Chapter 113 Chapter Ten: Nine Years of Famine in Ten Years

However, no one expected that Zhu Yuanzhang's special care for his hometown would eventually bring unbearable consequences to his hometown. The environment in Fengyang has been deteriorating for a long time under the population pressure of the past dynasties.Although Zhu Yuanzhang's large-scale immigration provided sufficient labor force for agriculture for a while, such a huge influx of immigrants caused great damage to the environment. At that time, the best part of the land in Fengyang had already been occupied by noble circles, and the local people in Fengyang occupied the middle land. Volume 7 of "Fengyang New Book" says:

"Those who are on the field will return to the army, and return to the meritorious service. Those who are in the middle, the local people include one, and the tenants include one, but if they stay, they will be barren, and they will be able to actually organize the farming of the people." Volume 5 also contains, Immigrants have obtained "all the hills and hills are solid, the earth and rocks are mixed, the streams and valleys have no running water, and the mountains and forests have no place". Without good land, the new immigrants near the mountains went up to the mountains to deforestation and open up wasteland. The wanton reclamation of the mountains quickly caused obvious soil erosion, and the water flow carrying sand down exacerbated the deterioration of the ecological environment of the Huaihe River Basin.

Immigrants by the lake began to reclaim fields around the lake.On the surface, the dry lake has increased the cultivated land for the fields and relieved the pressure on people and land in the short term, but in fact it has made water storage and discharge inappropriate and destroyed the self-circulation of the local ecology. In addition, a series of major projects in Fengyang mined a large number of forests in the nearby mountainous areas, turning many mountains into bald hills. The most terrible thing is that in order to protect the feng shui of the Zuling, people have further destroyed the local ecological cycle.

Sizhou, located on the bank of Hongze Lake, is the location of the Ming Zu Mausoleum.Zhu Yuanzhang's grandfather Zhu Chuyi is buried here. Fearing that the flood would submerge the ancestral mausoleum, which would cause "the king's anger to vent", the Ming government formulated such a water control strategy since the mid-Ming Dynasty's Huaihe River became more and more serious: "First consider the ancestral mausoleum, secondly consider the fate, and then consider the people's livelihood." That is to say, the first is the ancestral mausoleum, the second is to ensure the waterway for transporting grain to Beijing, and the last is the common people:

"The Huai region is more lucky than the road, and the luck road is heavier. If the luck road is more important than the ancestral mausoleum, the ancestral mausoleum is especially heavy." ("Zhu Yuanzhang and Fengyang") Therefore, the Ming government often decided to release water from Gaojiayan regardless of people's livelihood, and artificially lowered the water level of Hongze Lake. To protect the mausoleum.Although this measure temporarily alleviated the threat of the Huaihe River to the ancestral mausoleum, it made the river course extremely chaotic and had a profound impact on the surrounding ecological environment.

In the Ming Dynasty, the area around Fengyang gradually turned into barren hills, the forests were completely destroyed, the lakes were silted up, and the Huaihe River was often flooded. (Gan Shanxiu's "Huoshan County Chronicles" Volume 13).From this ten years to nine years of famine in Fengyang. "It will rain for three days, and the lake will be flooded, and the mud will be uncultivable. If the sun is a little too strong, it will become scorched earth." (Volume 11 of Wang Nixiu's "Reconstruction of Mengcheng County Chronicles") According to the "Fengyang New Book", from the 17th year of Wanli to the second year of Taichang (AD), there were 6 droughts and floods in Fengyang, an average of more than once every five years (Volume 4 of "Fengyang New Book").

This is only the impact of disasters.If the general disasters are counted, "Fengyang has experienced nine famines in ten years, if there is no drought, it will rain" (Volume 4 of "Fengyang New Book"). "(Volume 4 of "Fengyang New Book"). The descendants of the immigrants who were forced to move by Zhu Yuanzhang at the beginning, kept fleeing to other places in the famine after famine. For example, in the third year of Jingtai (1452 A.D.), floods occurred in Fengyang Mansion and other places. "(Volume 224 of "Ming Yingzong Records"). In the eighth year of Chenghua (AD 1472), "Jianghuai north and south, many people went into exile" (Volume 111 of "Records of Emperor Xianzong of the Ming Dynasty").The population of Fengyang decreased rapidly after the mid-Ming Dynasty.According to the "Fengyang New Book", the county "At the beginning of Hongwu, there were 40,000 people in 100. Since then, the old records still have more than 47,850 mouths in Dingkou. In the sixth year of Wanli, then There are only 13,894 people left" (Volume 4 of "Fengyang New Book", "Fu and Service Chapter 2").

The remaining people cannot settle down normally, and many people gradually turn to begging as a profession.They "groups tend to be lazy, and floods and droughts are frequent, middle-aged people lose their property, and have no savings for years. In case of famine, there are many people who anoint their children, abandon their homeland and adapt to other places" (Yongzheng "Huaiyuan County Chronicles" volume one).The "Fengyang Flower Drum" thus formed, along with the footsteps of these deserters, spread all over the country and became famous all over the country.Wei Yijie, in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, once described in a song "Yangge Xing":

Women in Fengyang sing Yangko and cross the Yellow River every year.The north wind blows snow and sand, and Dongdong's waist drum whirls.With ragged clothes and a handkerchief at the head, he said that he had been out for a long time.There was no rain in Shouzhou the year before last, and this year Sizhou broke the river mouth... I sang yangko to apologize for the year, but after the end, I returned the official rent to farm.Traveling from south to north like flying swallows, it is so difficult that Fengyang's agricultural economy bid farewell to the temporary prosperity and returned to depression and decline.Originally, after Zhu Yuanzhang's vigorous management, the amount of land in Fengyang Mansion once reached 400,000 hectares.By the fifteenth year of Hongzhi in the middle of the Ming Dynasty (AD 1502), the arable land area of ​​the prefecture had dropped to only 61,263 hectares ("Minghuidian" Volume 17, "Hubu·Sichuan Tu").From the twenty-sixth year of Hongwu (AD 1393) to the fifteenth year of Hongzhi in less than 150 years, the area of ​​cultivated land in Fengyang Prefecture has decreased by more than 300,000 hectares. "Feng and Huai are vast and sparsely populated. With floods, half of the people fled, and two thousand miles were turned into grass." (Vol. There was a detailed account of the situation, and when he passed through Fengyang, he witnessed the desolation and depression there.

Tasting between Huai and Feng, there are only a few red and white grasses as far as the eye can see, and most of them are uncultivable land.There are people who cultivate occasionally, but the sky is always wet. If it is not drought, it will be flooded. If there is too much rain, it will be flooded and there will be nowhere to go. If there is no rain, it will be scorched and withered. Rare, so sit here. (Zhang Han's "Dream in the Pine Window" Volume 4, "San Nong Ji") Until today, the economic development of most areas in the Huaihe River Basin is neither as rich and developed as southern Jiangsu, nor as prosperous as that of central Shandong. Both are coastal development areas. One of the important reasons for such a large difference is that the local ecological environment was severely damaged in the Ming Dynasty.Zhu Yuanzhang never dreamed that his kindness would lead to such consequences.