Climate Change in Human History by Benjamin Lieberman & Elizabeth Gordon

Author:Benjamin Lieberman & Elizabeth Gordon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Seventeenth-century crisis in China

The crisis of the seventeenth century affected empires in both west and east Asia. In China, the fall of the Ming dynasty was one of the pivotal events of the seventeenth-century crisis. After overthrowing and replacing the Yuan dynasty of the Mongols, the Ming dynasty experienced a long period of economic and demographic growth. Between 1393, the date of a census, and 1600, China’s population grew from some 60 to 85 million people to somewhere between 150 and 200 million. Trade within the Empire grew, spurred by the renovation and restoration in the early fifteenth century of the Grand Canal that linked the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers. With this project the Yongle emperor aimed to improve the supply of grain to Beijing. Agricultural output also increased during the Ming dynasty, and large numbers of settlers moved into southern China. Externally, the Ming dynasty saw the greatest period of overseas activity in Chinese history, culminating in the voyages of Admiral Zheng He, who traveled throughout the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia between 1405 and 1433.

Despite expansion and population growth, the Ming dynasty collapsed during the crisis of the seventeenth century. Standard historical narratives ascribe Ming decline to a combination of external attacks and internal conflicts. In the late sixteenth century the Ming dynasty campaigned against the Hmong in the south and dispatched soldiers to Korea to assist in fighting the Japanese invasion by Hideyoshi just before the Ming dynasty faced a new powerful threat from the Manchu. The Manchus, or Jurchens, lived to the northeast of China. Much like the Mongols, they prized horse riding and archery, though many Manchus practiced agriculture. In the early seventeenth century, the Jurchens, or Manchus, gained greater military power under a Jurchen chieftain named Nurhaci. He unified the Manchu tribes by creating a banner system of military units and campaigned south of the Great Wall. As the Manchu pushed down from the north, rebellions hollowed out Ming power within China. One of the rebels, a soldier named Li Zicheng campaigned in the early 1640s in areas of China suffering from drought and famine. His forces moved into regions where a large part of the population had died. He struck toward Beijing where the last Ming emperor committed suicide in 1644. As varied rebels fought for power, Manchus gained the support of a Ming commander, moved south, and claimed the Mandate of Heaven as the rulers of the new Qing dynasty, which survived until 1912 as the last dynasty in Chinese history. Qing forces fought rebellions by Ming holdouts, winning final victory in 1681.

Beset by external and internal foes, the Ming dynasty also suffered from climate fluctuations. By the late sixteenth century, aridity and the expansion of deserts undermined a system of military farms vital for supplying military forces along the northern frontiers. Cooling and aridity reduced the overall food production in the late Ming era, and droughts in the seventeenth century contributed to rebellions.49 Drought between 1614 and 1619 was so severe

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