唐代江南的疫病与户口

唐代后期,江南先后发生了9次较大的疫病,造成了较大的人员死亡。从这些疫病流传的具体情况来看,大多是伤寒、痢疾、疟疾等,鼠疫发生的可能性不是很大。此外,江南还有一些没有记录具体时间的疫病,也没有为史书重视。唐代后期江南疫病越来越多,与江南经济活动的频繁、人口的增多成正比。疫病发生后,唐政府开展了一系列积极的防治和救助政策,如中央和地方政府为疫区送医送药进行医治,提倡掩埋尸体以遏制疫病的蔓延,蠲免各种赋税减轻灾区百姓负担,甚至还放贷资金作为租税交纳。唐代代宗宝应元年和宪宗元和元年的两次大疫病,造成了大量的户口损失,但并没有达到江南一半人口死亡的程度,元和年间户口的下降主要原因并不是这两次疫病造成的。

Epidemic Diseases and the Number of Households in the Region South of the Yangtze River During the Tang Dynasty

During the late Tang Dynasty,severe pestilences broke out successively nine times in Jiangnan,the region south of the Yangtze River,killing large numbers of people.Judged from the spread of the epidemic diseases,most of them were ty- phoid fever,dysentery,and malaria.In addition,there occurred a number of epidemic diseases which were not registered.There were two most disastrous pestilences,which brought about a big loss of households in Jiangnan,but which did kill half of the pop- ulation in it.The paper concludes that the two most severe pestilences did not make up the main cause of the huge reduction of the number of households in Jiangnan during that period.