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Climatic Change (2010) 101:565–573 DOI 10.1007/s10584-009-9702-3 Climatic change and dynastic cycles in Chinese history: a review essay Ka-wai Fan Received: 19 September 2008 / Accepted: 26 August 2009 / Published online: 10 October 2009 © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009 Abstract In this article, the author reviews a number of recent publications by scientists and historians. Those publications, drawing on the latest scientific findings about climatic change in ancient China, suggest that the fall of the Tang and Ming dynasties may have been caused by global cooling. But the fall of a dynasty is a hugely complicated event. Lacking an adequate understanding of the relevant historical developments, the scholars under review fail to offer convincing explanations for imperial collapse. However, the author believes that when they are properly combined science and historical evidence can provide answers to important questions that history alone could not explain. 1 Introduction It has become impossible to escape the subject of global warming. Scientists are working hard to produce a thorough picture of the influence of climatic changes on the future of human society. Some scientists and historians have even begun to evaluate the influence of climate on the human past. The effects of climatic changes on human history have all too often been overlooked by historians. Scholars generally share the view that climate variation lies within the scope of scientific investigation and has little to do with humans. Traditional historians, unconcerned with scientific research, are at a disadvantage when it comes to longitudinal studies of environmental changes and do not often read K.-w. Fan (B) Chinese Civilisation Centre, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chi Avenue, Kowloon Tang, Kowloon, Hong Kong e-mail: [email protected] 566 Climatic Change (2010) 101:565–573 studies about shifts in faunal composition.1 Still, thanks to the increasing popularity of the total history advocated by the Annales School, things have changed a bit, and the need to reconceptualize history (seeing it more broadly through cross-national studies, cross-cultural studies, and long duration studies) has begun to take hold, including greater attention to the role played by climate in human affairs (Harsgor 1978). Annales historians—the most famous are Fernand Braudel, Marc Bloch, and Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie—paid close attention to slowly altering conditions such as geography, demography, and climate. They believed that the continuities and changes in these structures were pivotal to human history. Le Roy Ladurie, in the classic Times of Feast, Times of Famine, used documentary evidence of crop yields, harvest dates, and glacial activities to explore the history of the climate– human relationship over the past millennium (Le Roy Ladurie 1972). In Ecology, Climate and Empire Richard Grove wrote of the growing global environmental crisis, paying careful attention to climate change, pollution, and resource depletion. The seeds of these contemporary problems were sown during the long period of European expansion, an era characterized by economic and ecological imperialism. Besides these academic works, Brain Fagan’s popular works show that short-term climate shifts have been a major but unrecognized force in history (Fagan 1999). Obviously, the effects of both long-term and short-term climatic change are complex. Nevertheless these studies of European history have proved that they must be taken into account in any general history of mankind. Climate history relies on textual sources, but historical archives are by definition incomplete records of the past. In the premodern era, gross changes in weather patterns were the subject of much comment, but subtle climate changes very often passed unnoticed and hence were not properly documented. Until very recently, data recorded continuously throughout a month or year were unheard of. Thanks to climate science, which allows systematic analyses, we are now able not only to record current conditions, but we can look back into the past. Admittedly, scientific data alone cannot explain the effects of climate shifts on history and human beings: they have to be put into appropriate historical contexts in order to give meaningful explanations of historical events. China is a country with a long history, much of which is extremely well documented. The detailed records of weather patterns by Chinese historians provide abundant resources for studying the connections between climate and history.2 While scholars have long recognized the impact on human communities of devastating natural disasters such as floods and hailstorms, very few have conducted in-depth research into the effects of both long-term and short-term climate change on the development of Chinese history. Many scholars have taken on the challenge of explaining dynastic cycles of foundation, consolidation, deceleration, and extinction.3 In 2007 two articles that proposed 1 There are three authoritative works on faunal migration in China: Elvin (2004), Marks (1997), Huanran (1995). 2 To understand why Chinese people have long taken questions about climate seriously, see Hsu (2000). 3 The idea of the “dynastic cycle,” a continuous movement of rising and collapsing, is widely used by Western scholars of China. See, for instance, Reischauer (1983), Yang (1961). Reischauer insists Climatic Change (2010) 101:565–573 567 correlations between climatic changes and dynastic cycles caught the attention of many in the China field. The first, published in Nature in January 2007, was “Influence of the Intertropical Convergence Zone on the East Asian Monsoon,” written by a group of geophysicists led by Gergana Yancheva.4 Working from records of the magnetic properties and the titanium content of the sediments of Lake Huguang Maar, in coastal southeast China, they concluded that changes in summer monsoon cycles and prolonged drought had contributed to the decline of the Tang dynasty. The second article, published in Human Ecology in August 2007, was “Climate Change and War Frequency in Eastern China over the Last Millennium,” by the geographer David D. Zhang and three colleagues (Zhang et al. 2007). In that article and two others the group concluded that temperature cooling could have increased the frequency of conflicts and dynastic rise and fall (Zhang et al. 2005, 2006). These publications were based on quantitative analyses of data collected from the natural environment, and their conclusions emerge from hypothesized correlations between climate, harvests, demographics, and war. Widely reported in mainland Chinese and Hong Kong news outlets, they have come to be regarded as interdisciplinary breakthroughs. But as impressive as the scientific data and methods may be, the authors too often fail to acknowledge the complexity of history and the overwhelming role played by human beings (For example, Barrett 2007). The conclusions may be based on scientific data, but they prove inaccurate because of the faulty appreciation of history. Perhaps the earliest use of climatological materials in a work of history occurred in 1915, when Ellsworth Huntington, an environmental determinist, published Civilization and Culture, which proposed a series of correlations between climate and human civilization; topics addressed included food supply, natural resources, parasites and diseases, human livelihood, and habits. Climate was presented as the most powerful force influencing migration, racial mixing, and natural selection. In The Pulse of Asia, published 8 years earlier, Huntington had suggested that the Mongol and Manchu conquests were caused by climatic change.5 Since then, numerous other contributions to the field have been published by Western scholars, going beyond Huntington’s simplistic claims.6 Certainly, China was not the focus of these studies. For such a study, one must turn to the remarkable work of Zhu Kezhen. Zhu (1890–1974) was a meteorologist. His “Preliminary Study on the Climatic Fluctuations during the Last 5000 Years in China,” published in Chinese in 1972 and in English in 1973, provided the foundation on which all subsequent studies of climate change in Chinese history have been based.7 Zhu and his followers’ studies that the dynastic cycle seems to be mainly an economic-administrative cycle, whereas Yang is more interested in geographical and social forces. 4 Yancheva et al. (2007a). See also Zhang and Lu (2007), Yancheva et al. (2007b). Houyun Zhou also disagrees with Yancheva, concluding that the Ti content may have been affected by the hydrology of the lake rather than by the Asian winter monsoons. See Zhou et al. (2007). 5 Huntington (1907, 1915). Few contemporary scholars would agree with Huntington’s viewpoint because of its association with certain racial ideologies. His works have long been out of favor. 6 Studies concerning climate and history include Le Roy Ladurie (1981), Rotberg (1981), McIntosh et al. (2000). 7 Zhu (1972, 1973). Among the works Zhu’s study inspired are Lui (1992), Mou (1996), Huanran and Rongsheng (1996), Zhang (1996). See also the review article Zhou (2007). 568 Climatic Change (2010) 101:565–573 relied on Chinese historical records: standard histories and local gazetteers recorded abnormal weather and other natural phenomena in detail, particularly those related to plants and animals. Scientists impressed by the care that evidently went into these chronicles have created a database, invaluable for the study of climate change (Fang 2006; Lui et al. 2001; Ge et al. 2005). While many of the resulting studies stand outside of the traditional discipline of history, they have provided historians with grist for their own work. In “Climatic Change and History in China,” for example, Bret Hinsch offered a comprehensive discussion. His thesis was remarkably simple: “During warm periods, China was flourishing, united and prosperous. During cold periods, climatic change led to economic deterioration, nomadic invasion, peasant rebellion and even to the economic and central shift from north to south” (Hinsch 1988). At the base of politics, he argued, lay the fortunes of agriculture: cold and dry weather shortened the growth periods of crops, reduced the area of arable soils, and ruined harvests, which in turn triggered social and political unrest. Historians have tended to focus on periods of protracted cold weather, in particular the so-called Little Ice Age, connecting them to nomadic invasions and dynastic collapse. Nomads who inhabited northerly regions hardest hit by a period of general cooling would invade their southern neighbors out of pressing need. Hsu Cho-yun thoroughly analyzed this phenomenon in the Eastern Han and Northern and Southern dynasties (Hsu and Sun 1987). When Lan Yong took up the question for the Tang, he concluded, “Since the climate changed from warm to cold in the middle of the eighth century, the regular migrations of northern nomads shifted south into north China and the central plains, precipitating the creation of many dynasties, both local and national in scope” (Lan 2001). Wong Young-tsu found that the collapse of Ming dynasty was caused by climatic factors as well: when the climate cooled, widespread hunger led to social chaos and the rebellion of Li Zicheng (1606–1645) (Wong 1989). Undoubtedly, there was a close correlation between cold and nomadic invasions. The more recent studies by Yancheva and Zhang appear to have been produced in a historiographic vacuum—neither author appears to have been familiar with the work of Zhu, Hinsch, or other historians. The following passage, from Yancheva’s article, is typical: Nevertheless, we note that, on the basis of our new Huguang Maar data, major changes in Chinese dynasties occurred when the winter monsoon was strong. The anti-correlation between winter and summer monsoon strength indicated by comparison of the Huguang Maar data with the cave records would suggest that dynastic transitions tended to occur when the summer monsoon was weak and rainfall was reduced. Dynastic changes in China often involved popular uprisings during phases of crop failure and famine, consistent with a linkage to reduced rainfall. The Tang dynasty has been described as a high point in Chinese civilization, a golden age of literature and art. The power of the dynasty began to ebb in the eighth century, starting with a defeat by the Arab army in AD 751. Rebellions further weakened the Tang Empire, and it fully collapsed in AD 907.8 8 Gergana Yancheva et al. (2007a), pp. 76–77. Meteorologists such as Zhang De’er have challenged Yancheva’s methods and conclusions in Nature. Their points may be summarized as follows: First, Climatic Change (2010) 101:565–573 569 Twenty years earlier, Bret Hinsch had drawn the same conclusion: This information shows that the Tang fell during an exceptionally dry period, a fact which may have exacerbated other troubles faced by the dynasty. The uprising of Wang Xianzhi and Huang Chao in 875, which ended in the destruction of the Tang, began with a severe drought in the area occupied by the present-day province of Henan. With the weakened government unable to alleviate the resulting starvation, marauding bands began to loot villages in the Yellow River basin. These disorganized thugs soon gained a popular base through their open resistance to an unpopular government. Several years later they captured the capital and declared a new dynasty. In this way, climate provided a catalyst for the fall of the Tang (Hinsch 1988, p. 147). Not only did the work of Hinsch, Lang, and others anticipate the thesis of Yancheva, they offered far more nuanced and convincing explanations—scientists who hope to make meaningful contributions to the understanding of human history need to familiarize themselves with not only the broad outlines of that history but the models historians have developed for explaining change.9 The late Tang witnessed a series of four significant rebellions. In 860 Qiu Fu, a peasant who fancied himself divinely inspired, led the first of these challenges to the throne in present-day Zhejiang. The uprising led by Pang Xun 8 years later in what is today Guangxi province occurred after a war against the Nanshao kingdom in Yunnan, when soldiers from the imperial army facing long waits before returning home grew restive. Between 874 and 884 Wang Xianzhi and Huang Chao revolted in what is now Shandong, Hebei, and Henan, northern provinces where severe droughts had reduced harvests to one-half of normal. To add to our understanding of these events, Gergana Yancheva would have had to prove that the droughts in Shandong and Hebei were caused by changes in monsoon patterns. But more is needed to explain an event as complex as dynastic change. It is crucial, for instance, to point out that the economic center of the Tang had shifted south to the lower reaches of Yangzi River after the An Lushan Rebellion (755–763) (Chi 1963). When Huang Chao’s rebellion destroyed the economy there, the empire was doomed to collapse. The work of David Zhang on climate change suffers from the same sorts of shortcomings that weaken Yancheva’s study. His research focused on temperature cooling and warming in ancient China. A cold phase, he explained, could wipe out all of the gains a community made during an earlier warm phase (Zhang et al. 2006: p. 459). Zhang tabulated climatic changes of the past 1,000 years and compared the fluctuations with the outbreak of major conflicts. He found that during cold there is nothing new to the suggestion that China’s climate turned colder in the mid-eighth century. Second, the suggestion that droughts occurred in the summer owing to more powerful winter monsoons and weaker summer monsoons does not tally with historical records. Third, it may not be possible to assess the intensity of winter monsoons through titanium concentrations. Fourth, Yancheva appears to have believed—wrongly—that war with the Arabs contributed to the collapse of Tang dynasty. See Zhang (2008). 9 In order to avoid overly simplistic explanations, historians admit that the historical role of climate in societal collapse cannot be ignored while insisting that climate was not the only force and was always associated with other forces. See Kristin Asdal (2003). Based on historical research, Robert Kates also outlines two kinds of models, “the basic impact model and interaction model,” to discuss the relationship between climate and society. Robert Kates (2009). 570 Climatic Change (2010) 101:565–573 phases, social unrest caused by poor harvests often led to wars and to the collapse of dynasties. Zhang did little more than juxtapose and compare two sets of data, and his conclusions had long been a familiar part of the historiographic literature (See, for example, Appleby 1980, Fagan 2000, Grove 2004). Furthermore, the chain of cause and effect by which a colder climate precipitated crop failures and then wars is far more complicated that he suggested (de Vries 1980). When facing environmental changes, humans can respond with various strategies: importing foodstuffs, reducing taxes in affected area, planting crops that are highly resistant to cold and dry weather, improving cultivation skills, and so forth. These policies all helped maintain social stability during protracted periods of cold. Weather cannot be used as a unique determinant in history. For the past millennium, the engine of the Chinese economy has been in the south, which suggests that the south may be better at coping with a spate of cooler weather than the north (Zhang et al. 2006). As Zhang mentioned, the correlation between colder weather and war is not nearly as evident in the south. But so dependent did the north grow on food shipments from the south that it was far more sensitive to fluctuations in harvests than was the south; social unrest in the north may have resulted from climate changes centered on south China. We should also consider whether crop yields during cold phases dropped gradually or suddenly. Uprisings that overthrew dynasties may have been driven by food shortages, but from the mid-Ming crops introduced from the Americas supported strong population growth throughout the empire (Ho 1955). This naturally reduced China’s vulnerability to unfavorable local weather conditions. “Climate Change and War Frequency in Eastern China over the Last Millennium,” published in 2007, marked a signal improvement over Zhang’s earlier efforts. His grasp of history had improved, his reasoning was sounder, and he tightened his geographic focus. He compared the frequency of war with temperature variation and concluded that more conflicts broke out as the temperature dropped. Zhang’s research focused only on eastern China (excluding Guangdong, Guangxi, Liaoning, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Yunnan, Tibet, Xinjiang, Gansu, and Sichuan). The current author has a critical question: why did Chinese empires collapse while Mongol and Manchu empires, exposed to the same climatic hazards, survived to conquer China? Zhang agreed with the conclusions drawn by historians: that cold climate caused the nomads to head south, but one would expect that the breakdown of order after poor harvests he described would also affect Mongols and Manchus. More than climate records is needed to explain the triumph of northern nomads. In an important sense, Zhang’s research lacked an important comparative element. By failing to set the mass violence he attributed to climate change in the larger context of rebellions and wars in general, he failed to consider what was distinctive to the violence induced by cold and dry weather. The frequency of these mass events was Zhang’s obsession; he never considered the duration or the scale of the conflict. While Zhang noted that a time lag between a cold spell and a massive social reaction was not uncommon, he never explained why such lags occurred. The current author thinks we should consider the following two facts: First, such time lags occurred when the central government managed to provide a certain amount of famine relief. Only when the emperor failed to provide assistance did rebellions break out. In other words, to understand these rebellions we need to study a range Climatic Change (2010) 101:565–573 571 of issues, including the institutions charged with maintaining regional granaries. Second, a number of imperial China’s most dramatic wars and rebellions, from nomadic invasions to the mid-Qing Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864), which broke out in Jintian village, Guangxi, did not originate in the areas studied by Zhang. When scholars take on big questions, such as the impact of changing weather on social stability, they must always test their broad theses against discrete events. Many historians of the Ming have considered the issues more recently addressed by scientists, providing a richly detailed context for further studies—a series of scholarly case studies should be taken up. At the same time, the findings of climate science may provide valuable material for historians working on periods of social unrest. So long as scientists working along interdisciplinary borders neglect the work done by their colleagues in the social sciences, they will be telling only part of a story or a story already told. The macroscopic observation ecologists and meteorologists build out of countless pieces of data can flesh out the picture historians piece together from a multitude of discrete, imprecise documents. For example, in the Chinese historical records, references to cold weather range from “han leng” (cold) to “yun shuang” (snow) and “da han” (very cold)—how cold it actually was remains a mystery. Now that scientists have been able to provide precise numbers for climatic changes, a series of rigorously detailed studies of the relationship between man and the environment may open up new topics for study and permit those who hold science in one hand and history in the other to produce descriptions of the collapse of a dynasty in unprecedented detail.10 Unique factors contributed to the rise and fall of each dynasty. Scholars have proposed that studies of dynastic succession include analyses of economic, constitutional, geographical, and social aspects as well as their mutual relationships. The current author believes that a more holistic view may be obtained if we also consider how climate changes acted as a catalyst for the rise and fall of an empire. The natural environment and the socio-political structure of China were different from those of European countries. The study of Chinese history offers a brand-new insight into how a historical issue should be approached, supplying fresh ideas distinct from the Eurocentric approach to historiography and laying a solid foundation for comparative studies between East and West. References Appleby AB (1980) Epidemics and famine in the little ice age. J Interdiscip Hist 10(4):643–663 Asdal K (2003) The problematic nature of nature: the post-constructivist challenge to environmental history. Hist Theory 42:60–74 Barrett TH (2007) Climate change and religious response: the case of early Medieval China. J Royal Asiat Soc 17(2):139–156 10 Climatologist Hsu Sheng-I has attempted, by combining materials of climatology and history, to study the topics of capital relocation during the reign of Emperor Xiaowen of North Wei Dynasty and Wang Anshi’s reformation in Sung dynasty. The followings are his works for references: Hsu (2004). 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