It is of great importance to know the structure and forcing of the Little Ice Age (LI A) for deciphering the causes of global warming and extreme events over the modern times.Here a high-resolution stalagmite record form Yongxing Cave(31°35'N,111°14'E;800 m above sea level) is provided to characterize the hydro-climatic during the LI A.The cave is located in Xiema Town,Mt.Shennongjia,in Hubei Province,Central China.The cave is about 500 m in length,and overlain by about 50 m of Silurian limestone.The vegetation above the cave is dense,primarily covered with perennial woody plants and shrub herbaceous plants.The cave has a narrow entrance,thus the cave relative humidity is close to 100%.The site is dominated by East Asian monsoon.The annual atmospheric temperature is approximately 8 ℃,and annual precipitation ranges from 1500 ~2000 mm.More than 50% of the annual precipitation falls in the summer seasons from June to August.Stalagmite YX275 is 120 mm in length,and 35 ~55 mm in diameter.When halved and polished,the central growth axis shows translucent calcite and the margin displays yellowish white throughout the whole sample.The subsamples,weighing about 30 g and 60 mg respectively,were obtained along the growth axis for the stable isotope and U/Th date analyses.The measurements for U/Th dating were performed by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) on a Finnigan-MAT Element at the Isotope Laboratory of Nanjing Normal University and the delta~(18)O data were produced by the MAT-253 mass spectrometer fitted with a Kiel Carbonate Device in that Isotope Laboratory.Precision of delta~(18)O is 0.06,at the 1-sigma level.We construct the time-series of the East Asian summer monsoon precipitation by using a total of 120 delta~(18)O data and 7 ~(230)Th dates.The chronology for the time-series was established using the MOD-AGE model,and it showed that the stalagmite grew from 1361 ~1955 A.D.,spanning the LIA.The YX275 delta~(18)O record ranges from-7.8 to-9.3,with an average value of-8.5,and displays a long-term hollow shape.The higher delta~(18)O values occurred over the LIA,suggesting less summer monsoon precipitation.The less monsoon precipitation inferred from the YX275 record is supported by a large number of cave records from northern and southern China.These cave records consistently indicate that the weak monsoon precipitation during the LIA.Within the LIA,monsoonal fluctuations are recognized on the centennial and multi-decadal scale.A total of five weak precipitation episodes are detected,which are correlated with the Dongge and Zhijin records in Southern China.However,these monsoon precipitation decreases are not mirrored in the Dayu,Jiuxian,Huangye and Wanxiang records in Northern China.The northern records are marked by five low-amplitude monsoon cycles across the LIA.The contrast between the northern and southern records indicates the existence of the inconsistent monsoon precipitation behaviors between different regions on the centennial and multi-decadal scale.Nevertheless,the Yongxing cave record generally shows a similar shape to the total solar irradiance and Northern Hemisphere temperature.These similarities indicate an influence of the solar irradiance and northern temperature on the hydrological cycle in East Asian region during the LIA.