The Great Famine of 1640

The record

十三年庚辰，溧水奇荒，绝禾种。拾月十二夜，地震有声。诏自十二年以前民所逋欠粮税悉行蠲免。

Translated: In the thirteenth year, gengchen, Lishui suffered a famine of extraordinary severity, and no seed grain was left. On the twelfth night of the tenth month there was an earthquake with sound. An order was issued remitting all arrears of grain tax owed by the people from before the twelfth year.

The year before

十二年己卯，荒民就浮山取白土充饥。名观音粉。

Translated: In the twelfth year, jimao, the starving went to Fushan and took white earth to fill their bellies; it was called Guanyin powder.

Famine conditions had already appeared in 1639, the twelfth year of the Chongzhen era, when people took white earth from Fushan for food; the gazetteer records that it was called "Guanyin powder".

The famine and the remission

In 1640, the thirteenth year of the Chongzhen era, the gazetteer records a famine of extraordinary severity in which no seed grain was left, that is, the crops did not even survive to provide seed for the following year. On the twelfth night of the tenth month an earthquake was heard. An order followed remitting the arrears of grain tax owed by the people from before the twelfth year.

The following year

十四年辛巳，仍大荒。蝗飞蔽野。八月十九日，雨冰雹。

Translated: In the fourteenth year, xinsi, there was still a great famine. Locusts flew in clouds that covered the fields. On the nineteenth day of the eighth month hail fell.

The famine therefore lasted at least two years.

Records at the Nanji level (the History of Ming's treatise on the Five Phases)

The History of Ming, juan 28, Treatise 4, "Water" (Locusts), records the drought and locusts of the Chongzhen years around the southern capital region: "In the sixth month of the eleventh year, the two capitals, Shandong and Henan suffered a great drought and locusts. In the fifth month of the thirteenth year, the two capitals, Shandong, Henan, Shanxi and Shaanxi suffered a great drought and locusts. In the sixth month of the fourteenth year, the two capitals, Shandong, Henan and Zhejiang suffered a great drought and locusts." "The two capitals" includes the southern capital region of Yingtian, to which Lishui was attached. These are records at the level of the southern capital region and can be read alongside the gazetteer's "famine of extraordinary severity" of 1640 and "locusts darkening the fields" of 1641, but they do not establish the acreage or population affected within Lishui itself.

The Guangxu edition of the Lishui County Gazetteer, juan 6, "Taxation: Remission and Relief", records: "In the thirteenth year there was a great famine, and an order remitted all arrears of grain tax owed from before the twelfth year" — agreeing with the Kangxi gazetteer.

Uncertainties

First, "no seed grain was left" is the gazetteer's summary of the disaster; the area of land affected and the number of people are not recorded. Second, the remission covered only arrears from before 1639, and the gazetteer does not say how that year's tax was handled. Third, the gazetteer does not link the earthquake with the drought and locusts, and this entry draws no such conclusion.

Fourth, a search across all seven source layers found that the History of Ming's treatise on the Five Phases records a great drought and locusts in the southern capital region in both 1640 and 1641, which serves as region-level support, and that juan 6 of the Guangxu gazetteer also records the remission of those years (still within the gazetteer line). But the specifics — "no seed grain was left", the "Guanyin powder", and the county's earthquake, locusts and hail — appear only within the gazetteer line, so confidence has been lowered from high to medium.