Many Chinese dynasties collapse because of the climate

For nearly two millennia, cold weather caused many invasions, civil wars in China and led to the demise of dynasties like Tang and Ming dynasties.

The Forbidden City in Beijing, China.This is the palace of kings from the middle of the Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty.Photo: wordpress.com.

AFP said that the food crisis caused riots in Chinese territory or forced the Mongols to invade the country often occurred in periods where the climate became cold. In contrast, the stability and prosperity of empowered dynasties always takes place in warm climates.

Zhibin Zhang, an expert at the Science Institute in Beijing, directed a group of Chinese and European scientists to review the entire literature regarding the period of more than 1,900 years in Chinese history. . They pay attention to the frequency of wars, rice prices, grasshopper rapes, droughts and floods. For armed conflict, the research team divided into two categories: civil war and foreign invasion.

'The collapse of Han Dynasty (25-220), Tang (618-907), Nam Tong, (960-1125), Bac Tong (1127-1279) and Minh (1368-1644) occurred at the temperature period. very low and the rate of heat reduction is fast , "the team announced.

Famine due to crop failure can weaken these dynasties. In addition, the famine forced the northern tribes - which were more exposed to negative effects of temperature reduction than China - to invade the country.

Experts say that if the annual average temperature drops by 2 degrees Celsius, the growing season of grasses on the steppe in Mongolia will be shortened to 40 days. Because grass is an important food for cattle, the temperature decreases causing them to starve or die. The Mongol tribes that lived by nomadic farming were forced to flood into China to avoid starvation.

Strangely, the number of floods and droughts in cold periods is higher than in hot periods. However, the factors that are easy to cause war and the collapse of the dynasty are the escalation of rice prices and the destruction of grasshoppers' crops. The Roman Empire and Mayan civilization were also in decline during periods of low temperatures.

After 160 or 320 years, China experienced a one-time cold. Zhan and colleagues say this cycle is related to the phenomenon of climate change. But that transformation is entirely caused by nature, not by humans. The culprit causes the temperature to drop low during those periods to be the activity of the sun, the orbit and the tilt of the earth.

The team claims their findings suggest that climate change could lead to social unrest and war.

'Historians often think that the change of the ancient dynasty was the result of class conflicts and the weakness of kings. However, climate change is also an important factor for society. It may collapse dynasties or cultures, and lead to the creation of new institutions, 'the team wrote in Britain's Proceedings of the Royal Society B.