Floods And Droughts In Wan-jiang Rural Basin And Corresponding Coping Projects During Ming And Qing Dynasties

Wan-Jiang was the most economically dynamic region in Anhui Province duringMing and Qing Dynasties, but the region also suffered from serious natural disasters.Floods and droughts were the major disasters in the region, especially the flood. Peoplein Wan-Jiang region made tremendous efforts on the regional development andmanagement of rivers during Ming and Qing Dynasties. Especially the rural people, fromavoiding disadvantages to eliminating them, made great contributions to the social andeconomic development of the region. Therefore, it is important historical significanceand practical value to study the floods and droughts in rural Wan-Jiang region and theinteraction between different people when facing disasters in Ming and Qing Dynasties.Applying documental integration, data analysis and other methods, we conductedsystematic investigation and analysis of floods and droughts in counties in Wan-Jiangbasin during Ming and Qing Dynasties. We found the general situation of floods anddroughts in the region in Ming and Qing as following: First is the rising trend ofoccurrence of the floods, which had five high periods of occurrence; In the second place,floods occurred in Qing Dynasty were far more frequently than Ming Dynasty--theaverage frequency was two times more than it occurred in Ming. In the third place, thefloods had tremendous effects on Anqing county, Chizhou county, Ningguo county ratherthan it does on Guangde. The general situation of droughts are as following: First is therising trend of occurrence of the droughts, which had four high periods of occurrence. Inthe second place, droughts occurred in Qing were far more frequently than Ming, theaverage frequency was nearly two times more than it occurred in Ming. In the third place,the droughts had tremendous effects on Anqing, Luzhou and Wan-Jiang counties andChizhou, Chuzhou counties rather than it does on Guangde and Taiping county.Causes of floods and droughts occurred in Wan-Jiang rural region can be dividedinto natural and social factors. In terms of natural factors, the complexity of the regionalclimate, unique geographic environment and climate of the universe were objective andexternal factors which formed floods and droughts in Wan-Jiang basin whereas soilerosion and destruction of forest and other plants, though belonging to the objective external environment, were largely caused by the excessive exploitation of humanactivities. In addition, floods in the middle and upstream of Yangtze River would alsohave an impact on the downstream. In terms of social factors, the rapid increase ofhuman population, and its result--excessive exploitation, were the major cause of therising frequency of floods and droughts in Wan-Jiang in Ming and Qing Dynasties;What’s more, the ignorance of local government and the looseness of Forest ProhibitionPolicy also exacerbated the frequent occurrence of natural disasters.Generally, there were regular patterns of the occurrence and evolution of floods anddroughts in Wan-Jiang region between Ming and Qing: First, higher frequency of floodsand the increasing frequency of the occurrence; Second, alternative occurrence of floodsand droughts and the balance in a long run; Third, the seasonality and concentricity ofeither floods or droughts. By comparing, the floods and droughts in Wan-Jiang regionhave the characteristics of frequent occurrence, long duration, tremendous destruction,regional imbalance, and frequent occurrence of accompanying disasters, etc.In Ming and Qing Dynasties, it is recorded that a relatively complete system ofdisaster relief was formed from the central government to local governments, and thusestablished a procedure of reporting, hearing, investigating, resolving, rescuing,pacifying, etc., which can not only give usual response to the disaster before it happened,but also aimed emergency response after disasters happened. Meanwhile, the ruralgrassroots have also spontaneously formed an effective disaster respondence system.Thus the interactive and mutually supplemental responding system of central government,local governments and grassroots organizations was founded.The major conflicts caused by floods and droughts in Wan-Jiang region during Mingand Qing were the conflicts between victims of natural disasters, the disputes of polderwater conservancy, disorder of victims and so on. But compared with Huaibei andJiangnan, the conflicts in this region seemed less. This was closely related to themulti-dimensional cooperating system of preventing and controlling, which comprised ofindoctrination of Confucian orthodoxy of the region, the government’s multi-dimensionalprevention, local elite’s self-control, etc.