There is no doubt that the world is experiencing the first “cold wave” of 2021. Whether it’s the dramatic cooling weather in northern China, the rare once-in-five-decades snowstorm that has paralyzed traffic and transportation in Spain, or the blizzard that has killed and injured nearly 400 people in Japan, it seems to indicate that 2021 may not be the year we escape from the misery.
In the science fiction novel “Three Bodies,” the appearance of “three flying stars” foreshadows the long, bitter cold that has destroyed the civilization of the Three Bodies time and again. Although in the real world, the Earth orbits the sun 365 days a year, and is not far from the sun, suitable for life, but the cold is still not a good friend of human civilization.
In history, the “cold wave” may have caused more serious problems, and sometimes it can even determine the life and death of dynasties – such as the snowfall in the Central Plains eight centuries ago.
In the summer of 1231 A.D., Genghis Khan’s youngest son, Tolui, led 40,000 Mongol horsemen around the Jin army’s heavily guarded “Yellow River Line” and broke into the hinterland of Henan Province (the Jin capital was in present-day Kaifeng, Henan) by way of the Southern Song Dynasty. The King’s sorrowful father was desperate to mobilize the 150,000 troops (including 20,000 cavalry) under the command of Wan Yan He Da and Yilu Pua to go south and fight to the death with the Mongolian army. This main force was also the last available mobile force of the Jin dynasty, and its survival or death was related to the fate of the entire Jin dynasty.
Next was the famous Battle of Sanfeng Mountain. This mountain is located in the southwest of Yuzhou, Henan Province, and is adjacent to the Zhongyue Song Mountain, which runs east-west for 20 kilometers and is named after the three abrupt peaks in the east, middle and west. Although the Mongolian army, which had the advantage of cavalry maneuver, occupied the mountain first, the Jin army was outnumbered and took the mountain one by one through a bloody battle to kill a bloody road. By the 15th day of the first month of 1232 AD, the ending of the Mongolian defeat and the Jin victory on the battlefield of Sanfeng Mountain had gradually become clear. After the defeat of the Mongolian army was “surrounded by several turns of gold”, so “the soldiers were quite afraid”. In the past, the warriors who had swept across the Eurasian continent without fear began to fear the enemy, which shows that the Mongolian army was in a dangerous situation at that time.
At this time, the sudden goose feather snow fell, and the fog also filled the mountain streams. The snow, which was later called “heavenly help” by the Yuan, made it possible for the military operation that could not be carried out to succeed. It was the severe cold caused by the snowy day that caused the Jin army, which was mainly composed of peasants from the Central Plains, to “stand frozen in the snow with their armor on and their guns and lances frozen to the rafters” and completely lose their fighting ability. In contrast, the 30,000 Mongolian troops besieging the Jin army had a much better time, after all, the Mongolian plateau was originally one of the origins of the cold wave in East Asia, at any time may suffer from the snowstorm. The Mongolian army generals had long been familiar with this kind of weather.
The snow turned the tide of the Mongolian-Jingo war. On the 16th day of the first month, the snow stopped. The Mongolian army found that the Mongolian army was nowhere to be seen, but the road to Junzhou was right in front of them, so they fought for the road to break through, and fled rather than fight. Suddenly, the Mongolian ambushers rose in all directions, “like lions pouncing on a herd of antelopes, pouncing on the Jin army”, and the Jin army collapsed, “sounding like a mountain collapse”. The last of the best soldiers so in the “six and Qiankun a snow” after the dissipation of the clouds, the history of “since the gold army can not be revived”. After the battle of Sanfeng Mountain, the Jin dynasty is only a long time, the demise has been inevitable.
However, nature is fair. The Jin dynasty established by Ginyan A Bone was doomed by a cold wave, and more than three centuries later, another heroine – Nurhachi – took advantage of the “Little Ice Age” to open the Aisinjueluo’s flood. The term “Little Ice Age” was coined by Dutch-American geologist Matthews in 1939 and refers to the cold period that began after the Medieval Warm Period, when the average annual temperature was 1°C to 2°C lower than it is today.
From the point of view of agricultural development in Eurasia, this was a great catastrophe. Grain-centered agricultural societies are inherently more dependent on warm climates. A colder climate often means an earlier start of frost in autumn and a longer colder time for continued frost in spring, which ultimately leads to shorter crop growing times. In particular, an early autumn frost can cause all growing grains to freeze overnight, which is what Chinese history records as “killing frost”. The Joseon Dynasty history records a more specific statement: “The rice that has been planted and the various crops planted in the fields …… suffer from early frosts, and in autumn, nothing can be harvested from the fields.”
Such was the case in the Ming Dynasty during the late Wanli to Tianqi period. The climate became significantly colder, the northern wind and sand congestion day by day, the drought increased year by year, agricultural harvests fell sharply. Song Yingxing, the author of “Heavenly Creations,” lamented that “the people were destitute of money” under the sky. More unfortunately, the Ming dynasty added external problems to its internal worries.
When the climate was warm, the people in the north had a thriving pastoral industry and survived without worry. Since they could enjoy peace, how many of them were willing to start a war? The Ming dynasty was able to make peace with the Tatar leader Ida for decades because of the climate. When the climate turned cold, life became difficult for the northern minorities, and even more so for the Jianzhou women, who were originally a fishing and hunting people and increasingly turned to farming.
In 1615, Nurhaci was already aware that the significantly colder climate led to a shorter crop season and reduced yields, causing a food supply crisis (the Songhua River began to freeze in October of the solar calendar). North Korea, “Kwanghaegun Diary” also recorded that the newly established post-Jin regime “hunger and cold has been extreme, the old and weak fill the ravine, the slave chiefs ordered to go for food. Therefore, Nurhaci chose in 1618, with a very far-fetched “seven hatreds” as the reason for the declaration of war against the Ming Dynasty, the people’s discontent will be directed to the Ming Dynasty. Through the war plunder to ease the social crisis after the Jin is afraid that his true purpose – perhaps, at that time, no one knew that the female real people to establish the “after the Jin” regime will become the great Ming “gravedigger “it.
In modern times, although productivity has developed significantly, the human ability to transform nature has increased significantly, the sudden “cold wave” still caught people off guard. 1789 winter in France, it suffered a sudden cold. Snow blocked the roads, rivers were frozen, and most businesses were closed. In the spring, thousands of hectares of farmland were flooded by snow and ice melt. This year, the price of bread in France reached a 20-year high. Civilians were starving, but still had to pay heavy taxes. On January 21, 1793, in the “Place de la Révolution”, the citizens were saying “Vive la République! Long live freedom!” The head of King Louis XVI was cut off with a cold, slanting blade. ……
“In the summer of 1812, Napoleon, who had won an unprecedented military victory in Europe, led an expedition of 600,000 troops to Russia. In three years’ time, he seemed to be the master of the world. Despite stiff resistance from the French, they captured Moscow in the fall (although the Russian capital was then in St. Petersburg).
However, the Russians waited for their faithful ally, the cold wave, and on October 13, snow began to fall in Moscow. Noticing that the situation was unfavorable, Napoleon withdrew his troops, and early in the morning of October 18, the French army began to withdraw from Moscow. The weather was so bad that the ground was covered with ice. During the night, the weather became even colder and many horses pulling wagons froze to death. The French army had to throw away their ammunition boxes and wagons.
The temperature continued to drop, the weather became colder and colder, and soldiers lying everywhere along the way froze to death, starved to death and died of exhaustion …… Finally only 30,000 soldiers of the 600,000-strong army returned to France alive. The unconvinced Napoleon could only consider this a “non-war crime”: “The destruction of us was the Russian winter. We were the victims of the climate, when the good weather deceived me.” In any case, this failed invasion of Russia was the beginning of the end of the Napoleonic dynasty.
Of course, it will not be forgotten that some 130 years later, the Nazi dictator Hitler repeated Napoleon’s mistakes. His invasion of the Soviet Union was overwhelmed by a sudden cold wave (20 degrees in two hours) and lost to Moscow. The death knell of Nazi Germany was also sounded in the “cold wave” in Moscow ……
The destruction of the Jin army at the Battle of Sanfeng Mountain, the internal and external problems of the Ming Dynasty, the outbreak of the French Revolution, the fiasco of Napoleon and Hitler, each historical event is the result of a combination of factors. Climate and weather may seem accidental, but they play a role that cannot be ignored, deciding the fate of a ruler, a dynasty, a country and even the world at critical moments. When we look back at history, it is saddening to see that these fortuitous, uncertain and sudden advent factors have changed the fate of countless people, and this is perhaps the most fascinating aspect of history.
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