This year is a year of many disasters, in addition to the epidemic, many people also found that the temperature of this year is several degrees lower than in previous years, it seems to be to pass the winter in advance, some netizens also joked: "Isn't the global climate warming?" Why is it still getting cold? ”
However, this phenomenon is not the first time on Earth, as early as 1939, the American scientist François-Emile Maté called the "cold period of the medium-scale resurrection of glaciers after the warmest period of the Holocene" as the "Xiaoice period", a climate phenomenon that does not only affect one place, but is global, but the size of the impact is still different.
The period from the beginning of the 15th century to the beginning of the 20th century is known in China's history as the "Ming and Qing Xiaoice Period", according to the "Jiangnan Tongzhi" record: "In the twelfth year of Emperor Xiaozong's reign (1499 AD) and the fifteenth year (1502 AD), the winter was cold, the water of the Qiyang River froze, and the water of the Yuyao River froze. ”
In addition, the "Guangdong Tongzhi" records: "In the winter of the first year of Emperor Wuzong Zhengde (1506 AD), it was raining and snowing in Wanzhou, the capital of Qiongzhou, Guangdong. In the winter of the fourth year of Emperor Mingwu Zhengde (1509 AD), the chaozhou meteorite in Guangdong province was thick and thick. "Through this documentation, we can also know that hundreds of years ago, Guangdong people also saw heavy snowfall, but it was due to a natural disaster.
Cold weather can not only freeze people to death, but also cause crops to have no harvest, and because of the lack of precipitation, there is a drought phenomenon in many places, which is undoubtedly a catastrophe for the people, and this natural disaster has lasted for 6 centuries, and its impact is also very large, many historians, anthropologists, geologists, etc. in the study of this history, but also lamented, without this natural disaster, China's population may have exceeded 2 billion.
As we all know, the demise of the Ming Dynasty has many reasons, related to the Donglin Party, and also related to natural disasters, Zhu Youjian took over the position from his brother Zhu Youxiao, and at the beginning of his reign, he also intended to make a storm, so he was diligent in political affairs, but what happened during the Chongzhen years?
In addition to the Qing soldiers' eyes on the tiger, there are natural disasters that cannot be solved, since Zhu Youguan ascended the throne, you can see that in the recital, "there is a great drought in the north, the red land is thousands of miles, and there is no grass", according to the "Records of the Continuation of The County" in Hannan:
"In the first year of Chongzhen, the whole Shaanxi sky was as red as blood. Five years of famine, six years of water, seven years of autumn locusts, famine, eight years of September Xixiang drought, slightly yang waterlogging, all the houses are gone. Nine years of drought locusts, ten years of autumn grass, eleven years of summer flying locusts covering the sky... Thirteen years of drought... Fourteen years of drought. ”
Cold, drought, locust plague, and plague, this series of problems, can Zhu Youjian easily solve? Zhu Youjian may be able to understand why his brother Zhu Youxiao is not keen on being an emperor, I am afraid that it is not only because of the illiterate Tianzi.
In the fourteenth year of Chongzhen, the plague spread from the Hebei region to Beijing, which was still called "knot disease" at that time, and two years later it was already a pneumonic plague, which spread to Tianjin, Shaanxi and other places.
Although the plague had disappeared by the time the Qing army entered the customs, the scourge was still continuing, and in the mid-to-late 1870s, there was a major famine - the Ding Pengqi Famine, and the winter of 1892-1893 was the coldest winter in the southeast coastal area of China in nearly 300 years.
According to relevant statistics, from the beginning of the 15th century to the beginning of the 20th century, the cumulative number of deaths in China due to the "Xiaoice period" reached hundreds of millions of people, and the Xiaoice period can also be called the most serious and longest-lasting natural disaster in China's history.