1344 Yellow River flood

A map of China depicting the Yellow River's new path, after it stabilized following Li Xing's public works during the 1494 flood.

The 1344 Yellow River flood was a major natural disaster during the Yuan dynasty of Imperial China. The impact was devastating both for the peasants of the area as well as the leaders of the empire. The Yuan dynasty was waning, and the emperor forced enormous teams to build new embankments for the river. The terrible conditions helped fuel rebellions that led to the founding of the Ming dynasty.[1]

As a result of the flood, the Yellow River shifted course south of the Shandong peninsula, where it remained for the next five hundred years until floods in the 1850s returned it to its more northerly course.

References

  1. Bamber Gascoigne, The Dynasties of China, Carroll and Graf Publishers, New York, 2003, 150
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/21/2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.