Study On Natural Disasters In Weijinnanbeichao Period

As an important social security issue, natural disaster prevention is one of the basic functions of the Chinese governments of all dynasties in the history. At present, human beings have clearly realized the serious loss caused by natural disasters and natural disaster prevention has turned out to one of the important contents for the government to achieve political, economic and social development and stability. The scientific study on natural disasters becomes one of the important topics for scientific research and technological development. The forefathers of the Chinese nation have long-stand tradition of intensively recording and studying history, abnormal phenomenon and natural disasters, which provides various sources of materials and documents for us to study the history of natural disasters today. The study of natural disaster history is to provide multi-aspect, multi-layer and comprehensive experiences for the present natural disaster prevention policies by drawing conclusion on preventing, fighting against natural disasters and rescuing the victims through analyzing a large quantity of materials about the whole process of the natural disaster forming and damaging which can inform us the rule of natural disaster happening and the trend of the future natural disaster development. It is also the reason why the author chooses this issue as the topic for the thesis.In Chinese history, Weijinnanbeichao period is one of the most turbulent periods in the ancient Chinese societies which is famous for its instability of politics,splitting of territories, recession of economies and conflicts and integration of different nations. During this period, different warlords occupied different parts of the territories and wars among them broke out frequently and the governments changed frequently as well. Under such social circumstances, the doomed fate of the society is frequent out-breaking of natural disasters and the wide spread of plagues, which is characterized by the simultaneous out-breaking of natural disasters and social disasters, mishap of natural disasters and wars. During this period, it ranks by far the first in the ancient Chinese societies compared with any other periods from the following aspects about natural disasters: the total quantity, the frequency, the seriousness, the length of disastrous period and the cruelty of damage of natural disasters.Although other researchers have done a lot of research on the natural disaster history of Weijinnanbeichao period, there is no complete and systematic research outcome until now. In other words, we can hardly find any works based on systematic study and we can scarcely read articles on studying the natural disaster history of Weijinnanbeichao exclusively. The thesis is trying to pursue a complete presentation of natural disaster history of Weijinnanbeichao period by intensively analyzing the historical materials of natural disasters in this period and deeply probing the natural disaster out-breaking circumstances.There are four chapters in the thesis. The first chapter makes a brief introduction of the natural disaster out-breaking circumstances, studies the overall characteristics of natural disasters and the reasons for the out-breaking of natural disasters in that period. The second chapter discusses the influences of natural disasters and studies the destructive effects of natural disasters from the different aspects of human beings and society. The third chapter studies the ideologies of the reasons for out-breaking of natural disasters and the natural disaster prevention thoughts in this period. In this chapter, the author points out that the thoughts of induction between the god and human beings and punishment from the god arestill the dominant ideology in the society. About the government policies of this period, it inherits the traditional thoughts about the natural disaster prevention of the previous periods and emphasizes specifically on the importance of the development of agricultural productivities and the wealth and strength...