A Study Of The Probolem Of Peasants' Leaving In Hebei Shandong And Henan During 1911 To 1937

During 1911 to 1937, an outstanding phenomenon in Hebei Shandong and Henan was that, a large number of peasants left their own village to seek a new means of livelihood. Its scale and influence was so widespread and profound that extensively attracted people's attention.This article has five chapters:Chapter One: The cause of peasants'leaving. The formation of peasants'leaving was not only closely related to social misfits, such as lack of lands, natural and man-made calamities, heavy taxes and levies, but also had a bearing on the difference between town and country, the gap between industry and agriculture. The former pushed peasants who had no enough food and clothing out of their hometown, and the latter pulled them from country by the bait of turning for better.Chapter Two: The flow direction and distribution. After leaving their own village, peasants were widely spread in extensive region and various occupations. Limited to their quality and technique, they could not find job but physical labor, especially the hard work that was disgusted and avoided by city residents and local people. However, even though they didn't mind how arduous the work was, shortage of employment still made them find no shelter. Consequently, number of peasants, for no proper jobs to take up, formed an under-social group of army ruffian, bandit, prostitute, beggar, fortune-teller, and etc.Chapter three: The means of living and the characteristic. Although most peasants were compelled to leave their hometown by passive factors, they tried to arrange their leaving by the social economic regularity, which producing some outstanding characteristic of sexual distribution, age structure and leaving style. Generally speaking, young and strong man was the principal member, and in order to comfort feeling sentiment outside, they always went out in company. At the same time, negative factor in their leaving also produced the characteristic of fleeing and begging. In addition, there was a great discrepancy in the life quality of left peasants.Chapter four: The relationship of peasants'leaving and the social changes. Although the process of peasants'leaving displayed much destitute and homeless, they brought great social changes from a long-term point of view. The population changes during this process of leaving, which means people flowing from agriculture to urban industry and commerce, and also means population naturally transferring from high-density regions to low-density regions, and the changes of people's viewpoint in life, objectively propelled the social transformation from tradition to modernization. However, the uncontrolled process also brought some negative impacts on social stability.Chapter five: The tackling measure by all circles of society. In order to bring peasants'leaving under control, all circles of society took measure to help refugees settle down, to prevent the calamity of flood and drought, to revive desolate rural environment, and to whip up opinion of immigrating to Northeast and Northwest. However, the key to the question is to develop industry and commerce, to create more employments, and to change country's backward appearance, which was obviously beyond of the ability and the visual field of people at that time.