In the "hottest summer" in history, the temperature exceeded 44, and the capital was sunburned to death. What's the specific story?
After eight years of Qianlong, the temperature suddenly rose, not only in Beijing, but also in Tianjin, Shanxi and other places. Emperor Qianlong naturally felt the heat in the palace, and he immediately ordered court officials to give an explanation. However, this once-in-a-century abnormal phenomenon could not be found for a time, and the palace was caught in a hot upsurge. The ice maker in Beijing made ice with saltpeter and batches of ice cubes were sent to the palace.
Qianlong's harem is also unstable. Most of the concubines' clothes are divided into several layers. In this weather, many concubines are dizzy with heat. When the ice outside the palace was brought in, Qianlong ordered people to put the ice into the cool hall, and the concubines moved the bed directly here to relieve the heat.
All the merchants in the shops stayed indoors and hid at home to avoid the sun exposure. For a while, there were very few shops left. Poor families have to go out to work because of their livelihood, but because the temperature is too hot and people's bodies can't get water after exposure, they are all killed by heat. Working farmers are at a loss in the face of the sun and the land in Zhuangzi, and officials can only stay in the yamen and dare not go out. At that time, people are worried. It can be said that although there is no chaos, the atmosphere of depression is very strong.
The severe drought, high temperature and heat in midsummer will inevitably bring a series of impacts, and the first one is the problem of water shortage. In modern society, the government or relevant organizations save a certain amount of spare water, ice and other resources every year for emergencies. However, in ancient times, the imperial court did not have such a sense of crisis. In the homes of some dignitaries, some ice cubes were only stored in the icehouse at home. In summer, these ice cubes can be taken out to cool down.
However, when there is a severe drought, these limited ice blocks will not allow them to spend the whole hot summer. After eight years of Qianlong, in August and September, some princes and nobles gradually began to have water shortages in their homes. However, compared with ordinary people, princes and nobles have power and money. In natural disasters, they will not suffer great losses, and they can also spend a lot of money to buy water and ice. Ordinary people are not so lucky.
Ordinary people seldom eat ice cubes, and their drinking water comes from wells or rivers. In the case of sudden drought and high temperature, long-term no rain and sun exposure, a large amount of water evaporates, and the water levels of rivers and wells will be reduced. Even, some rivers in the wilderness are exposed to the riverbed, and in severe cases, wells and rivers will be dried up. It is reported that in the eight years of Qianlong, the well water in many places has dried up, and the water resources around the people are seriously in short supply.
With the drought, the temperature is getting higher and higher, and the refugees who were already short of water went into shock because of dehydration, and the whole capital turned into a hell. Ordinary people can't survive because of lack of domestic water, let alone crops in the field. The hot and dry weather makes the rice fields crack due to the lack of water irrigation, and the rice seedlings are also difficult to grow and bear fruit. Even, under the hot sunlight, many rice seedlings were withered by the sun, and all the efforts of farmers for a year were in vain.
Because there is no harvest, farmers can't pay taxes, and their families have no food, and a large number of refugees have appeared in many places. Whether these refugees can be properly handled is a very important factor to test whether a court can win the hearts of the people and continue to rule. Qianlong and the ministers of the imperial court attached great importance to these refugees. During this year, Qianlong ordered the Ministry of Housing to distribute thousands of relief money, and also sent many imperial envoys to the disaster areas to help the people tide over the difficulties by relocating the victims and setting up relief porridge tents.
Soon after, Emperor Qianlong once again ordered the establishment of refugee shelters and the distribution of relief materials in many areas. Qianlong asked the Ministry of Ritual to prepare ice water and medicine for relieving summer heat, which are used to treat diseases. In other words, in hot weather, some people will get sick, but this is not the worst. Worst of all, there are so many people suffering from heatstroke in this world that it is easy to cause disaster.
A summer cooling point was added at the city gate, and a large number of summer cooling materials were distributed. This heat brought a test to the Qing disaster relief machine. Generally speaking, from the details to the overall situation, Gan Long and the officials have controlled it very well. In order to solve the famine in Zhili area, the Qing government allocated 1.12 million yuan and grain 1.11 million stones to help the victims, and more than 2 officials were set up to handle affairs, which shows that the situation is already very serious.
according to the records of later generations, only 11 million taels of silver were deposited in the household treasury of the Qing dynasty at its peak, which also means that the drought in the world at that time was enough to suck up the entire imperial reserve. Fortunately, the Qing Dynasty was the peak of the feudal dynasty and the agricultural society.
The Qing government paid more attention to restoring the production in the coming year than blindly providing disaster relief, so the government gave many economic recovery plans to help save agriculture. In terms of grain, the Qing government gave "interest-free loans" to restore the hope of farmers with collapsed mentality to continue planting. On the other hand, the disaster can only be regarded as the past if we absorb more labor to work for the relief and put the society back on track. According to the records of French missionaries who were active in the Qing Dynasty at that time, the average temperature in summer this year (eight years of Qianlong) reached an astonishing 4℃, and the highest temperature was as high as 44.4℃.
It can be seen that human beings are insignificant in front of nature. Under the influence of high temperature, water shortage, hunger and other factors, about tens of thousands of people lost their lives at that time. In fact, the reason why there was such a drought at that time was not because of the scourge, but because of a global climate change. Nowadays, human society will emit a lot of greenhouse gases, which will lead to global temperature rise. We should also be vigilant. The history of mankind is like a history of fighting against disasters. We have learned to improve through suffering, just to prevent the tragedy from repeating itself.