What internal and external factors led to the downfall of the Ming dynasty?
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The record in a stalagmite tells a tale of how previous changes in climate affected human civilization Show
In the late ninth century a disastrous harvest precipitated by drought brought famine to China under the rule of the Tang dynasty. By A.D. 907—after nearly three centuries of rule—the dynasty fell when its emperor, Ai, was deposed, and the empire was divided. According to the atmospheric record contained in a stalagmite, one of the causes of that downfall may have been climate change. ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)David Biello is a contributing editor at Scientific American. Follow David Biello on Twitter Recent Articles by David Biello
Read This NextSustainability David Labrador Sustainability The accounts are chilling. In the summary of his course on modern Chinese history at the Collège de France, Pierre-Etienne Will examined journals held by various individuals, often part of the Chinese administration, during the final years of the Ming dynasty. These autobiographical writings were almost always kept secret, but they allow us to immerse ourselves in the everyday life of the first half of 17th-century China. In the Jiangnan region, close to Shanghai and generally considered as a land of plenty, the 1640s did not bode well. The decade that had just ended was characterized by an abnormally cold and dry climate and poor harvests. The price of agricultural goods kept rising, pushing social tension to bursting points. Pierre-Etienne Will writes that in the town of Suzhou, a scholar named Ye Shaoyuan described starving peasants, some of whom climbed the walls of the homes of the wealthy, while others broke in “after smashing their gates with axes”. Some wealthy people were murdered before the intervention of the army put an end to the violence. Breakdown of the natural orderThe beginning of the decade then turned into a tragedy. Droughts followed one another in 1641 and 1642, and “for the first time, there is mention of the bodies of people starved to death lying on the sides of the roads” while “the price of rice went through the roof.” In early 1642, some even reported accounts of cannibalism in the region. Not far from there, Songjiang offered the nightmarish sights of “countryside strewn with the corpses of people who died of hunger, people trying to feed themselves with the bark of trees, troops of abandoned children.” The starving populations wandered hopelessly and the few soup kitchens arranged were nowhere near sufficient to remedy the ongoing disaster. The teenage Yao Tinglin described the surroundings of Shanghai where “death was everywhere”. Pierre-Etienne Will writes: “Yao mentions refugees who suddenly collapsed in the middle of the street; there was also a sort of canopy in front of his house where starving people came to die every night.” Cannibalism, again, is alluded to, including on “young victims”, which triggered judiciary sanctions of a boundless brutality, which were cheered by crowds. “All this shows a complete breakdown of the natural order, which is reflected in the social order by the aberrant crimes mentioned above,” the Sinologist writes. Weather patterns disrupting a regimeIn addition to droughts, floods ravaged the country, particularly the Yellow River’s basin. Pandemics wiped out a part of the population and unprecedented locust invasions destroyed some harvests. In a China where the emperor was believed to hold his power from a “celestial mandate,” the disruption of the world and the unleashing of natural disasters do not only have real-world consequences. They are also heavy with symbolic significance. It seems these elements were an important factor in the fall of the Ming dynasty, which came to power in 1368 and ended in 1644 when its last ruler committed suicide following a military defeat. All studies agree on one certainty: the final century of the Ming dynasty was characterized by an abnormally cold climate and by a high frequency of extreme weather events. Is this the manifestation of the “little ice age” described in Europe? In northern China, the average temperature dropped by 1.18 °C (33.8 °F) between the 1610s and 1650s, according to Chinese scholars. Droughts became more intense. Other Chinese scholars believe that, in the period from 1627 to 1642, eastern China “very likely experienced the most persistent drought since 500 A.D.” Chongzhen, the last Ming emperor, paid the political price for these disasters. For historian Tim Brook, author of The Troubled Empire, a seminal book on the subject, "no emperor of the Yuan or Ming dynasties faced such abnormal or severe climatic conditions as Chongzhen.” In their study on the “impact of climate change on the fall of the Ming dynasty,” Chinese scholars led by Zheng Jingyun combed the climatic and economic data of the era to reach a conclusion. The climate disruptions observed at that time accelerated the collapse of a regime that was already subjected to strong internal and external pressure. A fiscal crisisThe decline in agricultural production led to famines. Starting in the 1570s, the amount of grain per capita fell from 20% to 50% towards the end of the period. As the Ming dynasty came to an end, tax collection became more and more crucial. Above all, the effects induced by this situation were especially politically harmful. One of those effects is fiscal. As weather conditions became increasingly harsh, the system of military farms that provided food for a part of the army quickly deteriorated. While, according to researchers, the military effort accounted for 64% of the central government’s spendings between 1548 and 1569, this figure rose to 76% between 1570 and 1589. These averages only provide a glimpse of a trend that became even more pronounced thereafter. As the Ming dynasty came to an end, tax collection became more and more crucial, particularly in the form of the grain tribute that the provinces had to send to Beijing. Faced with worsening living conditions, the provinces begged for tax relief and were instead met with the increasingly harsh inflexibility of a desperate central government. Tourists wearing face masks visit the Forbidden City in Beijing after a snowfall Sheldon Cooper/SOPA Images/ZUMA Rebellions fueled by grievancesThen there was the appearance of local rebellions, increasingly structured and massive, fighting the Ming army. Such rebellions were dismissed by the doctrine of Communist China as mere conflicts involving starving peasants against landowners. In fact, they were fueled by multiple grievances, including against the regime. Among the fighters were soldiers furious at being demobilized, but also postal workers who lost their jobs following Emperor Chongzhen’s decision to cut this service’s funding, or people who suffered from the government’s inability to help them when natural disasters struck. Rebel troops appealed to a large number of people who were exasperated by the State’s negligence, and they eventually reached a size sufficient to bring down the system. One of those troops managed to capture Beijing and to end the regime in 1644. Its leader, Li Zicheng, had himself been a postal worker for a time. He advocated for an egalitarian doctrine and promised to distribute land equally between all and to abolish the tax on agricultural production. Victorious in Beijing, Li Zicheng proclaimed himself king and then founder of the short-lived Shun dynasty that would quickly be overturned. Implosion of a systemWas climate change the cause for the doom of the Ming dynasty? This theory is indeed convincing, but there are some caveats. In all the aforementioned events, natural disasters aggravated trends that were already at work. And the fiscal crisis? Perhaps it did not need the help of the climate to occur in a political system progressively eroded by corruption. In this worn-out political system, the landowner class had invented mechanisms to evade tax. As José Frèches explains in his book on the history of China, the decline of Chinese finances accelerated “at a dizzying pace” from 1580 on, and also owed much to ”colossal life annuities that the members of the imperial family had arrogated to themselves over the years." He adds: "The State's backbone was not sufficient enough to face the general mayhem and corruption that undermined the country from top down." In this worn-out political system, the landowner class had invented mechanisms to evade tax. “A large number of simple individuals even sought the protection of the wealthy to avoid paying taxes by selling them their lands more or less fictionally,” Pierre-Etienne Will says, describing a “fairly massive” phenomenon. A form of tax avoidance thriving on the breakdown of the State apparatus can therefore be added to the list of factors that led to the implosion of the system. The Manchu offensiveAs for the increasingly unbearable rise in military expenditure, in the end it also owed much to the pressure exerted by the Manchus, the barbarians from the North who defeated Li Zicheng in 1645 and who would rule over China under the name of “Qing” until their doom in 1911 and the advent of the Republic. As the Ming dynasty sank into internal crisis, the Manchus managed to unite and shape an ambitious imperial project. All at once, the Ming had to fight internal armies and to push back the attacks of these unparalleled fighters who made their first incursions into the national territory as early as 1618 before intensifying their offensive in the 1640s. This increasingly unstoppable offensive relied massively on Chinese fighters who had defected from the Ming army. The natural disasters that China faced during the final decades of the Ming dynasty thus accelerated the sinking of a ship that was already taking on water. And if the “celestial mandate” eventually seemed to be taken away from Emperor Chongzhen, it is also because the State he was in charge of was too paralyzed by internal clan struggles and the elite’s corruption to find the means to fight effectively against the calamities befalling its country. From Your Site Articles
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The accounts are chilling. In the summary of his course on modern Chinese history at the Collège de France, Pierre-Etienne Will examined journals held by various individuals, often part of the Chinese administration, during the final years of the Ming dynasty. These autobiographical writings were almost always kept secret, but they allow us to immerse ourselves in the everyday life of the first half of 17th-century China. In the Jiangnan region, close to Shanghai and generally considered as a land of plenty, the 1640s did not bode well. The decade that had just ended was characterized by an abnormally cold and dry climate and poor harvests. The price of agricultural goods kept rising, pushing social tension to bursting points. Pierre-Etienne Will writes that in the town of Suzhou, a scholar named Ye Shaoyuan described starving peasants, some of whom climbed the walls of the homes of the wealthy, while others broke in “after smashing their gates with axes”. Some wealthy people were murdered before the intervention of the army put an end to the violence. Breakdown of the natural orderThe beginning of the decade then turned into a tragedy. Droughts followed one another in 1641 and 1642, and “for the first time, there is mention of the bodies of people starved to death lying on the sides of the roads” while “the price of rice went through the roof.” In early 1642, some even reported accounts of cannibalism in the region. Not far from there, Songjiang offered the nightmarish sights of “countryside strewn with the corpses of people who died of hunger, people trying to feed themselves with the bark of trees, troops of abandoned children.” The starving populations wandered hopelessly and the few soup kitchens arranged were nowhere near sufficient to remedy the ongoing disaster. The teenage Yao Tinglin described the surroundings of Shanghai where “death was everywhere”. Pierre-Etienne Will writes: “Yao mentions refugees who suddenly collapsed in the middle of the street; there was also a sort of canopy in front of his house where starving people came to die every night.” Cannibalism, again, is alluded to, including on “young victims”, which triggered judiciary sanctions of a boundless brutality, which were cheered by crowds. “All this shows a complete breakdown of the natural order, which is reflected in the social order by the aberrant crimes mentioned above,” the Sinologist writes. Weather patterns disrupting a regimeIn addition to droughts, floods ravaged the country, particularly the Yellow River’s basin. Pandemics wiped out a part of the population and unprecedented locust invasions destroyed some harvests. In a China where the emperor was believed to hold his power from a “celestial mandate,” the disruption of the world and the unleashing of natural disasters do not only have real-world consequences. They are also heavy with symbolic significance. It seems these elements were an important factor in the fall of the Ming dynasty, which came to power in 1368 and ended in 1644 when its last ruler committed suicide following a military defeat. All studies agree on one certainty: the final century of the Ming dynasty was characterized by an abnormally cold climate and by a high frequency of extreme weather events. Is this the manifestation of the “little ice age” described in Europe? In northern China, the average temperature dropped by 1.18 °C (33.8 °F) between the 1610s and 1650s, according to Chinese scholars. Droughts became more intense. Other Chinese scholars believe that, in the period from 1627 to 1642, eastern China “very likely experienced the most persistent drought since 500 A.D.” Chongzhen, the last Ming emperor, paid the political price for these disasters. For historian Tim Brook, author of The Troubled Empire, a seminal book on the subject, "no emperor of the Yuan or Ming dynasties faced such abnormal or severe climatic conditions as Chongzhen.” In their study on the “impact of climate change on the fall of the Ming dynasty,” Chinese scholars led by Zheng Jingyun combed the climatic and economic data of the era to reach a conclusion. The climate disruptions observed at that time accelerated the collapse of a regime that was already subjected to strong internal and external pressure. A fiscal crisisThe decline in agricultural production led to famines. Starting in the 1570s, the amount of grain per capita fell from 20% to 50% towards the end of the period. As the Ming dynasty came to an end, tax collection became more and more crucial. Above all, the effects induced by this situation were especially politically harmful. One of those effects is fiscal. As weather conditions became increasingly harsh, the system of military farms that provided food for a part of the army quickly deteriorated. While, according to researchers, the military effort accounted for 64% of the central government’s spendings between 1548 and 1569, this figure rose to 76% between 1570 and 1589. These averages only provide a glimpse of a trend that became even more pronounced thereafter. As the Ming dynasty came to an end, tax collection became more and more crucial, particularly in the form of the grain tribute that the provinces had to send to Beijing. Faced with worsening living conditions, the provinces begged for tax relief and were instead met with the increasingly harsh inflexibility of a desperate central government. Tourists wearing face masks visit the Forbidden City in Beijing after a snowfall Sheldon Cooper/SOPA Images/ZUMA Rebellions fueled by grievancesThen there was the appearance of local rebellions, increasingly structured and massive, fighting the Ming army. Such rebellions were dismissed by the doctrine of Communist China as mere conflicts involving starving peasants against landowners. In fact, they were fueled by multiple grievances, including against the regime. Among the fighters were soldiers furious at being demobilized, but also postal workers who lost their jobs following Emperor Chongzhen’s decision to cut this service’s funding, or people who suffered from the government’s inability to help them when natural disasters struck. Rebel troops appealed to a large number of people who were exasperated by the State’s negligence, and they eventually reached a size sufficient to bring down the system. One of those troops managed to capture Beijing and to end the regime in 1644. Its leader, Li Zicheng, had himself been a postal worker for a time. He advocated for an egalitarian doctrine and promised to distribute land equally between all and to abolish the tax on agricultural production. Victorious in Beijing, Li Zicheng proclaimed himself king and then founder of the short-lived Shun dynasty that would quickly be overturned. Implosion of a systemWas climate change the cause for the doom of the Ming dynasty? This theory is indeed convincing, but there are some caveats. In all the aforementioned events, natural disasters aggravated trends that were already at work. And the fiscal crisis? Perhaps it did not need the help of the climate to occur in a political system progressively eroded by corruption. In this worn-out political system, the landowner class had invented mechanisms to evade tax. As José Frèches explains in his book on the history of China, the decline of Chinese finances accelerated “at a dizzying pace” from 1580 on, and also owed much to ”colossal life annuities that the members of the imperial family had arrogated to themselves over the years." He adds: "The State's backbone was not sufficient enough to face the general mayhem and corruption that undermined the country from top down." In this worn-out political system, the landowner class had invented mechanisms to evade tax. “A large number of simple individuals even sought the protection of the wealthy to avoid paying taxes by selling them their lands more or less fictionally,” Pierre-Etienne Will says, describing a “fairly massive” phenomenon. A form of tax avoidance thriving on the breakdown of the State apparatus can therefore be added to the list of factors that led to the implosion of the system. The Manchu offensiveAs for the increasingly unbearable rise in military expenditure, in the end it also owed much to the pressure exerted by the Manchus, the barbarians from the North who defeated Li Zicheng in 1645 and who would rule over China under the name of “Qing” until their doom in 1911 and the advent of the Republic. As the Ming dynasty sank into internal crisis, the Manchus managed to unite and shape an ambitious imperial project. All at once, the Ming had to fight internal armies and to push back the attacks of these unparalleled fighters who made their first incursions into the national territory as early as 1618 before intensifying their offensive in the 1640s. This increasingly unstoppable offensive relied massively on Chinese fighters who had defected from the Ming army. The natural disasters that China faced during the final decades of the Ming dynasty thus accelerated the sinking of a ship that was already taking on water. And if the “celestial mandate” eventually seemed to be taken away from Emperor Chongzhen, it is also because the State he was in charge of was too paralyzed by internal clan struggles and the elite’s corruption to find the means to fight effectively against the calamities befalling its country. From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
There's no pristine white sand and palm trees framing turquoise water on Ton Salvadó's "super-islands." When the Barcelona architect uses the term, what he's referring to instead are chunks of city, in nine-block groupings, whose interior streets are closed to cars, forming pedestrian "islands" where foot traffic is king. The idea for super-islands first emerged when Salvadó became director of Barcelona's Urban Model, at a time when the city was embroiled by civic protests over the high price of housing. After some initial success, Salvadó, a Barcelona-native, might have the chance to revolutionize his city's pedestrian geography with 500 additional super-islands in the future. He recently spoke at the Coruchéus Library in Lisbon to explain the theory behind super-islands, and how they might be implemented in other cities. Where did the idea for super-islands come from?The idea of city fragments with restricted access for automobiles is not new. In the 20th century, there were many theorists and urban planners who addressed this issue. In Barcelona, since the 1990s, theories about super-islands have been developed with a very rigid model, initially imagining them as closed-spaces. But we wanted something more adaptable and easier, and so the idea evolved. We tried to turn around and focus the super-blocks on the issue of pacified space. We went from the idea of super-islands as physical objects to a transformation technique. This technique involves differentiating the streets where passing traffic is replaced by source and destination traffic. Can you describe a super-island for someone who has never seen one?Think of a continuous street along which you could drive from one part of the city (X) to another (Y). On this street, only vehicles with either part of the city (X or Y) as their origin or destination can circulate. That's the basic concept of super-islands: only the cars of those who live there can enter. From there, I can expand public space, I can allow children to play in the street. For example, take a street with two parking lanes and two lanes for cars. In a super-block in Barcelona, we would reduce all this to a single traffic lane, where the bicycles and cars of those who live there would pass. In this way, pedestrian space is increased, which means more green space, less pollution, less noise, and fewer accidents. The important thing is to do a good job identifying which streets are where plazas can be created, thus multiplying the number of plazas throughout the city. What Barcelona looks like as a "super-island" Ajuntament de Barcelona So residents are still allowed to circulate freely with their cars?Yes, that's the idea. Circulation is not eliminated. We do not eliminate this right for people who live in the area. Despite all the benefits, there's been some resistance to super-islands. Why?I use an analogy: you notice right away when you have a problem with your stomach, or your vision. But then there are also diseases that seriously impact your physical well-being, but that you probably don't notice right away, like diabetes. This is what is happening to us with the planet. This is an emergency, not a minor issue: either we act very quickly, or we will have a serious health problem. One of the problems is the local increase in temperature in urban areas. In cities like Lisbon and Barcelona, where there is a lot of pavement and dense housing, this issue needs to be thought about. It requires education, and this can only be done well with the help of local government. The problem is people who don't accept the science and the data, and who put their personal interests above collective ones. You need to talk to them. I have to talk to my neighbors about how much cars negatively affect our health. And the truth is, we have to make cities spaces for walking and cycling. Because if that infrastructure is not developed, then in cities where there are cars, bicycles and scooters, most people will choose the car for their daily commute. Aerial view of Barcelona, Spain loganstrongarms Why do people continue to prefer cars?The car lobby is many years old. Car ads do things like show vehicles passing through fantastic landscapes and telling us that that is freedom. You don’t realize that the car is a huge expense on a family's budget. But to eliminate vehicles, you have to offer something in return. In a city with sidewalks like Lisbon, sometimes you can't walk because they're too narrow--so you need wider sidewalks for that. The public transport system needs to be strengthened. The order must be reversed: at the moment, cars are in the first place, pedestrians last. We have to put pedestrians first, then bicycles and scooters, then public transport, and only then, individual auto transport. This is not an issue just for Lisbon, or Barcelona, or Paris: it is a global issue. If we don't understand, we are lost. There is no greater evidence for this than this couple years! What worries me the most is that we didn't learn from the pandemic: that was when we could have realized that the less we move, the more fauna, the more vegetation, the better air quality we have. We can't go back to the way things were. We are at a dead end, there is no alternative. What factors contributed to the downfall of the Ming Dynasty?The heavy drought and serious locusts against the cold background were the main natural causes of the collapse of Ming Dynasty, while internal rebellions and inter-ethnic conflicts under the conditions of financial crises were the major human factors resulting in the collapse of the Ming Dynasty.
What were the internal and external causes of the fall of the Ming and the rise of the Qing?What were the main internal and external causes for the fall of the Qing Dynasty? The main internal causes of the fall of the Qing Dynasty were political corruption, peasant unrest, and governmental incompetence. Some external causes included pressure from Western powers and the developments in ships and guns.
What led to the end of the Ming Dynasty?The Ming Dynasty was not only embattled by the rebel army, but also suffered from constant threats of invasion by the Manchu army. In 1644, Li Zicheng's troops attacked the Forbidden City. The last Ming emperor hanged himself on a tree, and the Ming Dynasty fell.
What are five reasons the Ming Dynasty fell to civil disorder?What are five reasons the Ming Dynasty fell to civil disorder? Five reasons that the Ming Dynasty fell are; ineffective rulers, corruption, no money, higher taxes, and bad crops.
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