From the beginning of the Chen Sheng and Wu Guang uprising to the establishment of the Western Han Dynasty, it lasted 7 years.
The population when the Qin Dynasty was established was 30 million, and when the Western Han Dynasty was established it was 13 million. Don’t worry, you are right. I quoted the data from Ge Jianxiong’s “Chinese Population History”.
In seven years, the population dropped by 57%.
(2) Late Western Han Dynasty
In the second year of Emperor Ping of the Han Dynasty (AD 2), the population was about 60 million.
When Emperor Guangwu of the Han Dynasty died (57 AD), the population was about 21 million.
The population has decreased by 65% in 55 years.
One more thing, it has been more than thirty years since Liu Xiu became emperor, and more than twenty years since the world was unified. The population has recovered greatly. You can imagine how many people there were when the world was just unified. The losses are estimated to be greater than those of Qin Dynasty.
It's too big at the end.
(3) Late Eastern Han Dynasty
In the third year of Emperor Huan's Yongshou reign (157), the population was about 57 million.
In the first year of Taikang in the Western Jin Dynasty (280), the population was about 16 million.
The population has decreased by 72% in more than 100 years.
(4) Northern and Southern Dynasties period
The information is really hard to check and messy, so I’ll skip it for now.
(5) Late Sui Dynasty
In the fifth year of Daye (609), the population was about 46 million.
In the first year of Zhenguan (627), there were "more than 2 million households". Considering that the data was calculated more than ten years later, it was about more than 12 million. I think the first year of Zhenguan was probably just over 10 million.
The population decreased by 78% in 18 years.
(6) Tang Dynasty
During the Tianbao period of the Tang Dynasty, I calculated that there are two figures, 51 million and 53 million. I will take a compromise of 52 million.
After the An-Shi Rebellion, the imperial court lost control over the local areas, and the feudal vassals and towns were separated. Wufu ruled the country, and many states and counties did not accept printed books. However, according to research by scholars, it is generally believed that the population was about 20 million when the An-Shi Rebellion was quelled.
The population decreased by 62% in 8 years.
Now comes the main event.
Before the Huang Chao Uprising, there were about 30-40 million people. Some people said it was 45 million. I'll give it 40 million.
After more than a hundred years of feudal rule, has the population doubled?
Next, when the Northern Song Dynasty was founded, the population was 30 million.
From the late Tang Dynasty to the establishment of the Northern Song Dynasty, the population decreased by 25% in more than 80 years.
Some people may say that from the late Tang Dynasty to the Five Dynasties, there was peace in the south. This is true, but it is also incorrect.
Because Huang Chao could not stand in the north, he was driven to the south and fought from Jiangling to Guangzhou and back from Guangzhou. Yang Xingmi, Sun Ru, Qian Liu, Ma Yin and others also fought in the south for a long time.
In addition, there were relatively safe places in the last years of other dynasties. We can’t have double standards, right?
I saw some book friends saying that the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties were the darkest periods in Chinese history. Is this true?
How does it compare to the last years of other dynasties? Population figures speak for themselves, my friend.
The darkest thing is that society loses order, and then there will be no human beings or ghosts, and the main loss of population will be here.
For example, I wrote a single chapter before about the cannibalism of the rebels in the late Yuan Dynasty. They were all put on the grill, right? They also dug out the women’s breasts, saying that the meat was the tenderest here. They fried the meat balls and ate them, then buried them in the ground.
If all the rotting corpses are dug up and eaten, isn’t it dark?
When I wrote this paragraph, I found that many readers did not know these things.
I said, is there a possibility? I mean possible. In the late Tang and Five Dynasties, everyone thinks that the "darkest" was the Later Jin Dynasty. When the Northern Song Dynasty was compiling history, someone wrote all these dark things, but the last years of other dynasties were not completely
Written out, many people subconsciously ignored it and considered the late Tang and Five Dynasties to be the darkest?
Population data does not support the view that the late Tang Dynasty was the darkest period at all.
In the last years of other dynasties, order completely collapsed, and bandits fought. However, the imperial officers and soldiers were unable to exterminate the bandits or restrict them to a certain range (for example, in the late Tang Dynasty, the Qin clan power was limited to western Henan). People could not grow food even if they wanted to.
If you think about it carefully, how many dark things will appear in this process?
My personal opinion represents only me. No matter how dark an orderly society is, there is no darkness in a society without order. The population loss rate speaks for itself.
