ABSTRACT
Panic broke out in Ch‘ang-an city in the late summer of 30b c .1 Earlier in the year incessant rain had fallen for over thirty days in the three metropolitan districts, bringing floods in its wake. Rainfall had also been reported in nineteen other provinces, and the waters were said to be rushing down the valleys in torrents. More than 4,000 persons had lost their lives and over 83,000 buildings had been destroyed, including government offices and dwellings. The alarm spread in the capital city, defying all reason, and in the stampede people were trampling each other down in the streets. The old and infirm were crying out,2 and the city, which housed some 80,000 inhabitants, was in a state of utter turmoil. From within the palace the Emperor summoned a conference of ministers, and Wang Feng, Marshal of State3 and uncle of the Emperor, gave his advice. He sug gested that the Empress Dowager and the Emperor, together with the other female inhabitants of the palace, should take to boats, and that officials and civilians should be told to climb the city walls so as to avoid the floods that must surely be coming.
