Born Then1627–1644
Life during the Late Ming famines and rebellions
Be born in a place it hit, a few years before it began, and see what it did to five ordinary lives.
What it meant for ordinary people
In the coldest phase of the Little Ice Age, northern China had years of drought, locusts and epidemics from the late 1620s. The Ming state, short of silver, raised taxes and cut the postal service, and laid-off soldiers and starving farmers joined rebels. Li Zicheng took Beijing in 1644 and the last Ming emperor hanged himself.
Deaths: unknown; drought, locusts, plague and rebellion killed millions in the north.
How hard it hits each person in the game (risk of death, of being conscripted, of leaving) comes from our model, estimated from the sources.
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