Recently, I saw a novel article on the Internet, which is an article about the analysis of the causes of the fall of the Ming Dynasty, and the author of this article believes that a large part of the reason for the fall of the Ming Dynasty is attributed to the Ming and Qing dynasties Xiaoice River. During the Xiaoice River period, the earth's temperature dropped sharply, causing a significant reduction in global food production, which caused severe social unrest and a sharp decline in population. Xiaoice river period was indeed a great blow to the Ming Dynasty based on the small-scale peasant economy, but it was even more difficult for nomadic peoples, such as the influence of the Xiaoice river period, the north continued to be low, drought, grassland degradation, so the main reason for the demise of the Ming Dynasty was blamed on the Xiaoice river period was a bit arbitrary.
Moreover, the Ming and Qing dynasties Xiaoice river period is from the Yuan Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty, and it does not only exist in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. There are historical records: "In the nearly one hundred years of the Yuan Dynasty's rule, there were 92 floods, 86 droughts, 69 hail disasters, 61 locust plagues, 52 earthquakes, 42 wind disasters, 28 frosts and snows, and 20 plagues; there were a total of 1101 natural disasters from the beginning of the Ming Dynasty to the eighteenth year of Chongzhen, followed by the Qing Dynasty, and there were 1121 natural disasters in the 176 years from Qianlong to xuantong abdication." From the above data, it is not difficult to see that the Ming and Qing Xiaoice river period was not exclusive to the late Ming Dynasty, but ran through the entire period from the Yuan to the end of the Qing Dynasty. For the demise of the Ming Dynasty, the Xiaoice River Period was only an important external factor.
Schematic diagram of winter temperature changes from the pre-Qin to the Central Plains of the Qing Dynasty
Speaking of the Xiaoice River period, there are four clear historical records in ancient China, namely the first Xiaoice River period from the end of the Shang Dynasty to the beginning of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the second Xiaoice River period from the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Western Jin Dynasty, the third time from the end of the Tang Dynasty to the beginning of the Northern Song Dynasty, and the fourth time from the Xiaoice River Period of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. If you look closely, the degree of harm caused to the region during the Xiaoice River period is different, such as the disaster in the north of China is more serious than in the south, and the temperature has dropped sharply, causing a large-scale drought in the north, resulting in a large reduction in grain production. It is conceivable that the economy of the north is not as rich as that of the south, and the natural disasters suffered by it are better than those in the south, and the large-scale reduction in grain production on which people depend for their survival is bound to cause famine, which will lead to severe social turmoil and war. In the first three Xiaoice periods, the Chinese mouth dropped by more than four-fifths, such as the late Eastern Han Dynasty, the Han population of more than 60 million, through the turbulent period of the Three Kingdoms, decades of famine and war, to the early days of the unification of the Western Jin Dynasty, the Han population remained only 7.7 million. Compared with the Ming and Qing dynasties at this time, the Xiaoice River period, the Han population at the end of the Ming Dynasty was 120 million, and during the 17th year of Shunzhi in the early Qing Dynasty, it was 135 million. During this period, the population did not decrease but increased, not because it was not affected by the Xiaoice river period, but thanks to the drought-resistant and high-yield crops potatoes, corn and sweet potatoes from the Americas, the number of people in the late Ming Dynasty did not decline like the previous three Xiaoice river periods.
The Four Xiaoice River Period in ancient China
There are many reasons for the demise of the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty's death to the climate is only a very secondary external factor among its many reasons, let alone a major factor. For example, in the fourth volume of the "White Valley Collection", sun Chuanting, a minister at the end of the Ming Dynasty, once made a good summary of the decline and fall of the Ming Dynasty: "The magnates are strong and powerful, and the people who learn from the earth are inferior... The state of the thief is weaker than a thief, and the adulterer is more than a thief, and the adultery is even more than the meticulous work." It is well explained that an important reason for the demise of the Ming Dynasty was the land annexation and corruption of the officials, and the exploitation of the people and the annexation of land by the officials and gentry landlords had reached an irreconcilable level, and they were more vicious and treacherous than the thieves and traitors. In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, land annexation was very serious, and the powerful class used its own power to seize the land on which it depended for its survival. Thus a terrible result was formed, the elite could be exempted from paying taxes to the government through various privileges granted by the state, and the peasants had no taxes to pay after losing their land, which led to the depletion of the Ming Dynasty's finances, the inability to fight against natural and man-made disasters in the territory, and the dispersion of people's hearts and minds, and the peasant uprisings everywhere continued, destroying the Ming Dynasty little by little.
Inspector Sun Chuanting of Shaanxi
There was also a strange phenomenon in the Ming Dynasty, where the flood of clan princes became a major burden on the Ming Dynasty. In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, the princes of the Ming Dynasty fought for the stability and unification of the country in all directions, from the north of the desert to the liaodong, from the southwest to Huguang, and the princes could be seen everywhere serving the battlefield. For example, Ming Chengzu Zhu Di, who was named the King of Yan in the early days, guarded the northern part of the desert and the Liaodong area, and often fought against the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty, Hongwu for twenty-three years, so Yuan Cheng Xiang and Tai Wei Nai'er did not spend xingbing troops to invade the side, Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang appointed Zhu Di, the King of Jin, and Zhu Di, the King of Yan, to lead the garrisons of Shanxi and Beiping to carry out conquests, and in March of the same year, the Yan king Zhu Di's army went to Northern Gukou to meet with Fu Youde, the Duke of Yingguo, and carried out a comprehensive attack on the troops of Nai'er Buhua, defeating The Nai'er Buhua army and capturing Nai'er Buhua.
Ming Chengzu Zhu Di
It has to be said that the princes of the early Ming Dynasty played a major role in stabilizing the regime and maintaining national security, and it can be said that they played a role in defending the country and ensuring the people's livelihood. This situation was changed after the Battle of Jingnan, mainly because Ofe Ming Chengzu Zhu Di, who was himself a prince, overthrew his nephew's rule through rebellion and became the head of the Ming Dynasty. For Zhu Di, he definitely did not want other princes to learn from him, so he reformed the feudal system. The kings of the domain are divided into seals but not tin soil, the lords are not present to the people, the food is not governed, and they cannot participate in the inheritance of the four peoples, and can be hereditary. Zhu Di just wanted to keep these clan kings in captivity, so that they could enjoy various state welfare and privileges, but they were not allowed to participate in government affairs. Since then, the kings of the Ming Dynasty have gradually become parasites of the country, constantly sucking the blood of the Ming Dynasty and squeezing it dry step by step until it is destroyed. For example, in the thirty-first year of Jiajing, the total tax and grain income of the whole country was 22.85 million stones, while the annual expenditure of the royal palaces reached 8.53 million stones, accounting for 37% of the total tax and grain income of the country. There are historical records that at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the population of the Ming Sect was only 58 people, and by the thirty-second year of Jiajing, the population of its clan reached 17,661 people, and then in the twenty-third year of the Ming Wanli Calendar, the number of its clan members was more than 157,000. An Jiesheng, a historian of Chinese, calculated that by the end of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang's descendants were expected to have more than one million. Such a large number of clan members, the daily life consumption of the Ming Dynasty, which was not rich in finances, was a fatal injury.
The Chongzhen Emperor, who was facing the fall of the kingdom, angrily rebuked his ministers
With the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the Chongzhen Emperor, who was the helmsman of the empire, also had an unshirkable responsibility, and his character flaws led him to deviate from the hundred officials in the court, and he was suspicious, frequently changing and killing ministers indiscriminately. For example, the Chongzhen Emperor reigned for 17 years and changed 50 cabinet chief assistants, which averaged almost 2 to 3 a year; there were 17 Shangshu of the Punishment Department, which was simply a change of personnel every year; 2 people were executed by the Bingbu Shangshu and one person committed suicide. How to say it? Although Xiaobian did not understand politics, throughout the history of the rise and prosperity of ancient Chinese dynasties, he did not find any allusions like our Chongzhen Emperor who frequently changed important members of the imperial court to Zhongxing Sheji. Instead, it led to the separation of the monarchs and the officials, who did nothing and waited for the collapse of the Ming Dynasty. At this time, the Chongzhen Emperor was not yet awake, and lamented: "The emperor of the fallen country is not the king of the subjugated country, and the ministers are the subjects of the subjugated country." How sad!
It can only be explained that the demise of the dynasty did not lie in the influence of the Xiaoice period, but in its own internal factors, the annexation of land by powerful landlords, the corruption of internal officials in the country, the corrosion of the ming dynasty's finances by a large number of unscrupulous clan princes, and the alienation of the imperial rulers led by the Chongzhen Emperor were the fundamental reasons for the collapse of the Ming Dynasty.