The temperature suddenly dropped to the lowest point in thousands of years
The Little Ice Age of the Ming Dynasty refers to a period of sudden increase in temperature 10,000 years ago, and it also maintained a fairly stable state for more than 8,000 years. Year. The temperature during this period has been fluctuating slightly up and down like we have experienced in the early 20th century. This climate provides some good conditions for human development. But in the middle of Ming Dynasty , that is, after 1500, the temperature dropped suddenly, and the entire cooling process was very obvious, and the lowest temperature was in the period at the end of the Ming Dynasty - 1600 to 1644. During this period, the temperature suddenly dropped to the lowest point in thousands of years and the second lowest point in ten thousand years. Therefore, it was also one of the lowest 6 or 7 extremely cold periods in a million years.
The Little Ice Age of the Ming Dynasty mainly refers to the period after the end of the Ming Dynasty and before the Opium War (some say before the Kangxi and Qianlong dynasties). At that time, the average annual temperature in the entire China was much lower than it is now. , so severe droughts and floods will occur one after another in summer, so winter will be extremely cold, because not only Hebei, but also Shanghai, Jiangsu, Fujian, Guangdong and other places have heavy snowfall. This peculiar phenomenon was mentioned in documents such as " Yueshibian" and "Yongxianzhai Notes" in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, as well as "History of Ming Dynasty·Five Elements Chronicles", "Manuscript of History of Qing Dynasty·Disasters and Strange Records", etc.
The coldest period
The winter experienced by the Ming Dynasty Little Ice Age (Little Ice Age) was very cold, especially the last period of 1580-1644, which was the coldest, because it was also the coldest in a thousand years. , it also occupied the second place in 10,000 years, so it can also rank 6-7 in a million years, just because it is quite cold, so it can be said that since humans entered the civilized period, this It is the coldest period.
The Little Ice Age of the Ming Dynasty refers to a period of several decades in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties when the entire winter in China was extremely cold. The annual average temperature during this period is relatively low. The main reason is that severe droughts and floods occur one after another in the summer, so the winter is extremely cold, and even Guangdong and other places are experiencing heavy snowfall. Generally speaking, the Little Ice Age generally refers to a period of low temperatures from the 15th century to the middle of the 19th century. From about the 16th century to the 19th century, some cold climates also appeared in vast areas of the earth, so people called it the Little Ice Age. The year 1628 when Chongzhen came to the throne happened to be in the middle of the coldest period, because the entire temperature warmed up around 1650 after the demise of the Ming Dynasty.
The Little Ice Age of the Ming Dynasty had some influence on society. As early as the 1970s, the famous Chinese scientist Zhu Kezhen conducted some fruitful research in this area. Zhu Kezhen noticed that in the early years of the Qing Dynasty , a patriotic historian Tan Qian wrote a book called " Journey to the North ". There is a record in the book that can restore a story in Jiangnan, China during the Little Ice Age. degree of coldness. In 1653 (the tenth year of Shunzhi), which was the end of July in the Gregorian calendar, Tanqian set out from his hometown of Hangzhou and took a boat to Beijing via the canal; on November 7, he arrived in Tianjin, and the canal was frozen on the 18th. Tan Qian only lived in Beijing for three years. In March of the Gregorian calendar (the 13th year of Shunzhi), he did not return south by boat until March 7, when the canal started to freeze. It can be deduced from some records of Tan Qian that during the Shunzhi period, the North Canal was frozen for 110 days a year, which was longer than the coldest winter in North China in the 1950s.
Grain production dropped suddenly
During the Little Ice Age of the Ming Dynasty, the extreme cold weather also suddenly intensified. Due to the sudden drop in grain production, this was a fatal blow to an empire with a huge population. Because the severe cold in the north caused the rainfall areas to generally move southward, this led to disasters almost all over the country in the Ming Dynasty.The Qin and Jin Dynasties were followed by Heluo, followed by Qi, Lu, Wuyue, Jingchu, and three auxiliary , and a major drought occurred nationwide.
During the Little Ice Age of the Ming Dynasty, due to the drop in temperature and the persistence of dry and cold weather, China's agricultural economy experienced a very severe test. How severe was it? This can be seen from the "Yue Shi Bian" edited by Ye Mengzhu in the early Qing Dynasty. A spot. The book once mentioned that citrus in Jiangxi has always been a tribute, so every household will plant it extensively. However, during the Shunzhi and Kangxi years, when was most prosperous during the Little Ice Age of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, oranges often froze to death suddenly. The orange farmers who were suddenly hit were too frightened to plant any more oranges.
During the Little Ice Age of the Ming Dynasty, in China, even the Pearl River Delta , which has always had a warm climate, encountered the same abnormal weather. Guangzhou and other places also experienced frequent snowfalls, and at the same time, some livestock froze to death. After the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, the declining agricultural economy began to gradually recover with the popularization of some relatively cold-resistant and high-yielding crops such as potatoes and corn from afar in China.
The arrival of the Little Ice Age in the Ming Dynasty not only brought great disasters to agricultural society, but also became a major trigger for the outbreak of war. For example, in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, directly affected by the Little Ice Age, the north experienced persistent low temperatures and droughts, and pastures were degraded. Therefore, in order to improve some of the conditions at that time, a very small number of ethnic groups in the north began to frequently go south, resulting in more wars. . The period from 1640 to 1700 was the coldest period in the Little Ice Age, because this time coincided with the time when the Qing army went south to enter the Pass and established its political power. At the same time, some large-scale wars and famines also destroyed the Ming Dynasty regime.
