Discussion and Review

 

Historical Studies (Chinese Edition)

No.1, 2019

 

On the Causes and Nature of the Bianjing Epidemic in the Last Years of the Jin Dynasty(Abstract)

 

Wang Xingguang and Zheng Yanwu

 

In the last years of the Jin dynasty, nearly a million people died in an epidemic in Bianjing, a horrific event of a type rarely seen in the past. Research has shown that the epidemic started in the early in the fourth month in 1232, about the time the siege of Bianjing was lifted, and lasted for fifty to sixty days, ending early in the sixth month. The total population in Bianjing would have been around two million. The book Eliminating Doubts over Internal and External Injuries(neiwai shang bianhuo lun) by the famous physician Li Gao, who experienced the disaster and was involved in the relief effort, has become an important source for assessing the nature of the epidemic, provoking widespread debate among scholars. The view that the epidemic was a pneumonic plague is not persuasive. If we cease to confine ourselves to the disease itself, but rather place it in the context of historical changes, we will see that the epidemic was closely related to the brutal war, the dense settlement and mobile population, the repetition of unusual weather patterns and the shortage of food. The epidemic not only caused serious damage to the economy, politics and society, but also to some extent accelerated the demise of the Jin Dynasty; its impact on the course of history was profound.