The 1441 Yangtze flood was a

natural disaster A natural disaster is the very harmful impact on a society or community brought by natural phenomenon or Hazard#Natural hazard, hazard. Some examples of natural hazards include avalanches, droughts, earthquakes, floods, heat waves, landslides ...

affecting the area around

Nanjing Nanjing or Nanking is the capital of Jiangsu, a province in East China. The city, which is located in the southwestern corner of the province, has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400. Situated in the Yang ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, during the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...

. The flood occurred in the late autumn and broke the river's banks repeatedly. The situation was a major emergency not only for Nanjing and the surrounding area but also for the northern capital

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

, which depended upon grain shipments from the Yangtze valley. The southern entrance to the Grand Canal was at

Yangzhou Yangzhou is a prefecture-level city in central Jiangsu Province, East China. Sitting on the north bank of the Yangtze, it borders the provincial capital Nanjing to the southwest, Huai'an to the north, Yancheng to the northeast, Taizhou, Jiangsu, ...

near Nanjing and had to be closed during heavy flooding.Tsai, Shih-Shan Henry. ''SUNY Series in Chinese Local Studies'':
The Eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty
'. SUNY Press, 1996. , 9r780791426876. Accessed 16 Oct 2012.

References

History of Nanjing Disasters in the Ming dynasty Yangtze Flood, 1441 Yangtze Flood, 1441 Yangtze River floods 15th-century floods {{flood-stub