Late Ming weather

Since ancient times, the people of China have suffered a lot. Anyway, if it happens, it means someone will die. It is said that at the end of the Ming Dynasty, when the world was in chaos, a large-scale plague occurred, which was as destructive as war, resulting in a large number of people dying of the plague in the Ming Dynasty. So how terrible was the plague in the Ming Dynasty?

Although mice are timid, they live around humans for a long time, and the virus they carry will cause plague and kill many people. When the Ming Dynasty was about to change its dynasty, it never rains but pours in North China, and major plagues occurred one after another. This cruel natural disaster indirectly accelerated the demise of the Ming Dynasty.

The weather in North China was very strange at that time. First of all, it is very hot and seldom rains. Then, droughts often occur, plants and trees wither, and farmers have no crops in their fields. The drought occurred three times, causing many animals and plants to die, and countless people starved to death. Evil? As a result, the virus mutated to form the plague, which spread rapidly from person to person.

In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, with the increase of population, the original land distribution was not enough, so many people chose to move to the northern prairie to open up new fields in order to support their families. Then the communication between northerners and southerners began to be frequent, and rats became alien species and invaded these places. Later, rats became more and more serious until they caused a plague.

In 1580, that is, in the eighth year of Wanli, a plague occurred in Datong, Shanxi, causing 90% of the population to get sick. Basically, nine out of every ten families get sick, and the disease spreads quickly, and there is no effective way to stop it. Anyone who is infected will be infected to his family when he comes home. According to Lu' an records: When the epidemic is big and swollen, patients are afraid to ask, and the dead are afraid to hang? .

Later, many cities and counties in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province were infected in the Ming Dynasty. With the continuous spread of the disaster, until the seventh year of Chongzhen, all the people in Shanxi area, including Lvliang Xing County, fled to avoid the plague, leaving the local people in the city empty and desolate everywhere. However, Yersinia pestis spread around with the refugees, and some even crossed the Yellow River to Shaanxi, making the epidemic more severe. In the ninth year of Chongzhen, A.D. 1636, the official news came from Shaanxi Province that there was a great plague in the local area, and the epidemic spread rapidly to many towns, which made the people in all cities and counties miserable and very scared. With observers, the plague has the intention of spreading eastward, which is a great threat to Xingtai.

In the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, the fruit of the plague spread eastward, once affecting Shunde and Daming Houses in Xingtai. More than a year after the incident, spring came to Daming House, but it didn't rain in spring. Locusts ate up wheat and seedlings very early. The plague raged, and six out of ten people died of illness, which was designated as the year of great disaster by the local people. The famous minister of Ming Dynasty lamented when he played Zuo: From Jinghai to Linqing, I witnessed three people starving to death, three troubled, four stolen, and twenty-four taels of grain, stone and silver. People die for food, but saints mourn? It can be seen how tragic the casualties caused by the plague at that time were. That is, this year, the plague officially spread to the capital, and even Emperor Chongzhen was helpless and scared. Historical records:? During the summer and autumn, there was a great epidemic, and the baby gave birth to a bulge and died in a blink of an eye. This is called a pimple plague. People in Beijing have been suffering from this disease for 14, 15 years. They vomited blood repeatedly in spring, or did the whole family die together? .

In the sixteenth year of Chongzhen (AD 1643), the plague virus began to mutate, which led to a rapid increase in the mortality rate of infected people and eventually evolved into 100% pneumonic plague. Later, Xia Xie, a historian in the late Ming Dynasty, wrote in "Children's Notes":? There was a great plague in Beijing, not counting the dead? It is said that the plague kills more than 10,000 people every day, equivalent to 10000 people every day. It was not until Li Zicheng led the peasant army to the capital that he discovered that Kyoto in the Ming Dynasty was already a dead city. There is no doubt that there are empty streets everywhere and people are dying.