Is that really the usual case, or just the narrative of the Qing dynasty? There's a lot of mismanagement and climactic shifts in the pre-modern period. Often t

Is that really the usual case, or just the narrative of the Qing dynasty? There's a lot of mismanagement and climactic shifts in the pre-modern period. Often those are tied together, with failures of the hydrological infrastructure. But another common thread is high imbalances in male/female populations, leading to lots of disaffected young men, and millenarian religious movements.