In history, people have a great regret for the demise of the Ming Dynasty, not only because of the historical process of China, because of the interruption of external forces and the reopening of history, and the failure to keep up with the process of the world.
At the same time, the demise of this dynasty is really painful, because this dynasty has not yet reached the state of real collapse, but because of a Xiaoice period, it has caused him to completely lose his balance.
Therefore, most scholars lament that the demise of the Ming Dynasty was not only destroyed by internal chaos, but also by the stimulation of the Xiaoice period. So the question is, as a disaster that can affect the balance of a dynasty, what happened to the Xiaoice period of the Ming Dynasty?
According to historical records, the ming dynasty Xiaoice period refers to a cooling phenomenon throughout the world, which according to today's terms generally includes from the sixteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth century.
According to scholars' research, the temperature generally dropped worldwide during this period, and in the winter, the temperature reached a perverted point. Not only did the amount of snowfall spike several times more than in normal years, but the frost was much worse than usual at the time. Even the tropical climate of Guangdong is also affected by heavy snow, and there is a crazy cooling phenomenon, which shows how serious the cooling phenomenon during the Xiaoice period of the Ming Dynasty was.
Of course, if the temperature is only lower in the winter, it is not enough, after all, it is better to wear more clothes when it is cold. But what is devastating is that this is not a phenomenon of one person's body cooling down, but the temperature of the entire earth has dropped. And the earth is one, so when the temperature drops sharply, the crops are brutally destroyed, and most of them are frozen to death. Moreover, when the spring begins, the snow melts and the flood phenomenon suddenly arrives, which is still a huge flood, which can destroy the living space of millions of people at once.
It was hard to wait until the flood was over, but the drought and locusts came again, and when the drought came, the earth cracked and there was not a drop of water. The small weapons of the Ming Dynasty caused the whole world to suffer such pain, and the common people were even more unhappy.
Some people may see this and point out that since the whole world is suffering from disasters, why is only the Ming Dynasty going to extinction? In fact, the answer is very simple, because in the entire scope of the Xiaoice period, only the Ming Dynasty was the most vulnerable, and it was even more stimulated by the disaster.
You know, in the whole world, most of the large-scale civilizations are mainly commercial, or mainly nomadic, but only China is mainly agriculture. When severe colds and floods and locust plagues came, the stimulation of commercial civilization was relatively small, after all, they mainly went to sea to do business. But agricultural civilization has been destroyed in this way, especially the small-scale peasant economy, and by such a toss, millions of people have been displaced at any time, and tens of millions of people have fled the famine like 1942. That is to say, agricultural civilization made the Ming Dynasty aggravate the disaster, which is the first stimulus.
Generally speaking, in the face of such disasters, what the government has to do is to quickly provide disaster relief and appease the people. It is true that the Ming Dynasty also wanted to do this, but the Ming Dynasty could not do it. It turned out that because of the impact of the disaster, agricultural taxes could not be raised, and if agricultural taxes did not come up, the state would have no money, and the state would not be able to resettle the victims without money. Moreover, this is millions of victims, it is a disaster all over the country, so what should the Chongzhen Emperor do?
Some scholars have studied that in the year when the Chongzhen Emperor ascended to the throne, the Xiaoice period of the Ming Dynasty had already entered a state of madness, that is to say, the temperature dropped to the lowest point, and there were more than 1,100 natural disasters in the Ming Dynasty, a considerable part of which occurred in the late Ming Dynasty.
Therefore, the emperor could not appease the people, let alone solve the disaster, so the people could not survive, so they could only follow Li Zicheng and Gao Yingxiang to rebel. In the face of the rebellion of the common people, the Chongzhen Emperor could only mobilize the army to suppress it, and the mobilization of the army needed money, so he could only further strengthen the taxation, which later led to more people joining the rebellion. This is considered to be the internal civil unrest caused by the disaster, which is the second major stimulus.
If this is just the case, the Ming Dynasty has a strong dynastic inertia, and even those Donglin Party members will consciously or unconsciously maintain their rule. But sadly, under the stimulus of natural disasters, the third stimulus came again.
As recorded in history, everyone was affected by disasters at that time, especially the nomadic civilization, whose cattle and sheep died in large numbers. So these nomadic civilizations had to frantically attack the farming civilizations to plunder the survival data in order to survive. As a result, this move led to a terrible external invasion of the Ming Dynasty.
Thus, the famous phenomenon of internal and external troubles during the Chongzhen years was born, and after that, the Chongzhen imperial court has been hovering to the end, whether to solve external troubles or suppress internal strife, before and after the wandering, the national wealth was squandered, and the Ming Dynasty became an empty shelf.
Therefore, when many people accuse the so-called Ming Dynasty Xiaoice period and the destruction of the Ming Dynasty, there is no great impact, in fact, this view is really not quite right. Because if it is only a small natural disaster or a local crisis, even the famous Chernobyl phenomenon, it can only cause a huge impact on the dynasty, but it will not lead to the collapse of the balance of the entire dynasty.
However, the Xiaoice period of the Ming Dynasty was really crazy, and it just so happened that the Chongzhen Emperor caught up with the most crazy state of this period, with internal and external troubles, the people could not survive, and the government had no taxes, so how could such a regime not collapse?
Not to mention that historians have found that the Chongzhen Emperor's struggle with the civilian bureaucracy was very serious, and the state's financial revenue was largely occupied by corrupt officials. The whole country itself was a crumbling house, struggling to hold on to the dynastic inertia of the rule of law. If under normal circumstances, someone suddenly kicked the house downstairs, it was just shaking, but there was a sudden tornado, so the Chongzhen Emperor could only sigh and say that he was not the king of the subjugated country, and everyone was a subject of the subjugation of the country.
Of course, we must also establish a correct understanding of this, and all external factors, except for meteorite arrivals or alien invasions, cannot play a major role. When a thing suddenly moves from a state of prosperity to death, it must be because of its own internal problems, perhaps the system is decayed, perhaps the emperor is in trouble, or its internal system is disordered. The Ming Dynasty was such a state.
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