What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
At that time, Xiang Yu's sentence "Heaven dies for me, I will cross for what" caused a major controversy that lasted for more than two thousand years. The severe weather of more than a thousand years ago, which was associated with the rise and fall of the Tang Dynasty, also received attention for thousands of years. But is Li Tang, such a world-famous empire, really so subject to "heaven"?
Did the heavy snow in 741 really kick off the prelude to the decline of the Tang Dynasty?
I. The "Very Cold" of the Twenty-Ninth Year of the New Century (741)
For several years, the mainstream view has been that during the Tang Dynasty, China was in a warm climate. Although some scholars feel that the climate of Li Andang has turned into a cold period in the middle and late period, some people believe that the Tang Dynasty was in an era of alternating cold and warm. But in the tang dynasty from its establishment to its prosperity, its climate was indisputably warm.
The warm climate allows the Tang people to have a production and lifestyle adapted to the warm climate. So a sudden snowfall in the twenty-ninth year of the new century (741) gave them a "blow to the head". The New Book of Tang, Zhi, Vol. XXIV, says: "In November, the moon was cold, the rain was very cold, and the rain and wood were ice, and the days were incomprehensible." Although the cold climate in the north is the norm in winter, the 29th year of the new century (741) is the only time the "cold" recorded in the New Book of Tang. Heavy snow not only made people aware of the power of abnormal weather, but also divided Litang's climate into two sections, marking the entry of Litang's climate into an unfavorable second half.
Second, litang abnormal meteorology and the disasters directly caused
According to the New Book of Tang, after experiencing the great cold at the end of the Kaiyuan Period, Li Tang successively ushered in nine times the bitter cold of rain that condensed into ice as soon as it fell on the trees, and more than thirty times of heavy rain that lasted for days or even months.
Severe cold or heavy rain directly affected agricultural production in the Tang Dynasty. Several times, the New Book of Tang uses the word "harm to crops" to summarize the impact of these calamities. In addition to directly affecting crops and causing famine to intensify, the endless snow and torrential rains can also directly destroy houses and some infrastructure. Floods caused by heavy rains can also easily induce plagues and rat infestations, affecting the health of the people.
In addition, in the summer of the fourteenth year of Zhenyuan (798) and the ninth year of Yuan he (814), Li Tang unexpectedly had two high temperatures. Although Li Tang was generally in a warm period, the probability of drought was the lowest in history. However, because high temperatures and droughts are not common, Li Tang's ability to cope with this abnormal weather is also weak. The two "big burns" have thus caused great losses to people.
Natural disasters and the decline and fall of Li Tang
People are directly affected by abnormal weather and intuitively feel the taste of living in the "deep water". And the entire Tang Dynasty, under the adverse influence of every "screw" by the climate, its situation is becoming increasingly difficult.
In the face of abnormal weather, the central government must first carry out a large amount of additional disaster relief expenditure. In disaster years, the state's fiscal revenue would have decreased. Spending a large sum of money is inevitable. This year's national treasury is in a hurry, which is bound to be exchanged for future tax increases. Then the tax burden of the people will increase, and the social instability will also increase.
Moreover, abnormal climates often become the "clarion call" for uprisings or riots. Since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Dong Zhongshu preached the theory of heavenly induction, abnormal weather has often been seen as a warning from heaven to the misconduct of the monarch. But the subsequent edicts of sin issued by the monarch were not always useful. Those who have the intention to rebel will still rise up under the banner of abnormal climate.
And the most fundamental thing is that extreme weather has reduced agricultural production and plague has spread. A large number of people in the Central Plains have become displaced people in disaster years, and social contradictions have rapidly intensified; the animal husbandry of the nomadic people in the north has collapsed, and the demand for plundering materials has intensified; the epidemic of ethnic minorities in the south has increased, and the war to seize the city and seize people is about to break out... In the year of disaster, the battlefield is more like a place to survive in the eyes of these desperate people.
In the second year of Emperor Guangde of the Tang Dynasty (764), it was July and August that should have been gradually harvested grain, but heavy rain fell in the north, and the price of rice in Chang'an rose to one thousand yuan per bucket. In such a situation, the imperial court also decided to send troops to Tibet. So the angry soldiers eventually embarked on the path of mutiny, that is, the rebellion of the soldiers in the river.
In the early years of Tang Dezong's founding, torrential rains and earthquakes took turns. After the disaster relief and the national treasury was empty, the central government used tough means to loot the people's fat and people's paste. Therefore, the "Jingyuan Revolution" that broke out in the fourth year of Jianzhong (783) was actually a mixture of power plots, civil panic and oppressed resistance, and was a comprehensive product of natural disasters and civil strife in the town.
From the fourth year of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (850) to the first year of The Dragon Age of Emperor Zhaozong of Tang (889), the frequency of abnormal weather occurred sharply. During this period, there were as many as 26 mutinies. From eastern Zhejiang to Fengxiang (around present-day Baoji City, Shaanxi Province), from jiedushi to grain judges, no one in the Li-Tang Dynasty could escape the abnormal climate, and almost everyone had a reason to stop loving this dynasty.
In fact, in addition to Li Tang, the Eastern Turks and Uighurs of about the same period, as well as Tubo, which we are familiar with because of their communication with Li Tang, have all received the "help" of abnormal climate in the process of their decline. We are familiar with Li Tang's death in the rebellion of the fan town. If you want to express it more accurately, then Li Tang actually died in natural disasters and the rebellion of Fanzhen.
In this way, the turning point of the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty, in addition to the Anshi Rebellion, there was also the "very cold" of the twenty-ninth year of the New Century (741).