Download Climatic change and dynastic cycles in Chinese history: a review

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]
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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
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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).
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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,
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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).
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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
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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.
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