氣候災變與太平天國興起之再討論

Abstract

氣候災變對國家各個層面的影響有十分緊密的關係。氣候災變發 生時，常發生農作物受損、物價上漲等現象，這些現象影響民眾的生 活，故政府機關提出相關政策以賑濟民眾。政策雖立意良善，但人為 操作常易生弊端，故太平軍以清政府救災失敗為討伐的重點，同時還 指出道光年間全國各地氣候災變頻仍，所以本研究為瞭解道光時的氣 候狀況是否真如太平軍所言，故藉學者們的研究結果得知道光年間氣 候災變狀況不斷，致使民眾流離失所。 一些學者指出氣候災變是造成太平天國起事的原因之一，所以筆 者為確實了解，篩選出22 個與氣候災變有關之社會事件，利用這些地 區的雨雪分寸、地方志、1980-2001 中國地面氣象記錄年報、糧價清單 等資料進行比對，而後再利用此22 個社會事件，以及整理學者研究與 太平軍活動相關之25 個社會事件（內含2 個社會事件與前者重複）進 行整合。結果發現民眾加入太平軍的原因複雜，氣候災變只是其中一 項因素，而且在起事初期加入太平軍者受氣候災變的影響較多；太平 軍離開廣西後，其勢力壯大則多受其他因素影響。 本文篩選出的22 個因氣候災變造成的社會事件，則包含以下幾種 類型：（1）人為操作，另有所圖，藉災情而生者；（2）受氣候災變影 響者；（3）屬種族衝突者。所以這些社會事件除受氣候災變的影響 外，還受到政府處置不當、賑災過慢、人為藉故操作而起事等因素所 影響，故這些社會事件並不單純受到氣候變化的影響。而且這些事件 的參與民眾，也僅只少數幾個事件有民眾加入太平軍，並無出現全部 事件或是大量事件的民眾加入太平軍的情況。 最後本研究得到以下結果：太平軍起事初期，確有諸多社會事件 與氣候災變有關，其中確有民眾因氣候災變加入太平軍，但僅只少數 事件。不過，這些加入人數約有3000-4000 人，且這些人數壯大了太 平軍初期的聲勢。When drought or flood occurs, it may affect a country in many ways, for instances, crop yield decreases, commodity price increases, and the social-economic stability changes. If the government loses control on these social events to some extent, strike, demonstration, and rebellion may take place. Rise of Tai-Ping Tien-Kuo (Taiping Army) may be attributed to several aspects; corruption of Ching Dynasty, hatred attitude toward foreigners, racial discrimination, social-economic instability, the personal ambitions of Hong-Xiu-Quan, and etc. Among these aspects, the climatic hazard was quite often mentioned but was not elaborated thoroughly in the past. This research is focused on the climatic hazard and its consequence of the social-economic instability when dealing with the rise of the Taiping Army in the mid 19th century of Ching Dynasty. We look into 22 rebellion social events that are considered to be related with the climatic hazards and may perhaps cause the rebels to join the Army as often mentioned in history of Tai-Ping Tien-Kuo. Through cross-examination of these social events against Ching’s official document, i.e., records of rainfall amount and crop yield, we make a comparative study for these data with that of recent (1981-2000) climate data, and realize that the causes of the growing Taiping Army are complicated. The climatic hazards is merely one of the factors that drives the rebels to join the Army at it beginning stage when the Army stationed in its origin base of Guang-Xi province. After analyzing the selected 22 cases, in relation with the climatic hazards, rebellions could be classified into the following categories: (1) People suffered from the climatic hazards and join the Army directly, (2) people simply took the advantage of the climatic hazards as an excuse to demand better living condition from the government, (3) local conflict between different races during the Taping era, (4) mis-management of Ching government causing degraded living quality. In summary, only 3 out of 22 cases are proved to be the direct cause for rebels to join the Army with regard to the climatic hazards, while others are not obvious and may be considered as indirect causes.