Famine,migration and war: Comparison of climate change impacts and social responses in North China between the late Ming and late Qing dynasties

Famine

In this paper, ‘county-time’ was used to quantify the frequency of ‘cannibalism’ (1 county-time signifies that cannibalism was recorded once in a county), which was an extreme consequence of famine caused by disasters. In China’s traditional society, whenever cannibalism occurred, the rulers and officials are blamed for serious dereliction of duty, and thus, it received much concern from historians. As a type of local history record, the chorography in the Ming and Qing, which nearly covered every county in North China, kept abundant historical information about natural disasters and consequent famine, among which cannibalism was hardly omitted.

The data source was derived from A Compendium of Chinese Meteorological Records of the Last 3000 Years (Zhang, 2004), whose original information was collected from the chorography in the Ming and Qing dynasty and contained the intensity and direct consequences of disasters. Therefore, records on cannibalism were fully preserved in this collection, and the place name of each record has been linked to the corresponding modern county. In total, 1115 pieces of records on cannibalism within the modern territory of five provinces and two municipalities of North China in 1470–1911 were collected on a county-level spatial resolution. An annual time-series of the frequency of cannibalism (county-time) was reconstructed (Figure 2e).

Migration

Some sparsely populated regions in and around North China in the Ming and Qing dynasties became major destinations of refugees mainly caused by disasters from the core area of North China. When the immigrants increased above a certain level, the central government would set up a series of administrative units named Fu (equivalent to prefectures), Ting, Zhou and Xian (equivalent to counties) to manage them. Thus, the frequency of the establishment of administrative units in different periods could reflect the variation on the migration scale, and the spatial distribution of the new units indicated major destinations of refugees (Fang et al., 2013; Xiao et al., 2014; Ye et al., 2012). In this paper, the frequency of newly established administrative units was used as an indicator to describe the scale of migration in a certain period (Figure 2f), which was quantified with the annual number of new administrative units (Fu, Ting, Zhou and Xian) in and around North China.

Considering individual travel distance under pre-industrial transportation conditions and migrating directions of refugees in North China in the Ming and Qing dynasties (Cao, 1997a, 1997b), the territory of the area ‘around North China’ was defined as the whole of Heilongjiang, Jilin, Jilin, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia and Gansu; portions of Hubei, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces located to the north of the Yangtze River; and a portion of Sichuan province located west of the Minjiang River and north of the Yangtze River (Figure 1). These new administrative units are all marked on the modern map based on their geographic coordinates provided by Niu (1990, 1997; Figure 1).

War

In this paper, the war includes two categories:

The great majority of the historical popular unrest was related to a survival crisis for refugees who were suffering from a shortage of food, and the survival crisis was often aggravated and even triggered by a reduction in grain production caused by climate change and disasters. Therefore, historical popular unrest was often taken as an extreme social response to climate deterioration (Zhang et al., 2007). For the North China Plain in the Qing dynasty, the relationship between popular unrest and climate change has been quantitatively identified (Fang et al., 2013; Xiao et al., 2011). In this paper, the annual frequency of popular unrest occurring in or spreading to North China was based on Chinese Military History: Tabulation of Wars (Fu et al., 1986) and General History of China (Fan and Cai, 1994; Figure 2g).

In the Ming dynasty, the wars were against the Mongols and Manchus, and in the Qing, they were mainly against the Junggar Mongols. War between the central regime based on agriculture and nomadic tribes was an important theme of China’s history and played a crucial role in the rise and fall of many dynasties (Wang, 1996; Wang et al., 2010). The frequency variation could intuitively reflect the military pressure on the northern border, which further impacted the fiscal conditions, military power, migration policy decisions, and finally the social responsive strategy in North China. In this paper, the annual frequency of foreign wars on the northern border was based on Chinese Military History: Tabulation of Wars (Fu et al., 1986; Figure 2h).

Similarities between the late Ming and Qing dynasties

The previous studies on the North China Plain in the Qing dynasty have shown that the dominant responsive strategy of local society to flood/drought altered significantly in different stages (Xiao et al., 2014); among these stages, the most important shift around the turn of the 19th century could be described as the rapidly decreasing governmental efforts on disaster relief, remarkably increasing scale of refugees and more and more violent refugee behaviour. The climate deterioration occurring simultaneously was an important background of the shift. It was estimated that the reduction in crop yield because of climate deterioration had accelerated the intensification of the food insecurity on the North China Plain by approximately 20 years (Fang et al., 2013).

On a larger spatio-temporal scale, namely, the whole North China in 1470–1911, it was also found that the climate deterioration in both the late Ming and Qing enhanced the shift of social responses, which meant that in the two periods, extreme disasters (in particular drought) more and more played the role of accelerator or even the trigger of social crisis, mainly embodied in the increasing occurrence of famine and popular unrest. In 1780–1911 (the late Qing), cannibalism occurred for 163 county-times (1.23 per year), whereas it was only 51 in 1645–1779 (0.38); in the 85 years of the late Ming (1560–1644), cannibalism occurred for 563 county-times (6.62), much more frequently than in 1470–1559 (3.76; Figure 2e). A similar characteristic could be found in the frequency series of popular unrest: in the 1470s–1550s, 1560s–1640s, 1650s–1770s and 1780–1911, popular unrest broke out 15 (0.17 per year), 74 (0.82), 9 (0.07) and 30 (0.23) times, respectively (Figure 2f).

Another similarity was that an extreme drought was much more likely to be a trigger of social crisis than a flood. The Pearson correlation coefficient between the annual drought index and frequency of cannibalism in 1470–1911 was 0.499 (significance level 0.000), while the flood index was −0.124 (significance level 0.009). There were 28 years of severe famine when cannibalism occurred in more than 10 counties, of which 21 were under the background of extreme drought; furthermore, there were 12 of 13 years when cannibalism occurred in more than 20 counties. The majority of large-scale peasant uprisings and the peaks of the frequency series of popular unrest occurred under the background of extreme drought, such as the Liu Liu and Liu Qi uprising in 1510, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong uprising at the end of the Ming dynasty (1628–1644), Tianli Religion uprising in 1813, Bagua Religion uprising in 1861, Boxer Movement in 1899–1900, and so on.

In most of North China, a semi-arid and semi-humid continental monsoon climate is the dominant type. The annual precipitation is approximately 400–900 mm, which is not abundant for agricultural production; furthermore, because of the high variability of the East Asian monsoon system, the seasonal and annual distribution of precipitation is uneven. Thus, the precipitation became the primary climatic limiting factor for agricultural production in ancient China when the irrigation system was not advanced. Especially when drought lasted for more than 1 year, widespread crop failure would be unavoidable and caused severe famine. By contrast, the disaster-affected area by a flood was smaller (mostly concentrated in the downstream regions of river basin) and the duration shorter (mostly in summer and autumn) than a drought; thus, the threat of flood to agricultural production was less serious. Therefore, social crisis was more frequently triggered by extreme drought.

Differences between the late Ming and Qing dynasties

In addition to the similarities, the differences of climatic impacts and social responses between the late Ming and Qing dynasties were significant as well, as summarized below.

Famine could be reflected by the frequency of cannibalism; in 1560–1644, cannibalism occurred for 6.62 county-times per year in North China, and in almost every extreme drought year or the next year (1560, 1586, 1587, 1615 and 1638–1641, except for 1609), there was a severe famine (cannibalism occurred for more than 10 county-times; Figure 2d and e). Meanwhile, in 1780–1911, the frequency of cannibalism was much less (1.23 county-times per year), and the famine caused by extreme disasters was less severe. For example, there were 9 years of extreme drought during 1560–1644 (average drought index was 13.9) and 6 years (13.3) during 1780–1911. In these years and the following years, there were 440 (48.9 on average) and 123 (20.5) county-times of cannibalism occurring, respectively. Given similar intensity of disaster (average drought index), famine was more severe (more frequent cannibalism after an extreme drought) in the late Ming, which meant that the civilian livelihood was more vulnerable in the late Ming.

Interregional migration was an important responsive measure to climate change and extreme disasters in North China throughout the Qing dynasty (Xiao et al., 2013, 2014; Ye et al., 2012). According to the frequency series of newly set up administrative units (Figure 2f), there were several periods of concentrated emigration in the Qing dynasty: the late 17th century, mid-18th century, turn of the 19th century and the 1860s–1900s. The largest interregional migration occurred in the last period. The most important destination of emigrants was central and eastern Inner Mongolia and the three provinces of Northeast China located to the north of the Great Wall based on the density of new administrative units in and around North China (Figure 1). While in the Ming dynasty, emigration was mainly concentrated in the late 15th century, and the most important destination was the Qinling-Daba Mountains located southwest of North China. Since the late 16th century, although extreme disasters occurred more frequently, there were no new administrative units established, indicating no more uncultivated land for refugee settlement.

It is embodied in the popular unrest in the end of Ming dynasty represented by Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong uprising, which first broke out in Shaanxi province in 1628 under the background of local drought. The uprising then extended to most of the northern and central provinces in 1634–1635 associated with the expansion of the stricken area of drought and to most parts of China in 1640–1641, when the drought reached its climax. This peasant uprising finally overthrew the Ming dynasty in 1644 (Twitchett and Fairbank, 1998). While in the late Qing, although large-scale peasant uprisings broke out several times in North China, in particular the Nian Army uprising which broke out in the 1850s and once involved all five provinces of North China, no one uprising completely destroyed the social order (Figure 2g).

Taking the most severe droughts in the late Ming and late Qing dynasties as examples, the different climatic impacts and social responses were further compared. The former one was called the ‘Chongzhen Mega-drought’ (Chongzhen was the last emperor of the Ming dynasty, whose reign was 1628–1644) in Chinese history with its peak in 1638–1641, and the latter was the ‘Guangxu Mega-drought’ (Guangxu Emperor’s reign was 1875–1908) with its peak in 1876–1878. Both disasters had caused terrible famines and great loss of population. In 1640 and 1641, cannibalism occurred for 181 and 102 county-times, respectively, in North China, which was the peak of the whole series (Figure 2e). In the end, only approximately 42 million people survived in North China in 1644 after a net decline of 20 million, approximately 32% of the total 1630 population (Cao, 2000). The population decline was mostly because of deaths from famine, plague and war. In 1877 and 1878, cannibalism occurred for 49 and 31 county-times, respectively, in North China, which was the peak of the Qing dynasty. Approximately 15.6% of the total population (22.9 million) was lost in this disaster (Cao, 2001), much of which was contributed by emigration, besides death from famine. It was estimated that more than 3 million refugees emigrated from Shandong province only (He, 1980). In 1876–1882, unprecedentedly, 16 new administrative units were established in the surrounding area of North China (mainly in Northeast China). It could be regarded as the policy response of migration flow caused by the Guangxu Mega-drought. As mentioned above, the Chongzhen Mega-drought directly triggered the peasant uprising and significantly promoted its development, while in the Guangxu Mega-drought, there was only a small amount of popular unrest breaking out and not a single organized peasant uprising (Li and Chen, 2003; Xiao et al., 2012).

Governmental efforts on disaster relief

Governmental efforts on disaster relief in the Qing dynasty should receive the highest evaluation in all the Chinese historical dynasties (Li, 1995b). Among the various relief measures, direct distribution of relief food was the most effective one. The Qing government had established an integrated organization and strict rules and regulations for relief food dispatch, which played an important role in many extreme disasters in North China in the 18th century (Will, 1990). For example, in the drought of 1743 in Hebei, Shandong and Henan provinces, the governmental relief activities were maintained for 8 months, and 2.36 million dan of grain ² was directly distributed to more than 2 million victims. Both the scale and efficiency of the disaster relief activities were unprecedented in Chinese history (Will, 1990; Xiao et al., 2012).

In the late Qing, although the intensity of disaster relief sharply had decreased since the 1780s because of fiscal crisis, the central government was still trying to dispatch relief food for stricken areas. For example, in the Guangxu Mega-drought, 0.38 million dan of grain was transported to the worst-hit area, Shanxi province; the North China Plain, which was closer to the political centre, received approximately 3.60 million dan of grain in the 1870s–1890s at the peak stage of extreme disasters in the late Qing (Xiao et al., 2012, 2014).

By contrast, the governmental efforts on disaster relief in the late Ming were far less. The relief food was mainly from the Reserve Granaries (Yubei Cang) set up in every county in the Ming dynasty; however, the granary system had declined in the Jiajing emperor’s reign (1522–1566) and no longer played a significant role in disaster relief activities since the late 16th century (Zhou, 2007). Tax reduction, another important measure of disaster relief, also gradually lost its functions since the end of the 16th century. According to the historical records kept in Ming Shilu (Annals of the Ming Dynasty), there were 239 times of famine forwarded to the court, 115 of which received tax reduction in 1573–1599, while for the 200 times in 1600–1620, only 40 received tax reduction (Zhang, 1999). The governmental capacity of disaster relief continued to decrease in the early 17th century, and as a result, facing the unprecedentedly severe drought in the end of the Ming dynasty, the governmental disaster relief activities was almost negligible. Even worse, under military pressure from the peasant uprising and nomadic invasion, the government upgraded the tax ratio thrice in 1618–1620, 1673 and 1639, which made the total tax burden several times more than before and thus further exacerbated the negative impacts of disasters on society (Gu, 1984).

Resettlement of interregional migrants

Interregional migration was an important measure to ease the pressure of disaster relief in North China during the Qing dynasty, which was the most significant feature different from the social responsive mechanisms in the Ming dynasty. No matter the continuity and scale of migration activities or the major destinations of migrants, there were great differences between the two dynasties, which were mainly decided by the different geopolitical environment on the northern border.

The Ming dynasty was established after the Mongolian Yuan dynasty. The war against the Mongols on the northern border was a major theme of the Ming history (Figure 2h). Although the Ming army once had an advantage in the early times, the battle line stabilized over the next 200 years, which was embodied by the Great Wall. In Northeast China, the territory of actual control by the Ming was not more than eastern Liaoning province. Therefore, the refugees from North China could not migrate to the north and northeast, and the only destination was the mountainous area to the west and south of North China, where the population capacity was very limited.

The climate deterioration in late Ming dynasty (cooling, aridification) directly destroyed the agricultural production of the military farms on the northern frontier, which provided food supplies to the northern frontier troops, and caused severe food crisis reflected by the sharp increase in grain price (Quan, 2011b). The military expenditures on the northern frontier accordingly increased since the 1570s and further exacerbated the fiscal deterioration in the late Ming (Quan, 2011a). Meanwhile, for transporting grain to the northern frontier, the tax and labour burden of peasants in North China became much heavier. In this period, the military pressure of nomadic invasion also began to increase as climate deterioration aggravated (Figure 2h). Especially at the turn of the 17th century, the Manchu (Jurchen) rose in Northeast China and destroyed the main force of the Ming army in several decisive battles, which became another direct force of the collapse of the Ming dynasty.

The rulers of the Qing dynasty were the Manchus. Since the beginning of the dynasty, the vast territory of Northeast China had been under their effective administration. The national policy of alliance with the Mongols kept the northern border at peace as a whole. Except for the wars against the Junggar tribe of Mongol which mostly occurred in Northwest China in the early times of the Qing (Figure 2h), the regional society of North China was no longer under the military pressure from the north. On the contrary, the vast uncultivated land outside the Great Wall became the ideal destination of the destitute and homeless refugees from North China in and after a severe flood or drought. Although the quarantine policy for Manchuria and Mongolia had not been officially abolished until the late 19th century, it was not strictly implemented for many years especially under the background of extreme disasters (Xiao et al., 2013; Ye et al., 2012). Thus, interregional migration from North China to Manchuria and Mongolia ran throughout the whole Qing dynasty and reached its climax in the late Qing dynasty. Under the driving forces of population, famine and war, millions of refugees moved north of the Great Wall, especially Northeast China (Zhao, 2004). Thereby, in North China during the late Qing, there was not a large-scale peasant uprising that could completely destroy the social order, as in the late Ming, although the social system in this period was under a social background of domestic unrest and foreign invasion and a natural background of severe climate deterioration.