Continuous natural disasters will inevitably cause widespread famine, and the country's economic reserves will be gradually emptied in the famine.

At this time, the Eastern Han Empire had entered the period of gate valve politics, the so-called

"The records of the state and county are like a thunderbolt", and the power of the family is increasingly surpassing the central government. In many areas, the central government retains only nominal power of moderation, which is harmonious in normal years, but once wars and natural disasters break out in the country, the weakening of central control will inevitably lead to greater destructive power of disasters.

After all, the big families will choose to hoard and close their doors to protect themselves, and the central government does not have enough economic capacity to provide relief, and the desperate people can only choose to rebel.

In fact, the Yellow Turban Army uprising, which later spread throughout the Eastern Han Empire, had a lot to do with the famine that lasted for many years.

The Yellow Turban Army quickly gathered hundreds of thousands of believers through the measure of giving favors and buying people's hearts.

As a result of the Yellow Turban uprising, it caused large-scale war in the north. It's a painful vicious circle, and one of the costs is a devastating population.

The most tragic stage of the sharp decline of the Chinese population during this period should be from Dong Zhuo's entry into Beijing to the end of the Battle of Chibi.

During this period, China can be said to have both natural and man-made disasters.

In terms of "man-made disasters", it is well known that Dong Zhuo, the minister of power, was himself a perverse man, and his entry into Luoyang was a disaster for the entire Central Plains.

He abused the people's power, built a large number of buildings, and expropriated violently, so that the Central Plains was once thousands of miles away. his

For example, every time his soldiers patrolled around Luoyang, their horses were loaded with looted women on horseback, and everywhere they passed, all the rich villages were slaughtered and all the materials were looted.

And at this time, China's natural weather has also entered

"Abnormal" stage, the Central Plains have been in trouble, such as the drought in Yuzhou, according to the official history of the record, a time starvation of more than 3 million people, although the number is a bit exaggerated, but at that time, the central government is difficult to protect itself, where can still manage the people, later Dong Zhuo fled from Luoyang under the blow of the Kwantung princes, the entire population of Luoyang moved to Chang'an, the result of living to Chang'an, only less than 100,000 people.

The continuous decline in population had an impact on the pattern of the time, as well as on the main policies of the various princes.

In the later stages of this war, all discerning politicians began to regard population as the main object of their struggle.

So it's not that the emperor in the late Eastern Han Dynasty was incompetent, but a natural disaster, sometimes the sky wants you to perish, then you have to die, and the continuous natural disasters force the peasants to revolt and rebel.

During the reign of Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty, the eunuchs held the power and sold the officials at a public price, the so-called eunuchs held the power and sold the officials at a public price, which was just a method for the Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty to use the eunuchs to check and balance his relatives, although the emperor of the Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty was not outstanding, but if you want to say that he is mediocre, you can't say that he is particularly mediocre.

The things he did were also what the emperors often did, such as building a lot of buildings, playing with women, etc., the emperors would do these things, just imagine, which emperor doesn't want to see the beauty of the world, which emperor doesn't want to have a magnificent palace.

Besides, the way Emperor Ling plays with women, compared with those particularly famous emperors in history, it is still a little worse, but it is to play naked with Emperor Ling and many concubines in the West Garden, and he built one in order to escape the heat in midsummer

In the "Naked Pavilion", people collect green moss to cover it on the top of the steps, attracting canal water around the thresholds and circulating through the entire Naked Pavilion.

Choose a singer with jade skin and a light body to row a boat and sway in the canal water. In the scorching heat of midsummer, he ordered the boat to sink in the water, watch the naked palace ladies fall into the water, and then play the song "Seven Words of Merchant" to attract coolness.

The only thing Emperor Ling did was to make a dog and mate with a palace maid in the West Garden, but this is not a big deal for the emperor who holds the power of life and death, and it has no special impact on the whole country, and there is no dark place in that person's heart?

Especially the emperor. For Ma Hong, when he became a king, he also wanted the most beautiful woman to serve, and also wanted the most luxurious palace, this is a normal thing, in Ma Hong's view, it was not the emperor who died in the Eastern Han Dynasty, but the sky, if the sky wants you to die, you have to die, Ma Hong actually agreed that Zhu Ran was also very entangled when he attacked Jizhou at sea, because he always felt that he was an outsider and did not belong to this world, He was afraid that hundreds of thousands of sailors would experience wind and waves at sea and be wiped out, but then he figured out that if he naively wanted to destroy him, then he would be defeated, just like the war between Wang Mang and Liu Xiu at the beginning, meteorites fell from the sky, so Ma Hong chose to gamble and let Zhu Ran go to a surprise attack, but he didn't expect that there was no big accident this time.

There is no extra-large-scale battle in Yizhou, and Ma Hong's strength to attack Yizhou Fei is not too great, after all, Liu Zhang is not a powerful opponent, coupled with the control of ethnic minorities in the south of Yizhou, when the population of Yizhou was counted last year, but the population of Yizhou alone reached 2.5 million, of course, there are 800,000 people in Hanzhong, the birthplace of Ma Hong.

The population of Jingzhou is about 3 million, the population of Yangzhou is about 1 million, the population of Yongzhou is about 1.3 million (of which due to the development of Chang'an this year, the population of Yongzhou has grown significantly), Liangzhou continues to gather the population of ethnic minorities and the Western Regions, the number of people has reached 500,000, and with the development and mining of coal mines, the population of Jiaozhou has been about 800,000 in recent years, and the population of Jiaozhou is less than 200,000.

Before Ma Hong launched the battle with Cao Wei, he had Jing, Yi, Yong, Liang, and, Yang, Jiao, if the minority population of the Western Regions is also counted, the total population of Ma Hong has exceeded 10 million, before the war, Ma Hong occupied 7 states in the thirteen states of the world, and Cao Wei occupied Qing, Xu, Henan, Si, Hebei, and You, in terms of strength, Wei and Chu are comparable, after all, the Jiaozhou of Chu is quite large, in fact, the population is less than a quarter of Nanyang County, and the real strategic significance or existence of this state is not large.

On the surface, the registered population of Wei was about 7 million, but in the Central Plains under the rule of Cao Wei, at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the wealthy families led their clans and tribes to build dock walls to protect themselves in the war.

Such as Xu Chu,

"At the end of the Han Dynasty, thousands of young people and clans gathered together to fortify the wall to defend the Imperial Kou", which is one of them. After Cao Wei became the Han Dynasty, it was implemented with the development of the power of the wealthy family

"Customer system": "Wei's rented cattle and customers below the minister, and the number is different. Since then, the villain has been in service, and he has more joy to do it, and the door of nobility and power has hundreds of moves", and the general peasants have relied on Haoqiang to escape the enslavement.

These tribes and tenants under the shadow of wealthy families are not included in the government's household registration, so this large number of people cannot be counted.

If it is really statistically, its number is not inferior compared with the Chu State. (To be continued.) )