Relationship between social stability and climate change in the Tang Dynasty
Wang Xiao-Qing1, Zhang David D1, Pei Qing2, Zhang Sheng-Da1, Li Teng1
1 School of Geographical Sciences,Guangzhou University,Guangzhou 510000,China; 2 Department of Social Sciences,The Education University of Hong Kong,Hong Kong 999077,China
Abstract：This paper quantitatively divides the Tang Dynasty into five prosperous and chaotic social periods,and discusses the relationship between the social division and climate change. The criteria for determining prosperity and chaos is refered to a set of systematic war data. In order to verify the reasonableness of the division,we applied 1-way-ANOVA to test the differences of each variable index between prosperity and chaos periods. The results of social division are as follows: from AD 618 to AD 626,and from AD 743 to AD 784,as well as from AD 860 to AD 907 were the chaotic periods;while from AD 627 to A0 742,and from AD 785 to AD 859 were the prosperous periods. The results of 1-way-ANOVA show that,climate change,general wars,rebellions,offensive border wars,defensive border wars,agricultural harvests,and population growth rates are all significantly different between prosperity and chaos,except the general external wars. War data were used to quantitatively represent the social changes in the Tang Dynasty. In chaotic periods,the main types of wars are rebellions and defensive border wars,while the main type of wars in prosperous periods are offensive border wars. To explore the relationship between climate change and social division means to make clear the relationship between climate change and wars. The results of correlation analysis show the decrease of agricultural harvest due to lower temperature and less precipitation leads to the shortage of resources supply,so that the likelihood of rebellions increase;while during the warm periods with abundant rainfall,increasing agricultural harvest stimulates rapid population growth. Due to the limitations of technology and land resources,offensive border wars for expansion are more likely to occur.
Wang Xiao-Qing,Zhang David D,Pei Qing et al. Relationship between social stability and climate change in the Tang Dynasty[J]. JOPC, 2020, 22(2): 385-396.
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