the Yangtze River was interrupted for several months. In the sixth year of Wanli (1578), many lakes in the Yangtze River Delta froze, and the cold wind picked up the ice chips on the lake and sent them to the top of 10 meter high.

Readers who are familiar with the history of the Ming dynasty may know that the Ming dynasty was in a stage of steady development, whether in Jingtai or Chenghua years, especially in the six years of Wanli? Wanli zhongxing? The golden age. Since the extremely cold weather did not have such a great impact on Jingtai Dynasty, Chenghua Dynasty and Wanli Dynasty, should the collapse of Chongzhen Dynasty make the Little Ice Age suffer? This obviously doesn't make sense.

Judging from the above-mentioned time nodes, the rise and fall of Yuan and Ming Dynasties and the rise and fall of Ming and Qing Dynasties are basically in the relatively cold stage of the Little Ice Age, and there seems to be a strong causal relationship between them. However, when we have a detailed understanding of the weather at this stage, the answer is different.

In fact, there were three main problems in the late Ming dynasty: first, land annexation caused a large number of farmers to lose their livelihood and had to take risks against the court; Second, fighting on two fronts exhausted the country's financial resources. The imperial court had no money to fight, so it had to levy more taxes. The increase in tax burden led to more and more peasant rebels. Third, the incompetence of the ruling class led to a complete deterioration of the situation. In the final stage, it was a miracle that such a big empire was completely out of touch and could live to 1644. Compared with these three reasons, the Little Ice Age is only a small factor, so it is obviously too far-fetched to take the blame for the demise of the Ming Dynasty.