On June 17, Shanghai and Haiyan earthquakes, window corridors rang; The earthquakes in Huzhou and Shaoxing killed and injured people and animals, and the earthquake occurred the next day; In Tongxiang and Shengxian earthquakes, all the roof tiles fell off. /kloc-on 0/8, the earthquakes in Xianghe, Wuji and Nanle from the northwest suddenly sounded and the houses shook. /kloc-on 0/9, the Qinghe and Deqing earthquakes sounded and all the houses collapsed. On July 20th, Qiantang earthquake. On the 25th, Qianjiang earthquake. (See page 1632, Volume VI, Zhonghua Book Company Edition)
The epicentre is around Shanghai and Haiyan, and aftershocks will occur in some places nearby in the next few days. At that time, Pu Songling was also affected in Linzi, which was hundreds of miles away from the epicenter. He wrote down his personal experience in this article:
On June 17, the seventh year of Kangxi, there was a big earthquake. When I was at home, Fang and his cousin Li drank a candle wine. Suddenly I heard thunder, coming from the southeast and heading northwest. Many people are horrified and don't understand why. In Russia, several boxes were rickety and the glass was knocked over; The beams and rafters are staggered. Take care of each other. It takes a long time to know an earthquake. Various diseases emerge one after another. Look at pavilions, servants rise again; The sound of walls falling down and houses falling down, and the voice of children chanting women's names are as loud as boiling. People are dizzy and can't stand up, sitting on the ground and sideways. The river overflowed and the whole city crowed and dogs crowed. It will be decided after a while. Depending on the street, men and women get together naked, competing to tell each other and forgetting that they are naked. I heard that a well is inclined, so don't draw it. A building can easily move from north to south; Qixia mountain crack; A water cave, a few acres wide. This is really weird. (Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, Volume I, page 170)
The personal history of this scene is much more detailed than that recorded in Qing Draft and Disaster Records. It seems that the memory is also very accurate. For example, he said, "Come from the southeast, go to the northwest", and his Xia Ji (Linzi) is in the northwest of the epicenter. As for what he said, "men and women get together naked in the street, vying to tell each other and forgetting that they are naked", it is actually not suspicious. The earthquake happened between 7 pm and 9 pm, not too late. Many people haven't slept yet. Let's say the author himself. Is this also "Fang and his cousin Li drinking as a candle"? Of course, some couples ran out for their lives when the earthquake suddenly happened, but there must be no such scale as "naked men and naked women gathering in the street". The novelist Pu Gong always likes to write some pornographic content. Readers of Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio will have such an impression. This article is about the earthquake, and this sentence is highlighted to show people's panic in the face of this sudden disaster.
Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio also wrote about another earthquake. "Flood" describes the Pingyang (now Linfen, Shanxi) earthquake in the thirty-fourth year of Kangxi (1695). "History of the Qing Dynasty Draft" Volume 7 "Biography of the Sage" II: "Ding You, Pingyang Prefecture earthquake in summer and April." (Zhonghua Book Company Edition, Volume II, Page 24/kloc-0) Volume 44 "Disasters" V:
In the first month of thirty-four years, there were earthquakes in Qiongzhou, Leizhou, Quanzhou and Liucheng. 15 Richao County earthquake. On the sixth day of April, there were great earthquakes in Guanghua, tengxian, Enxian, Qiuxian, Xugou, Taiping, Zhenyang, Yuxian and Jiaocheng. The earthquakes in Linfen, Yicheng, Fushan, Anyi and Pinglu were particularly severe. Five out of ten bad houses killed more than ten thousand people. (ibid., p. 1634)
This time, the author was not in the earthquake zone, so he didn't describe the scene specifically, but simply explained the incident:
In the thirty-fourth year of Kangxi, Pingyang earthquake killed 10 people and 78 people, and the city wall was destroyed. If there is only one house left, there is a dutiful son. In the vast robbery, only the dutiful son is safe. Who says that God is innocent? (ibid., p. 492)
In old novels, including Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio, karma is often used to promote goodness. The survivor is a dutiful son. Of course, it is not that thousands of victims are disobedient and unfilial. Here, we have to use "bad luck" to explain. It is filial piety that has escaped this great disaster. This kind of preaching has a certain deterrent effect on some people who dare not do evil, and is also conducive to maintaining a good social order.
Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio wrote about these two earthquakes, but did not write about post-earthquake relief. This is not Pu Gong's negligence. He wrote a lot of earthquakes in History of Love and Disaster, but didn't write about the rescue after the earthquake. After the Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan last year, the whole country was trying its best to rescue it, which really reflected the progress of the times. To talk about how the Qing court responded to the earthquake, we saw this article in Volume 44 "Disaster" V of the Draft of Qing History: "In May, the ugly son was born and the capital was shaken. The seventh, ninth and thirteenth days were shocked again. " (Same page, 1632) For the response of the Qing court to the earthquake near the capital, see Volume 6, Biography of the Sage I: "In May, I lost my son, and the stars changed into an earthquake, which ordered me to repair the province and quit my job." (page 176 of the same book) I thought the earthquake was a "heavenly heart alarm", so I asked ministers to save time and not to get angry at work. In fact, at this time, the powerful minister Ao Bai was authoritarian, and it took Kangxi a year to really take power. I don't know whether this imperial edict was written by Kangxi or Ao Bai.