Sages and Hail: An Inquiry into Hail Interpretation in Ming China

Between the 15th and 17th centuries, as the Northern Hemisphere entered the Little Ice Age, the scale and frequency of hailstorms increased. In Ming Dynasty China, following the Han Dynasty’s “Interaction Between Heaven and Mankind” doctrine and the pre-Qin Confucian classic Zuo Zhuan’s interpretation that “when a sage rules, there is no hail,” linked these disasters to the moral conduct of the emperor. Others took a more agnostic, naturalistic approach, but in both cases, scapegoating was largely avoided. Building on existing Western scholarship on the link between witch hunts and hail, this paper will use Chinese classical interpretations, historical records of hail events from the Ming Dynasty, and the reactions of emperors and Confucian scholars as a point of reference. It aims to compare and contrast the different understandings and responses to hail disasters in Ming China and Europe.