Climate Change In Ming And Qing Dynasties And Its Influence On The Tea Road For Shanxi Merchants

Climate is a relatively active factor among all geo-environmental factors.It is closely related to the survival and development of human beings.Especially when the initial productivity level of humans was low,human activities were more susceptible to climate change.Although climate cannot completely determine the development and change of society,its changes can profoundly affect the development of human civilization.It can be said that climate change is one of the basic forces that lead to the rise and fall of civilization.Therefore,if you understand the relationship between climate change and the evolution of civilization,and reveal the law of dependence between them,it is of great significance to how human society and civilization adapt to and respond to the development of climate change now and in the future.The Tea Road is another important international commercial cultural channel that connects the world with China after the "Silk Road".It has the universal value of east agricultural civilization to the west and western industrial civilization to the east.It is a model for the transformation of Eastern and Western civilizations.The Tea Road has experienced many important changes in history.Studies have mainly analyzed from the perspectives of politics,economy,and economic geography.The impact of climate change on its changes has not been reported.Based on a full understanding of the relationship between climate change and the development of human society and civilization,this paper uses literature research methods,anomalies,moving averages,Pearson correlation analysis mathematical statistics methods,Functional drawing(Origin),comparative analysis,GIS technology and other methods and explored the climate change in the Ming and Qing dynasties and its influence on the changes of the Tea Road in Shanxi Merchants from the time scale and spatial scale.The research indicates:(1)During the Ming and Qing dynasties,there were three relatively warm periods and four relatively cold periods in China as a whole.The warm period was1368-1500,1550-1610,and 1700-1770,and 1640-1690,1780-1924 was the cold period.The dry and wet conditions in this period can be divided into two periods,namely dry in 1471-1723 and flood in 1724-1925;at the same time,China has fiveclimate zone climates(Northeast and North China,Central and East China,South China,Northwest and Southwest)and seven drought and flood zone climates(Northeast China,North China,Central China,East China and South China),Northwest and Southwest),respectively,analysis shows that except for the Northwest and Southwest,the other zones are basically consistent with the overall trend of the country's cold and warm,but there is a certain degree of difference in the time of the cold and warm periods of each zone;Except for East China and South China,the drought and flood zones are basically the same as the overall drought and flood changes in the country,but the dry and wet periods of each zone also have a certain degree of difference in time;Analysis of the changes in extreme climate events during the Ming and Qing dynasties(such as extreme drought / extreme floods,extreme continuous droughts and floods,high temperatures,cold winters,etc.)shows that the Ming and Qing dynasties were in a period of frequent extreme weather,drought,flood disasters and cold winter events occured frequently.(2)The changes of the Tea Road in the Ming and Qing dynasties are mainly manifested in the construction and suspension of lines.The climate change in Ming and Qing dynasties mainly affected the vicissitude of the tea road in Shanxi Merchants from two aspects.On the one hand,the warm and wet climate is conducive to the increase of agricultural harvest and the stability of the social environment.There are many new lines built,such as the export section from Zhangjiakou to Kulun in Mongolia,the production section from Xiamei to Hankou,the land distribution section from Hankou to Shahukou or Zhangjiakou,and the distribution section from Poyang lake to Guangzhou.Cold and dry climate will lead to the reduction of the agricultural harvest,and then lead to social instability,lines more out of use.Such as Xiamei to Hankou production section,Xiamei to Hangzhou production section,Hangzhou to Zhangjiakou distribution section,Western export section.On the other hand,regional extreme weather events had obvious influence on the change of the Tea Road.Extreme weather events and their derivative natural disasters(such as flood,flood caused by dyke breach and plague spread,drought,drought caused by locust plague,etc.)will directly affect the suspension of waterway transportation;Indirectly caused famine,social unrest,lead to the routereduction or change.The Xiamei-Hankou production section,Xiamei-Hangzhou production section and the Hangzhou-Zhangjiakou distribution section(Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal section)suffered a temporary suspension caused by Social unrest(the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement)due to extreme drought and waterlogging in 1846-1850 in South China,Central China,East China,and North China.The western route was temporarily suspended by the social unrest(Northwest Muslim uprising)due to extreme drought in the northwest region in 1846-1847 and1868-1869;The distribution section from Xiamei to Hangzhou and the distribution section from Hangzhou to Zhangjiakou(Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal section)were suspended for a long time due to the diversion caused by extreme floods in the Yellow River in 1855.In view of the limited reconstruction data of paleoclimate records,there are still some deficiencies in the research of climate argument mining.With the continuous enrichment of paleoclimate data records in various regions,the research will be continued and improved.However,this study can be helpful in understanding the evolution of regional human-land relationship,adapting to climate change,and the sustainable development of regional civilization.