990. Great famine.
Yüan Dynasty.
1295-6. Floods.
1297. Seventh moon. Great famine. [The Chinese year begins a month or more later than the European year. The word "moon" is used as an indication that the month is the lunar month, which alone is recognised in China.]
1330. Great famine.
1355. Locusts destroyed crops.
Ming Dynasty.
1408. Earthquake, with a noise like thunder.
1506. Seventh moon, sixth day. Great floods, both from sky and ocean. Crops destroyed and soil impregnated with salt.
1511. Wandering brigands entered the district. Hearing the sound of artillery, they fled.
1512. Third moon, thirteenth day. The bell and the drum in the temple of Ch'in Shih Huang-ti on Ch'êng-shan[39] sounded of their own accord. Immediately afterwards, the temple was destroyed by fire, but the images remained intact. On the same day a band of roving robbers entered Wên-têng city.
1513. A flight of locusts darkened the sun.
1516. Drought and floods. No harvest.
1518. Famine and starvation.
1546. Floods. Ninth moon, second day: a hailstorm and an earthquake, with a noise like thunder.
1548. Great earthquake. Countless dwelling-houses overthrown.
1556. Between five and six in the morning of the twenty-ninth day of the twelfth moon (early in 1556) the sun produced four parhelia (mock-suns) of great brilliance. The northern one was especially dazzling. [The appearance of four parhelia was regarded as unusual enough to merit special mention, but old inhabitants of Weihaiwei say that two "sun's ears," as they are called, are comparatively often seen at sunrise. According to the local folk-lore, a single "ear" on the left side of the sun betokens high winds, while a single "ear" on the right foretells rain. If "ears" appear on both left and right, splendid weather for the farmers is to be expected.]
1570. Floods. All crops destroyed and houses flooded.
1576. Third moon, twenty-seventh day. Tremendous storm of wind and rain, and ruin of young crops.
1580. Landslips on the hills.
1585. Great famine.
1597. Earthquake and rumbling noise. From this year to 1609 there were no good harvests.
1613. Seventh moon, seventh day. At noon a black vapour came up from the north-east. There was a fierce wind and a great fall of rain. In the autumn there was a drought.
1615. A plague of locusts, resulting in the destruction of the crops.
1616. In spring, a great famine. Men ate human flesh. Free breakfasts were provided by the district-magistrate of Wên-têng, Chang Chiu-ching, and by the chih-hui of Weihaiwei, T'ao Chi-tsu, whereby thousands of lives were saved.
1620. Seventh moon, eighth day. A great storm, which tore up trees and destroyed houses. Many people crushed to death. Ninety-six junks wrecked on the coast and over one hundred men drowned.
1621. Fourth moon, eighteenth day. A rumour was spread that pirates had landed on the coast. Many people were so terrified that they fled to a distance of 800 li, and trampled each other under foot in their efforts to escape. It was a false rumour. In the autumn there was an earthquake.
1622. Locusts.
1623-5. Three years of excellent harvests.
1626. Fifth moon: storm with hailstones as big as hens' eggs. Intercalary sixth moon: floods and destruction of crops. Seventh moon: great storm that uprooted trees.
1639. Locusts darkened the sky. Famine.
1640. Drought. Famine.
1641. Great famine. More than half the people perished. Men ate human flesh. Six hundred taels of money were given by the officials of Ning-hai to relieve the people of that district.
1642-3. No harvests. Country pillaged by robbers.
Ch'ing Dynasty.
1650. Spring and summer: drought. Autumn: floods and crops inundated.
1656. Great harvest.
1659. Comet in the Northern Dipper [the stars α β γ δ in Ursa Major].
1662. At Weihaiwei the tide threw up a monstrous fish which was five chang high [over fifty-eight English feet], several tens of chang long [at least three hundred and sixty feet], with a black body and white flesh. The people of the place all went down and spent a couple of months or so in cutting up the great beast but did not come to the end of it. Those of the people who liked a bit of fun cut out its bones and piled them into a mound; the large bones were about twelve feet in circumference, the small ones about six feet. The small ones were his tail bones. [Stories of monstrous fishes are not rare along the Shantung coast, and—allowing for exaggerations with reference to dimensions—they are based on a substratum of fact. We have seen (see p. [27]) that the bones of a vast fish were presented to the Kuan Ti temple in Weihaiwei city, where they may still be seen; and another set of fishbones adorn the canopy of a theatrical stage in the same city. For other references to great fishes, see pp. [24] and [26].]
1664. Drought. Seventh moon: a comet with a tail twelve feet in length.
1665. Earthquake. Great drought. Land taxes remitted. A comet.
1668. First moon. The sun produced four parhelia. On the twenty-fifth day a white vapour came from the south-west. On the seventeenth day of the sixth moon there was a great earthquake, and there were three noises like thunder. Parts of the city walls of Ch'êng-shan-wei and Wên-têng collapsed, and many houses. A devastating wind for three days spoiled the crops.
1670. Great snowstorm. Snow lay twelve feet deep. Intensely cold weather. Men were frozen to death on the roads and even inside their own houses.
1671. Great landslips on the hills. Sixth moon, rain and floods for three days, followed by ruin of crops and partial remission of land-tax.
1679. First moon: four halos appeared round the sun. Sixth moon, first day, and seventh moon, twenty-eighth day: earthquakes.
1682. Fifth moon, sixth day: earthquake destroyed two portions of the yamên of the district-magistrate, Wên-têng. Eighth moon, first day: a comet [Halley's?] was seen in daytime, and did not pass away till the eleventh day. In the same moon a violent storm occurred in one locality, spoiling the crops.
1685. Third moon, twelfth day. A violent wind.
1686. Earthquake. Sixth moon, twenty-eighth day, a comet came from the south-east as big as a peck-measure and as bright as the sun. It threaded the Southern Dipper and entered the Milky Way, where it became invisible. The sound of "heaven's drum" was heard four or five times.
1688. Twelfth moon, seventh day. Earthquake.
1689. Spring: famine. Sixth moon, first day: earthquake.
1691. Seventh moon, tenth day. Locusts.
1696. Floods and famine. In winter the district-magistrate provided free breakfasts.
1697. Government grain issued to save the people from starvation. Some however died of hunger.
1703. Floods and drought and a great famine in 1703 were followed in 1704 by deadly epidemics. More than half the population perished. The condition of the survivors was pitiful. They lived by eating the thatch that roofed their houses and they also ate human flesh. Land-tax remitted for three years.
1706. Great harvest.
1709. Rains injured crops. Famine.
1717. A great snowstorm at Weihaiwei on the twenty-sixth day of the first moon. People frozen to death. Eighth moon, rain and hail.
1719. Seventh moon. Great floods. Houses destroyed and crops ruined; the district-magistrate gave free breakfasts and issued grain for planting.
1723. Great harvest.
1724. Remission of three-tenths of land-tax for three years. Great snowfall in winter.
1725. In the second moon (about March) occurred the phenomenon of the coalescence of sun and moon and the junction of the jewels of the five planets.[40] [This has nothing to do with an eclipse. It is a phenomenon which is believed to indicate great happiness and prosperity, and good harvests. It is said to consist in the apparent simultaneous rising of sun and moon accompanied by peculiar atmospheric conditions. Some of the planets are supposed to go through a similar process.]
1730. Twelfth moon, twenty-eighth day (about January or February 1730), at nine in the evening, some beautiful parti-coloured clouds appeared in the north. They were resplendent with many tints intricately interwoven, and several hours passed before they faded away. Every one declared that the phenomenon betokened unexampled prosperity.
1736. First year of the reign of Ch'ien Lung. Three-tenths of the land-tax remitted. Eleventh moon, twenty-fourth and twenty-sixth days, earthquakes.
1739. Drought and floods.
1740. Land-tax remitted and public granaries opened.
1741. Seventh moon. A comet came from the west and did not fade till the twelfth moon. Great harvests.
1743. On the festival of the Ninth of the Ninth Moon a strange fish came ashore near Weihaiwei. Its head was like a dog's, its belly like a sea-turtle's. Its tail was six ch'ih long [say seven English feet] and at the end were three pointed prongs. On its back was a smaller fish, about ten inches long, which seemed to be made of nothing but spikes and bones. No one knew the name of either fish. It was suggested that perhaps the smaller one had fastened itself to the big one, and that the latter, unable to bear the pain of the small one's spikes, had dashed for the shore.
1747. Seventh moon, fifteenth day. Great storm: crops ruined.
1748. Locusts hid the sun and demolished the crops.
1749. Tenth moon, twenty-second day. Great storm and many drowned.
1751-2. Floods. Crops damaged by water and a hailstorm. Many died of starvation. Assistance given by Government, by the importation of grain from Manchuria.