World History: The Little Ice Age

Peter Breughel the Elder's Hunters in the Snow

When we think about history we often forget about the climate and environment, but it has been incredibly influential in shaping human history. The last time we looked properly at the climate as a part of World History it was our very first post describing the evolution of humanity; there changing global climate caused grasslands to encroach on forests and forced our ancestors to walk upright, (please see here). Climate has never stopped affecting human history and today I want to focus specifically on a period of climate history named the Little Ice Age, something which lasted from the mid-fifteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century. First coined by Francois E. Matthes in 1939 historians now have taken note of the significance of the Little Ice Age and its impact on our history.

How do we know it happened?

Changing Global Temperature

Quite often historians have been criticized for making statements with the idea 'we weren't there so we can't be certain.' Although at times this is a valid criticism but for the Little Ice Age we do have evidence that it took place. Climatologists and meteorologists have used ice-cores and dendrochronology (looking at tree rings) which show us that from around 1300 the world's climate got much colder, reaching a peak in the seventeenth century, and then getting warmer in the 1800s. Geoffrey Parker in his article Crisis and Catastrophe has shown through a series of graphs how fewer sunspots were seen, temperatures were lower, and increased volcanic activity happened during this time period. Not only that, we have cultural evidence that global temperatures dropped during this time period. Pictured at the top of this post if Peter Breughel the Elder's Hunters in the Snow painted in 1565 depicting hunters walking through thick snow as people ice skate on a frozen ponds. A painting by Abraham Hondius in 1676 depicted hunters chasing a fox on the frozen Thames, and until the mid-nineteenth century carnivals on the frozen Thames were a regular occurrence. We have written records also of severe climate and weather conditions. In 1641 Enomoto Yazaemon wrote that on New Year's Day 'ice lay in the fields one foot deep. From that time, I observed seven snowfalls until the spring.' Chronicler Benedikt Kuen in the 1680s wrote about the glacier Vernagtferner moving south from the Alps:

in 1600. so our ancestors tell us, the big glacier behind Rofen after it had come into the valley according to its habit, broke out on the feast of St James [25 July], did great damage to the fields in the Ezthal, spoilt the roads and streets and carried away all the bridges. In the parish of Langenfeld the water flooded the ground from Rethlstain to Lener Kohlstatt.

In the 1640s governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony noted in his journal: 

The frost was so great and continual this winter that all the Bay was frozen over, so much and so long, as the like, by the Indians' relation, had not been so these forty years ... To the southward also the frost was as great and the snow as deep, and at Virginia itself the great [Chesapeake] bay was much of it frozen over, and all of their great rivers.

Volcanic eruptions, independent of global climate, added to global cooling periodically. 1816 was described by contemporaries as 'The Year Without a Summer' following the eruption of Mt. Tambora the year prior. We can even use wine harvests to provide evidence for the Little Ice Age; before 1469 wine was actually cultivated in England which ended through colder temperatures.

A Thames Frost Fair

How It was Explained

Today we know that the adverse climate was due to the Little Ice Age, but we have the benefit of hindsight and decades of scientific research on climate. Contemporaries did not have that benefit so looked at ways which they understood the world to explain the floods, hail, and storms. We'll look at two areas of the world and how they understood the causes: Europe and China.

We'll discuss China first. Throughout World History when we've discussed China one phrase has repeatedly cropped up, 'the Mandate of Heaven.' For those who are new to the term the Mandate of Heaven was the idea that the ruling dynasty only ruled thanks to a mandate directly from Heaven. However, if the ruling dynasty was seen as being corrupt or decadent, abusing its citizens, or just generally inept it was believed that the mandate would leave the ruling dynasty. Any new dynasty which ousted the old one could now claim that they have the Mandate of Heaven. Since the fourteenth century the Ming had ruled China and by the seventeenth century Chinese society had changed. Years of relative peace and prosperity had caused a population boom in the countryside putting pressure on the land, a thriving domestic (and a smaller external) trade had caused merchants to become wealthier than farmers, and inflation was rapidly rising through the importation of silver from the Americas and Japan. The floods, hail, storms, and cooler temperatures brought on by the Little Ice Age led to crop failures compounding the issue, and nothing causes a revolt quicker than starving people. To contemporaries it was clear that the Mandate of Heaven had left the Ming and they pointed to the weather as a sign of it. The violent weather was seen as a sign that the Ming were no longer protected by Heaven, and that this was a sign that the Ming should be replaced. In 1644 the Ming were overthrown and their successors, the Shun, were overthrown shortly after by the new Qing Dynasty.

A depiction of a witch burning from England in the 1640s

Europe did not point to their rulers as the cause of bad weather, hail and red suns but instead turned to the Bible. Wolfgang Behringer has linked the Little Ice Age to the spike in witch hunts. From 1560 to 1600 somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 people were accused of witchcraft where 40,000 to 60,000 were executed. Before Pope Innocence VIII released his papal bull Summis desiderantus affectibus on 5 December 1484 the Church did not link witchcraft to the weather, and Innocence only did this at the request of Dominican friar Heinrich Kramer. Often the sins of the populace were blamed for the weather but smaller political entities were more susceptible to the idea of witches. A very severe thunderstorm hit central Europe on 3 August 1562 during a time of meteorological events which people in the Barony of Illeraichen blamed on witches which forced Count Hans von Rechberg to imprison several women who confessed to witchcraft under torture. Between 1562 and 1565 in Wiesensteig there was an attempt to eradicate 'the evil' in society where 63 women were burnt as witches. A chronicler in the Franconian town of Zeil in 1626 wrote:

Everything froze, something which had not happened as long as one could remember, causing a big rise in prices. […] As a result, pleading and begging began among the rabble, who questioned why the authorities continued to tolerate the witches. […] Thus the prince-bishop punished these crimes

Accusations were heavily gendered. Between 75 and 85 per cent of those accused were women, but in Northern Europe more men were accused than women. However, there were pushbacks against the idea of witches causing the bad weather. As mentioned many in the Church blamed the sins of the people and at times ridiculed the idea of witches. The idea of familiars was mocked with some clergy commenting if Satan really wanted to cause damage; wouldn't he become a dragon instead of a cat? Humanists looked to secular reasons and centers of secularization like Nuremburg and the Swiss and Italian-republics, despite ruling lots of rural land, saw little to no witch burnings. Scholar Albrecht Durer produced woodcuts presenting the subject as a way for people to portray beautiful women naked. Across Europe reaction to the Little Ice Age varied.

The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century

Historians Eric Hobsbawm and Hugh Trevor-Roper argued in the 1950s that the 1600s saw a 'Crisis' where the world was plunged into increased violence. Hobsbawm, a primarily European historian, argued this crisis was part of Europe's transition from feudalism to capitalism, whereas Trevor-Roper linked this to a political crisis where the modern political state started to emerge. The 1600s were a violent time in history: over a million took part in revolts in China, peasant revolts swept over Switzerland and Germany, rebellions hit Russia in 1648 and 1649, a series of revolts in Brazil, the overthrow of the Kongo Kingdom, the brutal collapse of the Ming, the Mughal Civil War, a spike in the amount of people made slaves for the Atlantic Slave Trade, the Fronde in France, a succession war in the Ottoman Empire, the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in the British Isles, and the Thirty Years' War are just some of the violence to strike the world. Geoffrey Parker reopened the debate but spoke of a global crisis, not just a European one. He went on to link this to the Little Ice Age. Although the Little Ice Age did not cause these conflicts and bouts of violence it helped contribute to them. Using the example of China the collapse of the Ming was down to poor harvests and other factors, and the Manchus who succeeded them, (excluding the brief Shun Dynasty), moved south to China as they believed that China would have better harvests than Manchuria. Parker himself can sum this idea best:

How, precisely, can historians link the harsh winters, cool summers, droughts, and floods of the 1640s […] with individual cases of state breakdown such as the revolts of Scotland, Ireland and England against Charles I, or the collapse of Ming rule in China? We must not paint bull’s-eyes around bullet holes and argue that since climatic aberrations seem to be the only factor capable of causing simultaneous upheavals around the globe, therefore those aberrations “must” have caused the upheavals.

Depiction of the Thirty Years' War

The Little Ice Age amplified causes for war and violence throughout the world. A two per cent drop in global temperatures can halve a rice harvest, which happened. This would help explain some of the origins of a revolt but not all of them. Despite rice or grain harvests becoming smaller taxes on land remained the same and often crops were sent to the cities instead of staying in the countryside. When more crops remained in the countryside riots broke out in cities as the price of food, like bread, rose. Furthermore, the various wars which swept the world added to these issues. Soldiers would pillage the countryside for food helping cause famines, and with less food your immune system is weaker so this helped spread disease. War, disease and famine during the Thirty Years' War caused a population decline of up to 40 per cent in the German states and in China the word binghuo (soldier calamity) was coined to describe the pillaging of the country by soldiers. 

Image of the Fronde

Before we conclude I just want to talk about the demographic shift thanks to the Little Ice Age. When people were tired of war, persecution and famine they moved. The 1600s saw the largest surge of colonists to the Americas and, unfortunately with it, slaves from Africa as well. A Chinese diaspora also began in the early 1600s with many settling in areas like Malaysia and the Philippines which would open up these areas for migration in the 1800s. At times when food was in short supply through bad harvests family sizes decreased and in some areas, like northern Europe, they largely remained small. We can see as well the difference in wealth as well. A general trend in Europe was that wealthy families, who could afford food, had larger families whereas less wealthy families had smaller families. There also began a trend of marrying later, and in Renaissance Europe quite often widows did not remarry. However, there were darker sides to this. In the 1680s the Qing passed a decree to prevent widow suicides indicating that it must have been an endemic problem and several European states, like France, passed strict laws against infanticide. Children who died under the age of five were sometimes checked to make sure they died naturally and were not murdered. 

Conclusion

New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina

The Little Ice Age offers a prime example for us to learn from history. As I am writing we are faced with dramatic climate change caused by global warming. During the last hurricane season the United States was hit by several destructive hurricanes - Harvey, Irma and Maria to name just three - most likely as a result of climate change. Alongside these hurricanes we had intense wild fires in California and floods in Chad, India, Nepal and Nigeria. Geoffrey Parker put forward the Little Ice Age as one of the causes of the Crisis of the Seventeenth Century a few years after Hurricane Katrina and was deeply influenced by this. It is widely believed that the reason why the Little Ice Age ended was because of the Industrial Revolution which poured carbon dioxide in unprecedented numbers into the atmosphere causing global temperatures to rise. By looking at how the Little Ice Age affected communities of the past we can find ways to cope with the climate issues which we face today.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Geoffrey Parker, 'Crisis and Catastrophe: The Global Crisis of the Seventeenth Century Reconsidered,' The American Historical Review, 113:4, (2008), pp. 1053-1079

-Wolfgang Behringer, 'Climate Change and Witch-Hunting: The Impact of the Little Ice Age on Mentalities,' Climate Change, 43:1, (1999), pp. 335-351

-Crash Course World History: The Little Ice Age

-Brian Fagan, The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300-1850, (New York: Basic Books, 2000)

-Tom Bristow and Thomas H. Ford, (eds.), A Cultural History of Climate Change, (New York: Routledge, 2016)
-Wolfgang Behringer, A Cultural History of Climate, (London: Wiley, 2009)

-Jean M. Grove, The Little Ice Age, (London: Methuen, 1988)

Thank you for reading. Next time we'll be looking at one of the most significant events in European history which saw its 500th anniversary this October: the Reformation. For future blog updates we have a Facebook or you can get me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

For other World History posts we have a collection of them here. 

World History: The Ming

The Forbidden City

The Ming dynasty which ruled China from 1368 until 1644, and is probably the most famous of all Chinese dynasties. Most of what we have come to associate with pre-communist China comes from the Ming dynasty. What makes the Ming so significant in Chinese history? The Ming ousted the Mongol Yuan dynasty which World History readers may remember as being founded by the famous Mongol Empire. Before we look at the Ming in specific we have to first look at how the Ming managed to oust the Mongols from China.

Yuan to Ming

As always there was not one reason for the collapse of the Yuan dynasty. People who study history will know how important strong rulers are in preserving their rule. After the death of Kublai Khan (the grandson of Genghis Khan) in 1294 the Yuan dynasty lacked any particularly strong leaders. Palace intrigues, corruption and inept rule made it difficult for many Chinese bureaucrats to serve the Mongols. It is also important to understand the significance that the Yuan were also foreigners (Mongols) ruling over ethnic Han Chinese. The Yuan favored Mongols, particularly after the death of Kublai Khan, over the Han which alienated many which grew worse and worse as corruption skyrocketed. A series of famines hit China during the early fourteenth-century and outbreaks of the bubonic plague further added to the Yuan's problems. Those who know Chinese history will know the importance of the Mandate of Heaven. For those who don't the Mandate of Heaven is a system where a ruling dynasty is believed to rule with a mandate from heaven itself. Of course this is not entirely unique to China; Europe had the 'Divine right to Rule' for example. However, in China the Mandate of Heaven was also seen as being revoked if the dynasty was seen as being inept, corrupt, or going against the social order. Famines, natural disasters, plague, foreign invasion and rebellions were seen as evidence that the mandate had been revoked. The end of the Yuan dynasty had many of these. The White Lotus Society was one example of an anti-Yuan group alongside the Red Turban movement. In order to defeat the Red Turbans in the 1350s the emperor, Toghun Temur, relied increasingly on local warlords to fight them through fear that the army might turn on him. 

In southern China a peasant who had become a Buddhist monk called Zhu Yuanzhang rose to prominence. In 1352 his monastery had been burnt down so he joined a rebel group in Haozhou where a Red Turban commander, Guo Zixing, spotted him. He rose through the ranks to become a commander in his own branch of the Red Turbans in 1360 which he called 'Ming' after he had captured the Yuan stronghold of Nanjing in 1356. By 1367 Zhu had pushed the Yuan past the Yangtze River and brought most of the warlords under his rule, (mostly by force). Thanks to this in January 1368 Zhu declared a new dynasty called the Ming and adopted 'Hongwu' (vastly martial) as his era name. Later that year the Ming captured the Yuan capital of Khanbaliq which they renamed Beijing. It would take until 1381, however, before the Ming could finally capture the last of the Yuan strongholds. The Ming victory is significant though. It was the first time in centuries that China was unified under a Han Chinese dynasty. Over the last few hundred years China had either been ruled by non-Han Chinese or had been divided. 

Ming Rule and Governance

The Hongwu Emperor

The Ming dynasty claimed to restore the governance of old Han dynasties such as the Song or the Han. However, they kept many of the systems of governance from the Yuan in place. The Yuan had retained the Song office of Chung-shu sheng which acted like a prime minister and the Hongwu emperor initially retained this position. In 1380 he decided that the position was too powerful, 'tantamount to a usurpation' according to Albert Chan, and abolished it saying 'In the future if any of my subjects dares to suggest the restoration of a prime minister, let him be punished and cut into pieces, and let his whole family also be put to death'. I should also mention that as the Hongwu emperor was the founder of the dynasty he was very paranoid about a coup or rebellion. The Six Boards which organized China (Civil Office, Revenue, War, Works, Punishments, and Rites), became subordinate to the emperor rather than the Cheng-shu sheng or other major ministers. In theory the emperor exercised complete control over China but in reality this is in an impossibility. Hongwu had to back down and create an office called the Nei-ko, Grand Secretariat, which supplied secretaries for the emperor. It was not seen as being very exalted with the Six Boards being seen as higher. The Ming also divided China into thirteen provinces, (Shantung, Shansi, Shensi, Honan, Chekiang, Kiangsi, Hukang, Szechuan, Fukien, Kuangtung, Kuangsi, Yunnan, and Kueichow). Hongwu also resurrected the Chi-shih-chung which had a various amount of roles including: advising the emperor, inspect memorials sent by officials to the throne, correct memorials, serve as librarians of the archives, examining the morals and talents of officials, and censoring books. As you can see Ming governance rested entirely on the emperor with officials working to implement the will of the emperor. How were officials chosen?

To become an official you had to obtain the jinshi which was a degree. These degrees had originated with the Qin dynasty and had evolved over time changing slightly with each dynasty. The Imperial Examinations under the Ming introduced the 'Essay' or 'Eight Legs' where the student had to write a very precise essay revolving around Confucianism and classic Chinese texts. Strangely the writer could not express any opinion of his own (only men could take the exams) and had to perfectly recite classic texts and Confucius. No new interpretations were allowed. Writing in 1914 Li Ung Bing described it as 'a form of evil which has eaten into the very heart of the nation'. This system lasted until 1905! It is quite telling that Confucian and classic Han texts were expected to be known off by heart and tells us of the obsession with the old Yuan dynasty. Rule by the Mongols made the Ming obsessed with removing old Mongol rule in any way. Anyone in theory could take the exams and during early Ming rule only 14% of students from established families. Of course in practice it was largely metropolitan wealthy families which took part. However, as the years went along and a middle class started to emerge you had to pay to get a jinshi degree which meant that only the wealthiest could hold a jinshi, and therefore a place in the palace. By the Ming's collapse in 1644 60% of degree holders came from families with a long history in holding office. Also cheating became endemic with robes that had entire excerpts written in the sleeves being worn for the exam.

An example of how cheating was done: a mini-book

Ming Society

Ming Social Structure in art

When Hongwu came to power in 1368 he promised to restore Confucianism to China which had been seen as going into decline during the Yuan. Often he said he restoring the social order of the Han (seen as being the dynasty to emulate by all other dynasties). The Ming wished to implement a strict Confucian social structure. This was not limited to China. Europe had a rigid Estates system to rule society and India had the caste system to name two examples. At the top we had the emperor and royal family, then the scholars, then the gentry, then the peasants, then the artisans, and at the bottom the merchants. The scholars represented the top 1% of society and the written sources we have from Chinese society are written by scholars. Peasants were seen as better than artisans as they were seen as the backbone of society. Until recent years China has been largely rural so peasants were seen as being very important. Zhu Yuanzhang and later Mao Zedong had heavily relied on the peasantry to establish their rule. Merchants, in contrast, were seen as parasites. Highly mobile and not creating anything especially the literati saw them as leeching off of the hard work of others. Paradoxically by the end of the Ming the merchants had started to become far wealthier than other members of society. Women, however, were oppressed. The wife was expected to remain loyal to the husband and the daughter to the father. As always peasant women gained more freedom as all sections of society were required to help on the land. Wealthy women could also have the chance to become literate with Empress Xu managing to write several books. However, literacy never exceeded 1% of the female population.

Religion was important under the Ming. Being a former monk the Honwu emperor tried to revive native Chinese Buddhist sects over Lamaist Buddhism favored by the Yuan. Taoism, or Daoism, was held in equal high regard by the Ming, and the paranoid Hongwu tried to control both. He wrote a commentary on the Tao-te ching in order to guide Taoists. In later years emperors would favor their own religion more, but they would not overly oppress the other religion. The Buddhist Chenghua emperor was a devote believer in both building hundreds of temples where a hundred thousand monks were ordained in 1476 and two hundred thousand in 1486 (although this may be an exaggeration as Chinese sources sometimes embellish statistics). The later Longqing emperor (1521-1567) was a devote Taoist and was so obsessed that he considered abdicating to devote his entire life to his religion. As he was also promised immortality he let his obsession deplete the treasury and in the end it cost him his own life.

The Ming Voyages

The route of the Voyages

In 1405 a fleet of 27,000 people under the command of the eunuch Zheng He set out on the first of seven voyages from Nanjing. The famous Ming voyages represented everything which the Ming stood for in regards to foreign policy. The Ming used a system called the tribute system, inherited from past dynasties, where it viewed China as being the most powerful state in the world (which it basically was) so other states had to give tribute to China. A big reason for the voyages was to project Chinese power. Despite carrying 30,000 soldiers on the first voyage they never conquered, (instead the Ming chose to fight the Mongols and the state of Annam in norther Vietnam), and they went on established trading routes on the Indian Ocean. Instead they carried goods and soldiers to show just how powerful China was. The Ming were not willing to emulate the Yuan's disastrous attempts to conquer Japan and Indonesia. It was also done to prop up the Yongle emperor. In 1402 he had came to power via a coup. These voyages were to be used to show his own power and as he had used eunuchs to come to power he used the eunuch Zheng He to lead his fleet. Zheng He was a Muslim whose father had been an adviser to the Yuan dynasty. Captured at age ten he was made a eunuch and became close to who would become the Yongle emperor. 

The fleet was the largest to sail until the First World War, and it turns out the sources have not been embellished. In the 1960s outside Nanjing the shipyards were discovered confirming the size of the ships. The first voyage was to the Gulf stopping off at Java, Sumatra and Calicut. In Sumatra they overthrew a 'pirate' prince. Zheng He was expected to oust rulers who would not pay tribute to China and they often did so. During the third voyage they captured a king on Sri Lanka and on the fourth they became involved in a civil war on Sumatra. A novel written about the voyages often had parts stating that they came into conflict with other peoples. The fifth is most famous with Zheng He reaching Aden, Mogadishu and Milindi where he brought a giraffe back to China. This was very important as the giraffe was seen to resemble a qilin (often called the 'Chinese unicorn') and a qilin was said to only appear during the rule of a righteous ruler. This gave Yongle his legitimacy. The last voyage arrived back in China in 1433. Julia Lovell has given two reasons why. One is that it was a political move. The voyages were done by Yongle to prop himself up which it had done. When he died his successors had no need to continue them, and the bureaucracy did not like the voyages. One source claimed that one fleet cost half the tax revenue (most likely an embellishment though). A scholar even burnt most of Zheng He's records seeing them as useless. A second reason why they ended was because they served their purpose. Stories had spread of China's power and Zheng He had brought riches back for Yongle to distribute among the elite. No one doubted his legitimacy. The legacy of the voyages are present today. In recent years China has invested heavily in Africa and have pointed towards Zheng He's non-colonial trade as a way to justify their presence in the continent.

The giraffe

Economy and Europe

A Ming vase

As we saw with the voyages international trade with the Ming was one sided. Instead the Ming had an internal trade which shattered their Confucian world system. Some have argued that under the Ming we see an emergence of a 'semicapitalist' economy. Prosperity under the early Ming allowed landlords to become absentee landlords. Landlords could afford to move closer to cities and generations were born accumulating wealth from renting land which they could invest in craft industries and commerce. These benefited artisans who produced more. Eventually we see an emergence of a quasi 'middle class' (although it is inaccurate to directly call them that) wanting luxury goods. Here the merchants came it benefiting from the investment in technologies. The printing press had been invented under the Song but under the Ming commercial printing exploded. Using xylography (woodblock printing) books became cheaper although they were still confined to the elite. Literacy never exceeded 10% of the population. Porcelain also became popular becoming the characteristic design which we know today. This elite culture allowed artisans and merchants to become wealthier than peasants which divided society. The scholar Lu Ji argued this was good as wealth would then trickle down whereas Zhang Han argued it was destabilizing society. Here Europe came onto the scene.

Europeans had known of China for many years. After all Marco Polo was supposed to have been to the court of the Yuan, although this is debatable. In the sixteenth-century Europeans had started to visit China and Asia. In 1557 the Ming leased Macau to Portugal and in 1571 Spain established itself in Manila. Gold and silver from the Americas flowed to China via Manila greatly entrenching China in a global economy. When China switched its currency to silver its worth doubled worldwide. Similarly, Europe valued what China had to offer. In 1608 Europe, through the Dutch East Indian Company, obtained 62,300 pieces of ceramics from China! Chinese ceramics and porcelain was in very high demand. We call our ceramics china today because of the value of Ming ceramics. Also China held more power at this moment in time. Views on Chinese/Western relations today are shaped by either the Opium Wars or current Chinese/Western relations. Under the Ming China viewed the west as another tribute being interested in luxury goods like clocks or metals like silver. If you look at images of Jesuit missionaries at this time they dress in Chinese clothing to honor their hosts. The Ming did value European knowledge. Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci was the first European to be invited to the Forbidden City in 1601 where he was asked by the Wanli emperor to teach his scholars European astronomy and calendar sciences. He even translated Euclid's Elements into Chinese. Europe became obsessed by China and a copy of Romance of the Three Kingdoms (one of China's most greatest novels) was sent to the library in Madrid. By the time of the French Revolution European philosophes were praising China and what it had to offer.

The Kunyu Wanguo Quantu. A world map made by Chinese scholars and Matteo Ricci

Collapse

In 1644 the Ming collapsed. Why did it though? There are many reasons for the collapse of the Ming dynasty. China's population had boomed under the Ming putting pressure on land. This was made worse by something called the Little Ice Age (a topic for a future World History post). The Little Ice Age was a period of global cooling lasting from possibly the 1500s until the mid-1800s when carbon emissions from the Industrial Revolution warmed up global temperatures (and have continued to do so since). Colder temperatures destroyed crops as well as causing intense storms which in turn caused flooding. Naturally when people are starving they revolt. This became clear to many that the Mandate of Heaven had left the Ming. These issues were compounded by the fact that the government had been weakened by a series of weak emperors, court factionalism, corruption as people were buying their jinshi degrees, and eunuchs greatly influencing emperors, including Wei Zhongxian who ruled over the Tianqi emperor. Social tensions were rising thanks to the increased wealth of merchants and artisans. To make matters worse the economy was flailing thanks to Japan. Influx of silver from Japan (and America) had wrecked the economy and to make things worse Japanese pirates had been raiding coastal cities. Those that China hired to protect against Japanese pirates also became pirates and began raiding more cities. Japan had by then been reunified and the ruler of Japan, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, wanted to fulfill his predecessor's dream of conquering China. His intention was to go through Korea and into China. However, Korea was allied to China and was seen as the perfect tribute by China. Korea refused to give Japan access so Hideyoshi decided to invade Korea in 1592. China came to Korea's aid and together they pushed back Japan. However doing so destroyed the Chinese economy. Then came an enemy from the north: the Manchus.

Originally called Jurchens the Manchus came from Manchuria in modern day northern China. Under Nurhaci, who declared himself the founding emperor of a new dynasty in 1616, the Jurchen started to attack the Ming. In 1625 he built an imperial capital at Shenyang (modern Mukden) in lower Manchuria where in 1636 his son, Hung Taiji, started challenging the Ming for the Mandate. As the Manchus, (after 1635 they referred to themselves as Manchus over Jurchen), started invading several rebels started rising up against the Ming. One of the famous was a general called Li Zicheng. At Xi'an in 1644 Li declared that he now had the Mandate and founded the Da Shun dynasty. In April he captured Beijing where the last Ming emperor, Chongzhen, hung himself from a tree in the Forbidden City. Li Zicheng's dynasty was short lived. His soldiers weren't paid so they rioted and sacked Beijing. Meanwhile the invading Manchus said they would restore the Ming and many leading Ming generals allied themselves with the Manchus; it is fairly possible that they knew that the Manchus would not restore the Ming. The Manchus defeated Li Zicheng and declared that they now had the Mandate. In the same year as the overthrowing of the Ming the Manchus declared a start of the Qing dynasty. In 1662 the last Ming claimant was killed. 

Conclusion

The Ming dynasty shows an interesting aspect of Chinese history. The Ming were obsessed with distancing themselves from their Mongol predecessor at all costs. Instead they created an image which many associate with pre-republican China today. The Ming changed Chinese society so much that their successors, the Qing, were eager to honor the fallen dynasty. Today China has tried to emulate aspects of the Ming. As mentioned earlier the PRC has tried to link its current investment in Africa to Zheng He's voyage to Africa in the fifteenth-century. In 2009 an expensive TV drama called Zheng He Xia Xiyang was made to commemorate Zheng He. As we shall later see China under the Ming wasn't the only place affected by the Little Ice Age. Thank you for reading and next time we shall look at the so called 'Age of Discovery' where we compare and contrast several maritime explorers (including Zheng He) to see why they explored, what he explored and whether we can truly call it an 'Age of Discovery'.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Outlines of Chinese History by Li Ung Bing

-Imperial China, 900-1800 by F.W. Mote

-The Search for Modern China by Jonathan Spence

-The Glory and Fall of the Ming Dynasty by Albert Chan

-China: A History by John Keay

-'The Ming Voyages', BBC In Our Time

For the full list of the World History posts please see here