According to the ancient Chinese book "Ji Yun", Pingsheng Soul Rhyme: "Plague, epidemic also." And the Tang Dynasty writer Liu Zongyuan wrote in the "Yongzhou Longxing Temple": "There are many epidemics in the south, and the laborers die first." As for the word plague, which has been used since ancient times, the earliest work to use this word may be the "Baopuzi" inner chapter and the slight purpose: "After the plague, it is not afraid, and in the event of emergency, it is invisible." ”
There have been many plagues in history, many of which are related to animals, such as influenza, tuberculosis, plague, pneumonia, etc., and pandemics can cause death, destroy cities, politics, countries, disintegrate civilizations, and even annihilate ethnic groups and species.
One of the five plague pandemics that have affected the course of human history has occurred in China.
Around 1350 AD, a plague believed to have originated in Mongolia swept through Europe, claiming tens of millions of lives and reducing the population of Europe by a third. That plague was also called the Black Death. Historians believe that after the bloody storm of the plague, many feudal countries in Europe were reborn from the devastation and began to move towards modern society and commercial economy, paving the way for the rise of Western Europe and domination of the world in the future, and even some people believe that this plague gave birth to contemporary Western civilization. Because a large number of young and middle-aged people died of plague, the rural labor force was sharply reduced, and the feudal lords' manors were in short supply of tenant farmers and serfs, which shook the foundation of the feudal tenant farming system. Labor is in short supply and labor is expensive, which directly promotes tool improvement and technological innovation. Other historians believe that the rise of western European navigation, exploration, and imperialism was also partly attributed to the plague.
At the end of the 15th century, the Americas became a European colony, and this history was extremely bloody, in addition to the death of guns and butcher knives, a large number of Native Americans died from various deadly diseases brought by European colonizers, mainly smallpox, but also measles, influenza, plague, malaria, diphtheria, typhus and cholera. So many people die that even the climate is affected. During the centenary of European colonial expansion in the Americas, the population of the Americas fell from 60 million to 5 million - 6 million. The sharp decline in population, the reduction of farming, and the return of a large number of farmland to natural ecology such as wasteland or forest grassland have led to a decrease in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a drop in temperature in many parts of the world, and the earth has entered a "Xiaoice river period".
In 1641, plagues appeared in northern China, and the population in some areas was reduced by 20 to 40 percent. Nearly 60 percent of people in Kyoto died of plague at the end of the Ming Dynasty. When the plague struck, it was a drought and locust plague in North China, and there was no harvest of farmland particles. Corpses are strewn across the field. The plague at the end of the Ming Dynasty probably included plague and malaria, and the virus may have been brought into Guannei when the Northern Qing Army invaded. This may explain why the Qing army that entered the customs was safe and sound. However, in the last years of the Ming Dynasty, the prosperity of the Ming Dynasty was no more, the corruption in the imperial court was serious, the buildings were about to fall, the Qing army was looking at the tiger, and famine and plague only helped the Manchu Qing to destroy the Ming Dynasty. A great plague announced the end of the Ming Dynasty.
At the end of the 18th century, the French colonies broke out in a series of slave rebellions against French colonial rule, and in 1801 the two sides made peace, and the rebel leader Toussan Luvidur became the head of the Republic of Haiti. However, the political situation of the suzerainty was reversed, Napoleon declared himself emperor, and then decided to send troops to Haiti to suppress the rebellion and regain the power of colonial rule. Tens of thousands of French troops landed in Haiti and were invincible on the battlefield. At this time, yellow fever began to circulate among the French people on the island. A total of 50,000 French officers and soldiers, colonial officials, doctors and sailors died from the epidemic. Only 3,000 survivors eventually escaped back to France. After Haiti was defeated by the plague, Napoleon gave up not only Haiti, but also his colonial ambitions on the North American continent.
In the 19th century, a rinderpest outbreak broke out in Africa. Rinderpest virus killed 90% of cattle in Africa between 1888 and 1897, with the worst affected areas including the Horn of Africa, West Africa and South West Africa. Rinderpest directly leads to famine, the collapse of social order and the displacement of people. Predominantly farming areas are also not spared from rinderpest, as many places rely on cattle to plow land. At this time, European countries took advantage of the situation and established colonial rule in large areas of Africa. The result accelerated the process of expanding European colonial rule in Africa. By this point, from the 1870s 10 percent of Africa belonged to European colonies, and in 1900 only 10 percent belonged to European colonies.