1. Peasant War at the end of Qin (209 BC 195 BC): In 207 BC, Xiang Yu buried 200,000 troops in Qin, and later generations were farewell to the king's concubine. He regretted that the heroes were still in decline. How many people were grateful to the Qin soldiers? There were more than 20 million people at the end of Qin, and by the beginning of the Han Dynasty, the population dropped to about 6 million. There were only two or three thousand households left in the original 10,000, which destroyed 70% of the original population.

2. Emperor Wu of Han respected Confucianism alone, valued cruel officials, promoted unjust prisons, deprived people of their wealth, severed punishment and killed people, and used military force everywhere (fighted for 30 years and recruited 2 million troops), which made the people live in poverty and the people changed their children to eat; the national population was reduced by half.

Emperor Wu of Han became bloodthirsty. In the third year of Yuanguang (132 BC), the minister Guan Fu was beheaded by a whole family, and Dou Ying was beheaded and exterminated. In the fifth year of Yuanguang (130 BC), Emperor Wu sent lieutenant general Tang Meng to lead tens of thousands of people to build the Path of Bashu, many died and many people ran away. Tang Meng killed his soldiers with the "military law".

At that time, the witch Chu Fu and others used witchcraft to teach Empress Chen to curse Wei Zifu to regain his favor. Unexpectedly, a few months passed and it was ineffective. The matter was exposed. Empress Chen was taken back from her seal, abolished her title, and imprisoned her for life in the Changmen Palace.

Emperor Wu also sent the cruel official Zhang Tang to investigate and punish him thoroughly. Chu Fu was beheaded and displayed in public. More than 300 people involved in Chu Fu's disciples, palace maids, eunuchs and others were executed.

As a result, Emperor Wu promoted Zhang Tang to Taizhong Doctor, and asked Zhang Tang and Zhao Yu to jointly formulate many strict laws, especially the "knowledge and opinion law" that encouraged informants and expose them, forcing officials to peek at each other and expose each other, and false accusations became a trend in the court.

In the second year of Yuanshuo (127 BC), the famous chivalrous Guo Jie was beheaded and his clan was exterminated. Emperor Wu sent his father Yan as the prime minister of Qi, responsible for inquiring about King Li of Qi, Liu Cichang of Qi. King Li of Qi was afraid and committed suicide by taking poison, and Yan State was destroyed.

King Liu Peng of Zhao wrote to Emperor Wu to force the crime of Zhufu Yan. Under the pressure of the vassal states, Emperor Wu killed Zhufu Yan and destroyed the clan.

Emperor Wu conscripted 100,000 civilians to build Shuofang City and fortress, and the national treasury was consumed.

In the third year of Yuanshuo (126 BC), Emperor Wu appointed the cruel official Zhang Tang as the Tingwei, which completely enforced the law based on Emperor Wu's likes and dislikes, causing many unjust cases. The crown prince Liu Ju was kind and generous and rehabilitated many unjust cases, which naturally caused the unhappiness of the cruel officials.

Therefore, ministers who advocate lenientness support the prince, while cruel officials slander him. Moreover, because cruel officials have formed many cliques, there are more remarks that slander the prince than praise him.

The prince's mother, Empress Wei, was always cautious and obedient, worried that the prince would handle things too loosely and would cause dissatisfaction with Emperor Wu and the court officials. He asked the prince to follow Emperor Wu's intentions when handling things. After Emperor Wu learned about it, he clearly stated that the prince's actions were in line with the law. He even criticized the queen.

3. "Biography of Wang Mang in the Book of Han" records that "there are many years of drought,... people eat each other... ten or eight out of ten people die of hungry people"; "The epidemic in Huiji is severe, and tens of thousands of people die."

In 2 AD, the national population was 59.59 million. After the melee at the end of the Western Han Dynasty, by the 2nd Zhongyuan period of Guangwu (57 AD), the population was 21 million. China's population decreased by 38.59 million. The loss rate was 65%. In 20 years, the population of Anxi decreased from 680,000 to 280,000, Dali decreased from 910,000 to 140,000, Xingping County decreased from 830,000 to 90,000, and Suiyuan County decreased from 690,000 to 20,000...

4. Indiscriminate killing in the late Eastern Han Dynasty and the three kingdoms

Liang Ji, a foreign relative of Emperor Huan of Han, served as the imperial court of Henan. He killed Lu Fang, the commander of Luoyang, and then blamed Lu Fang's enemies and killed more than a hundred guests of his clan. The doctor Yuan Zhu wrote a letter to advise the war and was killed. His friends Hu Wu and others recommended the nobles in the country to not visit Liang Ji. Liang killed more than 60 people in the Hu Wu clan. In order to occupy the wealth of the rich Sun Fen, Liang borrowed 50 million yuan from Sun, and Sun only gave 30 million yuan. Liang then falsely accused Sun Fen, and Sun was arrested and died in prison. Liang Ji confiscated Sun's 70 million yuan wealth.

Liang Ji controlled the government for more than ten years. He "set up the house" and "opened the gardens and gardens". Liang Ji annexed a billionaire in Fufeng with one sentence, and captured thousands of peasant children as slaves with one order. He also plundered thousands of good women to offer lust and fun, forcibly circled the farmland dozens of miles around Luoyang into a "rabbit garden". Thousands of miles of land were sealed as the Liang family hunting garden; a businessman did not know the ban and accidentally killed a rabbit in the garden, and he actually killed more than ten people.

When he was on a bus, there were groups of advocate maids and concubines following the car, ringing bells and blowing pipes, singing and singing. Liang Ji's family's output was 300,000 yuan, which was half of the national rent and tax.

In the third year of Yongshou in Emperor Huan of Han Dynasty (157), there were more than 10.67 million households and more than 56.48 million people in China.

"The Book of the Later Han Dynasty" records "The Chronicles of Emperor Huan of Emperor Huan" "There are four or five people who died in Yuzhou, and even those who have destroyed their households."

After the Yellow Turban Uprising and Melee, the national population after the Red Cliff War in 208 AD was 1.4 million. Cao Cao said that only 1% of the original population survived!

"The heads are hung in front of the horse, and women are carried behind the car." "The bones are exposed in the wild, and there is no rooster crowing for thousands of miles, and more than one hundred people are born, and the thoughts are broken." In the Battle of Red Cliff, the Cao army suffered tens of thousands of losses.

In 221 AD, the population dropped to 900,000; 983% was lost. In 265 AD, the total population of the Three Kingdoms was only 7.67 million. In the first year of Taikang in Emperor Wu of Jin (280), the Three Kingdoms were unified, and the population of China was only more than 16.16 million. Where did the people go?

First, the princes fought endlessly and annexed each other, and finally formed the three families of Wei, Shu and Wu. The strong would not allow others to sleep peacefully on the side of the bed, and the weak would rather be the mouth of the chicken than the cattle. They would have to be solved by force. Most of the people were killed.

Dong Zhuo sent troops to Yangcheng where the people were rushing to the meeting, beheaded all the men who were rushing to the meeting, drove the dead's car and cow, loaded the stolen women's property into the car, hung the chopped heads on the shaft, and drove back to Luoyang with the slogan of long live, saying that it was the spoils obtained by the fight against the thieves, and then burned the heads, and the stolen women were assigned to soldiers as maids and concubines.

The biography of Dong Zhuo in "The Three Kingdoms" records: In 192 AD, Dong Zhuo's generals Li Nao and Guo Si conquered Chang'an. "At that time, there were hundreds of thousands of households in Sanfu, and Nao and others robbed the troops... The people were hungry and hungry, and they had eaten each other in two years." In two years, there were only a few left of hundreds of thousands of households, and they were desolate.

After Emperor Liu Xie escaped from Chang'an, his residence was a gateway made of thorns. Many palace maids starved to death. On the way, they followed the officials to collect firewood and often fell to the side of the road. Yuan Shujun was in the Jianghuai River and had to use clams to fill the hunger. The people fed each other and the state was in a depressed state.

Cao Cao once killed tens of thousands of men and women in Sishui, and his bodies blocked the river. His attack on Xuzhou was blocked by Tao Qian's army and could not move forward. He captured several counties southward and killed tens of thousands of residents there, and finally "the Jianghuai was empty and the people fed each other."

When Cao Cao attacked Bingzhou and Qingzhou, he would slaughter the city whenever he encountered stubborn resistance. Cao's army rescued Liu Bei and attacked Lu Bu first captured Pengcheng, and killed all the defenders and civilians in Pengcheng. In the Battle of Guandu, Cao Cao beheaded more than 70,000 levels and killed 80,000 surrendered soldiers of Yuan's army. At that time, close troops were often needed; killing 3,000 people would inevitably hurt himself; Cao's army could also be imagined.

More people are starved to death and die of illness; they are anxious to eat people.

Famine and war have increased the chances of illness and often spread on a large scale. An important reason for Cao Cao's defeat in Red Cliff was that many of the soldiers suffered from epidemics; in 217 AD, the 22nd AD, there was an epidemic pandemic in the north. Countless people died; many middle-class people of the same living conditions were pretty good, and many of them died of illness at a young age.

The result is that "the Great Wei now has ten states. However, the ills of mourning and chaos, and the household registration is not as good as the people of the past state."

At that time, less than 100% of the residents in the heart of China were left.

"The Biography of Zhang Xiu, the Book of Wei in the Three Kingdoms" has an estimate that "there are fewer household registrations in the world, and one ten is still there."

"Biography of Zhu Zhi, the Book of Wu, the Book of the Three Kingdoms" describes the situation at that time as "China is in a depressed state, or there is no smoke for a hundred miles, the cities are empty, and the roads are shrouded in each other."

The territory of Dongwu included a vast area from the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River to the Pearl River Basin. When it was unified, there were only 2.3 million people.

There were only more than 1.47 million households and more than 7.67 million people in the three families of Wei, Shu and Wu. However, they had to support three emperors, millions of troops and three bureaucratic machines. How burdens and pains should be for the people?

During the Taikang period after the unification of the Western Jin Dynasty, there were more than 2.4 million households and more than 16 million households.

The metal currency Wuzhu coins were discarded, and cloth replaced metal became a means of trading.

It can be noted that this economic decline lasted from the end of the Han Dynasty (early the 3rd century AD) until the Tianbao period in the middle of the Tang Dynasty (early the 8th century AD) and was restored in the next 500 years. The population returned to the level of the Han Dynasty, and metal currency replaced cloth.

This situation cannot be explained by war.

The Warring States Period was the period of the most wars. However, the Warring States Period was the period of the fastest economic development in China.

Simply put, the land annexation in the Qin and Han dynasties was serious, and farmers went bankrupt and exiled, becoming slaves. The Han Dynasty was the era with the largest number of slaves in Chinese history, which led to the decline of agriculture.

5. After the Eight Kings Rebellion in the Western Jin Dynasty, the population decreased by 80%. By the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Huns declined and divided into two parts. The Northern Huns moved westward, and the Southern Huns entered the border to join the Han Dynasty. Huo Qubing once claimed that "the Huns were not destroyed, why did they do their families?" According to Huo Sheng's philosophy, this should be considered the "destruction" of the Huns.

But what happened? The Xiongnu tribes that moved inward were placed in the mainland and lived with the locals, and the Han people always listed them as "inferior people".

Oppression, enslavement, discrimination, and trafficking all fell on the heads of the Hu people who moved inwardly, but the descendants of Huo Qubing's class lived a life of extravagance and lewdness.

Since 291 AD, there have been King Liang of Runan, King Wei of Chu, King Lun of Zhao, King Lun of Qi, King Changsha, King of Hejian, King Yue of Donghai and King Ying of Chengdu to fight for the throne, and the eight kings of King Ying of Chengdu have attacked and killed each other in Luoyang. The war lasted for 16 years, and many towns were burned down, which is known in history as the "Rebellion of the Eight Kings".

This disaster caused great damage to the vitality of the Jin Dynasty and caused even more disasters to the lives. The capital Luoyang and Guanzhong were the main battlefields, and the victims were You Lie. The battle to destroy Zhao Wanglun alone was "one soldier was prospered for more than 60 days, and nearly 100,000 people died in the battle"!

During the battle between the kings, the Hu people were brought to the war and eventually destroyed the Western Jin Dynasty.

At the same time, a rare locust plague and plague broke out in the Kanto region. According to historical records, "As for Yongjia, the chaos is even more serious. To the east of Yongzhou, there are many people who are hungry and hungry, and they sell each other, and they are rushing and moving, countless.

The six states of You, Ji, Qin and Yong were all over the locusts, plants, trees, cattle and horse hair. They were also severely ill and famine, and were filled with famine, and the river was filled with white bones. "("Jin Shu Food and Memorials")

In 301 AD, Li Te, a tycoon of Di tribe in western Shu, gathered more than 20,000 refugees and claimed to be the general of Zhenbei. He rebelled in Mianzhu (now Huangxu Town, Deyang City), captured Guanghan, surrounded Chengdu, and entered the city to massacre. After Li Te died in battle, his son Li Xiong was called the King of Chengdu, and later became the emperor. He committed all kinds of evil and spread chaos for 50 years.

In the fifth year of Yongjia (311), "Guanxi was famine, and white bones covered the wilderness, and there were no one or two people who survived" (Zizhi Tongjian). "Biography of Sima Mo in Jin Book 37": "At that time, Guanzhong was famine, and the people ate each other; if the epidemic was caused, the thieves were public, the force could not be controlled."

In August, in the fourth year of Jianxing (316th), Liu Yao advanced to Chang'an.

Sima Bao, the son of Sima Mo, sent Hu Song's troops to aid and attacked Liu Yao at Lingtai (west Chang'an).

"Song was afraid that the power of the country would revive, so Qusuo (Qu Yun and Suolin guarded Chang'an) was powerful, so he led the troops of the county in the west of the city to station in Weibei but did not advance, so he returned to Huaili (Xingping, Chang'an).

Yao captured the outer city of Chang'an, and Qu Yun and Solin retreated to protect the small city to strengthen themselves. The inside and outside were cut off, and the city was very hungry.

The rice bucket is worth two taels of gold, and people eat each other, and most of the dead are dead. They cannot be controlled by death.

Only thousands of people in Liangzhou were invincible. There were dozens of koji cakes in Taicang, and the crumbs were made into porridge for the emperor. Then it was done” (Zizhi Tongjian).

6. Civil strife in the Eastern Jin Dynasty and melee in the Southern and Northern Dynasties.

"Records of Liu Cong in the Book of Jin" states that in April of the fifth year of Yongjia, Shi Le killed "more than 100,000 kings, princes, men and common people"; in June of the same year, Wang Mi led his troops to burn and kill Luoyang, "harm more than 100,000 people below the kings, princes, officials and officials"!

Shi Le led the light cavalry to kill 200,000 Jin troops in Ningping City at one time. Ethnic minority soldiers then defeated 12 consecutive Jin troops, and the Jin army killed another 30,000, and Luoyang fell; in 320, Shi Hu defeated former Zhao Liu Yao and "caught 16,000 soldiers."

In 321, Shi Le "cracked" 30,000 surrendered soldiers from the Cao Yi unit of the Jin army.

In the east of Dancheng County, Henan Province, Shi Le surrounded more than 100,000 officials and soldiers who fled the Western Jin Dynasty, shooting all of them, and piled up dead bodies.

Jie Zhao Shile explicitly stipulated that the Jie people had the right to rob any Han people; at the same time, the Han people were prohibited from calling nomadic peoples as Hu people, and those who violated the rules were severely punished.

Once, a drunk horseman broke into the palace gate and rushed away again. When Shi Le saw it, he was furious and asked the doorman why he didn't stop him. The doorman was frightened and forgot Shi Le's order. To be honest, he was a drunk Hu man. As the saying goes, Hu man is difficult to deal with. How could I stop him?

After saying that, he suddenly remembered Shi Le's ban and was so scared that he knelt down and begged for mercy. Shi Le laughed and said: It is difficult for the Hu people to speak. They are exempted from guilt.

The famous scholar Fan Tan was appointed as a local official by Shi Le. Once he returned to Jingjin to meet Shi Le, and was robbed of all the people on the way.

Seeing that he was ragged and embarrassed, Shi Le asked in surprise why this was the case.

Fan Tan replied: The Jie thief was unrighteous. He snatched all my belongings. I borrowed this outfit from someone in a hurry.

Shi Le smiled and said: The Jie thieves did rob and do it randomly. Let's do this, I will compensate you for them.

Only then did Fan Tan remember Shi Le's ban. He kowtowed in panic and prayed for forgiveness, and Shi Le exempted him.

The territory of the Later Zhao Empire was very small, but Emperor Shi Le had five queens and more than 10,000 concubines. After his death, his son was lewd with the five queen mothers day and night, and was killed by Shi Hu, exterminated the royal family.

Whenever Shi Hu captured a city or fortress guarded by the Han people, he killed all of them. He opened the world's largest hunting surrounds south of the capital Yecheng. No one is allowed to throw a stone at a wild beast, otherwise it would be a "beast" and would be sentenced to death.

Officials then used "beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast-beast

Shihu built a hunting car with a thousand chariots, with a shaft of three meter long and eight meter high. At the same time, it created a beast car with forty chariots, allowing prisoners to fight with beasts in the car.

An official reported that a stone-carved tiger in Jinan walked to the southeast of the city, and more than a thousand wolves followed him, and his footprints were deeply trapped in the stones.

Shi Hu was very happy: "Shi Hu is my name. From the northwest to the southeast, it is probably God's will to bless me to win the world."

So Shi Hu claimed to attack the Jin Empire and ordered recruitment. Three men from his family recruited two people into the camp. There were more than 500,000 craftsmen who made armor and 170,000 craftsmen who made ships.

Two-thirds of these craftsmen were drowned in the water or swallowed by wild beasts that were indestructible due to the desolation of the fields.

Soldiers were more bitter than craftsmen. The Later Zhao government not only did not supply food, but also offered 1 ox cart, 2 oxen and 15 buckets of rice and ten pieces of silk for every 5 soldiers. Those who violated the orders would be killed, and those who were underpaid were also killed.

When the people sold their children and daughters to worship Shi Hu, when their children were sold or no one could afford them, the most peaceful and kind Chinese farmer in the world hanged himself to death. The big trees on both sides of the road from Luoyang to Chang'an were hung with corpses, connecting front and back.

Shihu gathered gold and silk to excavate the tombs of the emperors of the previous generations. He also sent 160,000 men and women in the county and 100,000 vehicles to transport soil to build Hualin Garden in the north corner of Yecheng. The walls of Hualin Garden were dozens of miles away. The weather was cold and the land was frozen, and nearly 10,000 people were on the way to death.

Shihu plundered more than 30,000 beautiful Han women aged 13 to 20 in the Central Plains to enrich their harem. In 345 AD alone, more than 3,000 people were killed for refusing to recruit beautiful women.

The other Jie nobles seized nearly 10,000 beauties, and even the wives of ordinary people were not spared.

When the beauty was sent to Yecheng, Shi Hulong was very happy. Any local leader who had excessive achievements was promoted to marquis.

When his tyranny caused the people to flee on a large scale, Shi Hu blamed the newly-promoted marquis for not knowing to appease the people and beheaded.

In order to accommodate the beautiful women, Shi Hu built palaces in Yecheng, Chang'an and Luoyang, and used 400,000 manpower.
To be continued...