A cattle herder from a peasant background established a dynasty. It was the last Ming dynasty to be unified by the Han Chinese, and it collapsed after 276 years.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, although Chongzhen wanted to be a good emperor who considered the peasants, his family had been almost defeated, coupled with natural disasters and man-made disasters, and eventually the peasants who did not have enough to eat rose up to resist.
When Li Zicheng invaded Beijing, Chongzhen Coal Mountain hanged himself, declaring the end of the Ming Dynasty. After the Qing army entered the pass, they defeated the Hongguang and Longwu regimes of the Southern Ming dynasty, until the Yongli Emperor was killed and the Southern Ming was overthrown, which established the Manchu-ruled Qing Dynasty.
In fact, there is a very real natural cause for the demise of the Ming Dynasty, that is, the drought caused by the sharp drop in temperature, which caused famine, especially the people in the Guanzhong area, who suffered deeply.
Today we will take a look at what happened in China's once-in-a-millennium winter.
The term "ice age" must have been heard by all of you, and many people may think that this is a very distant thing, after all, it is too far away from us, and because this period is rarely recorded in history, but in fact, glacier activity has never stopped.
More than three hundred years ago, there was a small-scale glacier promotion activity, and the global climate entered a cold period, which is known in China as the "Ming and Qing Xiaoice Period".
According to historical records, this period of Xiaoice probably began in the 13th or 14th century and ended in the early 20th century. In China during this period, summer was either flooded or drought, and winter was extremely cold, and the people suffered from the cold, not to mention, they also had to bear the consequences of reduced grain production caused by natural disasters.
To be reasonable, when there are many natural disasters, the state not only has to reduce taxes but also allocate funds for disaster relief, but in the late Ming Dynasty, the national treasury has been squandered, and Chongzhen's own ability is limited, and he can only have the heart to save the country and is powerless to return to heaven. When the grievances reached a certain height, the peasant revolt broke out.
At that time, people faced the cold winter, and the means to cope with it were relatively scarce, nothing more than adding clothes, exercising properly and using the fire to make a cool. Ancients learned to grill food, heat and light with fire as early as the Paleolithic period.
In the Spring and Autumn Period, there was a great progress compared with the past, and a tool called "burning stove" appeared, which was specially used to burn charcoal for heating. Even the people of that era already had some "automation"" ideas, on top of the stove, more attached charcoal, to add charcoal or take the charcoal that is burning, to keep the fire unquenched at the same time, but also convenient for heating to add new charcoal.
The Ming Dynasty also had a more advanced way of heating than the Spring and Autumn Period, so the severe cold weather at that time had a limited impact on people.
The problem is the effect of severe cold climates on crops. In the face of this extremely cold climate, humans may still be able to resist with the help of foreign objects, but crops are inevitably hit hard.
At that time, the imperial court did not make corresponding and effective policies to help the people tide over the difficulties, on the one hand, because of lack of experience, on the other hand, to a large extent, the imperial court did not know how serious the disaster really was, and many officials were afraid that the emperor believed that it was the result of their own lack of governance, and did not dare to report to the court, even after reporting, they tried to take it lightly.
So the emperors did not understand the suffering that natural disasters caused to the people. Although the historical materials of the Ming and Qing dynasties have described the allocation of funds for disaster relief, they cannot fundamentally solve the problem.
In Chinese history, regarding natural disasters, in fact, every dynasty and every generation will have such a thing, if you live in a period of political clarity, it is okay, but if you live in a period of internal and external troubles in the government, it is easy to change dynasties. Natural disasters are man-made and cannot be stopped, and are force majeure, but the incompetence of the imperial court is more likely to lead the dynasty to extinction.
Some historians divide the Xiaoice period of the Ming and Qing dynasties into three stages, one of which is from the twenty-eighth year of the Wanli calendar (1600) to the fifty-ninth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1720). During this period, there was a change of dynasties, and the imperial court only suppressed these "troublemakers", but in fact, it was only a matter of "one bite of rice".
It can be said that in these three stages, the country has experienced social unrest of different degrees. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the Han population was 120 million, and at the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the social stability was more than 50 million, which directly decreased by about half.
The abnormal movement of natural phenomena eventually affects the entire human society through the transmission of ecological chains. Although there is no way to avoid these things, if people at that time had a sufficient understanding of the changes in these natural phenomena to make the most comprehensive response possible, the consequences of such natural disasters could be mitigated to a large extent.
Some people say that it is better to be prepared, but in the face of such natural weather changes. We can do our best, prepare for the worst, preserve as much vitality as possible, and wait for the arrival of spring.