On The Geographical Regularity And Environmental Mechanism Of The Epidemic Disasters In Shanxi Province During The Qing Dynasty

During Qing Dynasty in Shanxi Province,82years occurred epidemics, with an average of3.27years one epidemic, and the epidemic frequency was30.60%. For the temporal distribution, before the middle Qing Dynasty, the epidemic frequency continue to decline, and kept quiet period nearly100years. In the late Qing Dynasty, the epidemic frequency rose with fluctuations, Tongzhi Era, Guangxu Era and Xuantong Era had the maximum epidemic frequency:76.92%,55.88%and66.67%. In the late Qing Dynasty,45years occurred epidemics which account for more than half of the total epidemic years. Epidemics mainly occurred in summer and autumn, less in spring and winter. On the cycle distribution, it can be divided into four periods of waves:1650-1699,1700-1779,1780-1889and1890～1909. The ten-year epidemic counties and epidemic area were highest in1870s, and so was interannual variation.For the spatial distribution, there were19prefectures occurred epidemics, and the prefecture of Taiyuan had the highest epidemic frequency. Epidemic frequency in south-central of Shanxi Province was highter than the northern area. The epidemics in each Era distributing in different region of Shanxi Province, and Pingding county, Fengtai county had the highest epidemic frequency and thickness. On the overall characteristics, these epidemics involved83counties and the accumulative epidemic counties added up to273. The epidemic focus moved to the north at first and then to the south, but is within Taiyuan prefecture all along. The prefecture of Taiyuan, Zezhou and Puzhou were the hotspots of epidemic.In the aspect of the regional environment, epidemic disaster is closely related to such natural factors as temperature, topography and precipitation. The high epidemic area was mostly located in river valley or basin where is warmmer and wetter. As to the regional social environment, urban and rural economies, population density and migration movements, agricultural development, transportation, and social stability also have far-reaching influence on the occurring of plague. The high frequency areas of epidemics owned booming economy, high population density, mess migration movements, better agricultural development and convenient transportation. The epidemic caused by war mainly happened in1644, which spreaded more than5843km2.As to climate change, the highly epidemic occurrence is specifically featuring to human society by the group expulsion of disasters, which lay between Ming-Qing dynasty cosmic period and late-Qing cosmic period. With the temperature turn colder, the frequency of epidemic raised higher. Each cycle of epidemic was along with2or more stage of drought and flood, and the frequency was high when it’s a dry period.The disasters such as flood, drought, locusts, earthquake, frost, snow and famine were occurred frequently in Shanxi Province during Qing dynasty. The relationship between natural disasters and epidemic was associated, and the most frequent disaster chain is drought-locusts-famine-epidemic. The ten-year epidemic index was collection with the ten-year drought index, the ten-year flood index, the ten-year locust index, the earthquake index and the ten-year famine index.The disasters broke out multiply, covered vast areas and had great destructive, which was the basic feature of this times.