Yuan dynasty floods trigger mass famine on the Yellow River

1334

The Yellow River broke its dikes in Shandong, drowning villages and rotting crops across the North China Plain. Hundreds of thousands were displaced from their farms in a single season. The Mongol court's failure to organize relief sharpened peasant resentment that would soon crystallize around messianic Buddhist sects. The floods were the first crack in the Yuan dynasty's mandate of heaven.