Natural disasters in China divine retribution: "tianzai" (天災), literally 'heavenly disaster'. In ancient beliefs, natural disasters were seen as Heaven’s response to immoral human behaviour, whereby the conduct of different individuals carried different weights. While the behaviour of common people ranked last, the actions of bureaucrats had a greater effect. Given that in Imperial China the emperor's behaviour was believed to be the most important, popular belief was that the emperor should attempt to prevent disasters by ensuring his conduct was in following with moral codes – and if a disaster should occur, he was responsible for addressing the consequences. According to the Overseas
The Disasters of War what art historian Juliet Wilson-Bareau calls the "drastic step" of destroying two depicting landscapes, from which very few impressions had been printed. These were cut in half to produce four of "The Disasters of War"s prints. Partly because of the material shortages, the sizes and shapes of the plates vary somewhat, ranging from as small as 142 × 168 mm (5.6 × 6.6 in) to as large as 163 × 260 mm (6.4 × 10.2 in). Goya completed 56 plates during the war against France, and these are often viewed as eye-witness accounts. A final batch—including plate 1, several in