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Agricultural Crises Due to Flood, Drought, and Lack of Sunshine


             1793
             1794*
             1795
             1796*
             1797
             1798
             1799
             1800*
             1801
             1802
             1803
             1804
             1805
             1806
             1807
             1808
             1809
             1810
             1811*
             1812
             1813*
             1814
             1815
             1816
             1817
             1818
                  0             3              6             9              12
                          Rain making rituals         Flooding evens
            Figure 5   Annual Number of Rainmaking Ritual Days and Flooding Events,
                     1793–1818
            Source  Original digitised database from Amakusa-cho Kyoiku-iinkai (1985–1998);
            UkM, Ueda Yoshiuzu Diaries.

            when these events were observed annually. Flooding also occurred when
            villagers and village officials were very concerned about water shortages.
               The diaries also tell us about bad harvests because the villages had to
            pay taxes, especially on the amount of rice harvest. The first column of
            table 1 shows us the years in which bad harvests occurred. Within the
            observed 21 years, there were seven bad harvest years: 1799, 1801, 1803,
            1806, 1809, 1816, and 1818. The reasons for the bad harvests were compli-
            cated. In 1799, there was a combination of drought and water shortage;
            in 1801, there was flooding and water shortage; in 1803, there was flood-
            ing; in 1806, there was flooding and water shortage; in 1809, there was
            drought and water shortage; in 1816, no explanations were given; and in
            1818, there was drought and water shortage.
               What we need to pay attention to here are the records from 1817. Since
            we have counted the number of drought days that appear in the diary,
            an entry stating that the ‘drought could be avoided’ was counted as well.
            This was the case in 1817. There was no bad harvest. The reason was that


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