This dust veil is well-known from a variety of literary sources stretching from Europe to China. The sun was darkened for a period of eighteen months. Crops failed, resulting in major famines. The population of China dropped precipitously. The Chinese capital was evacuated.
Some contemporary sources report the events as follows.
We marvel to see no shadows of our bodies at noon, to feel the mighty vigour of the sun's heat wasted into feebleness, and the phenomena which accompany an eclipse prolonged through almost a whole year. Clearly the authors above are not speaking of a solar eclipse but a substantial diminution of the sun's light. Tree ring widths did not return to pre-535 AD sizes until the late 540s. This reduction in tree ring widths appears in both European and American sequences, so the effect was at least hemispheric if not global. The Justinian plague was first noted in 542 AD in Egypt.