Great Leap Forward economic failure. The starved could not move out because all out-of-town traffic were guarded by militia to contain the news of starvation.[7]
Most deaths were the troops' children. At Chinese New Year, a child set off a firecracker and ignited the wreaths for the funeral of Mao Zedong, which for many months no one dared to dispose of for fear of being accused of disrespecting.
^徐岳仁; 何宏林; 李文巧; 张伟恒; 田勤俭 (2018). "1303 年洪洞地震宏观震中修订的新证据" [New evidences for amendment of macro-epicenter location of 1303AD Hongtong earthquake]. 地震地质. 40 (5): 948.
^China Earthquake Administration, ed. (2008). 地震知识百问百答 [100 Q&As on Earthquakes]. 地震出版社. Archived from the original on 2009-05-09. 实则直接死于地震的只有十数万人,其余70余万人均死于瘟疫和饥荒 [Actually, direct deaths from earthquake amount to 100,000-odd, the remaining 700,000-odd died from plagues and famine]
^刘仁团 (2001). "光绪大灾对北方人口的影响". In 曹树基 (ed.). 中国人口史 第5卷: 清时期. Fudan University Press. pp. 601, 677, 687–689.
^Li, Lillian M. (2007). Fighting Famine in North China: State, Market, and Environmental Decline, 1690s–1990s(PDF). Stanford: Stanford University Press. p. 304. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2021-12-27. In Gansu the estimated mortality was 2.5 to 3 million in an already sparsely populated province of only 6 million people. In Shaanxi, out of a population of 13 million, an estimated 3 million died of hunger or disease