Research On The Big Programs Of The Yellow River In QingDynasty

The Yellow River is the mother river of the Chinese nation and provides a solid material foundation for the development of Chinese civilization.With the increase of population in the Yellow River Basin,the continuous reclamation of land,the construction of embankments to protect water,and the competition for land with water has become an inevitable move,resulting in the Yellow River gradually becoming a“harmful river”,and the number of dyke bursts has increased.The rulers of the past dynasties,under the premise of conditions,would manage the Yellow River,but the Yellow River still burst its banks from time to time,making big programs(大工)necessary.The big program is a special form of Yellow River management.It is different from the annual emergency repair project where the cost can be estimated in advance.Due to the difference in the scale and location of the rupture,it is impossible to estimate the specific cost of big programs,ranging from hundreds of thousands to ten million of taels.In the practice of governance of the Yellow River,a lot of effective experience in governance of the Yellow River has been accumulated.During the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty,Pan Jixun managed the Yellow River twice.During his tenure,he adopted the strategy of “collecting the water through embarkment to flush the silt at the bottom of rivers”,and achieved good results.In the late Ming Dynasty,the Yellow River did not have large-scale flooding.At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty,the Yellow River restored its old course.The Qing government attached great importance to the governance of the Yellow River.From the Shunzhi period,it vigorously rectified the river course and carried out large-scale repairs to the dams.Although there were occasional overflows,the plugging was easier to handle and the cost was not high.In the early years of Emperor Kangxi,the Yellow River frequently overflowed in the South River.After the three feudatory rebellion was largely pacified,Emperor Kangxi appointed Jin Fu as the general river and began to systematically manage the South River.When Jin Fu took office,he adopted Chen Huang’s suggestion,which means not only blocked,but also sorted out the river.Since then,the Yellow River had maintained its tranquility for a long time.However,till the late Kangxi period,the Yellow River began to burst frequently again.The Yongzheng emperor began to further regulate the river administration,with more stringent regulations.After the Zhujiahai program,the program officers have to bear some of the silver taels consumed by the river workers if the accident happened.Since then,although the Yellow River breaches have been frequent,there has been no large-scale branches.In the early days of Qianlong,the“legacy”of Kangxi and Yongzheng was inherited.Occasionally,big programs(大工)could be finished as soon as possible.For example,Sunjiaji program was finished in half a year,and cost only two or three hundreds of thousands tael.However,in the later period of Qianlong,big programs were frequently launched to manage the Yellow River.It even took more than 5 million taels to finish the big program of Yifeng in the forty third year of Qianlong regime.After the Yifeng project finished,the subsequent Qinglonggang program cost more than 10 million taels of silver.Although the blockage was completed,it gradually became a huge burden for the Qing government because of its huge cost.The overall situation of the river management during the Jiaqing and Daoguang regime,became more and more rotten as large-scale programs were launched one after another,especially the Caoxian and Mayingba program during the Jiaqing period,which made the river construction cost a larger proportion of the Qing government’s fiscal expenditure.About raising funds for large-scale workers,they have to transfer silver taels from other places,such as local government silver,customs silver,etc.are directly transferred to the program sites.Sometimes it even makes up for the blocking funds by borrowing,and the source of funds is gradually diversified from a single channel.In order to make up for replacement as soon as possible,some officers also took the opportunity of big programs to flock to work,which in turn gave birth to a further form of“donate silver for work opportunity(捐资保效)”.The emergence of donation has led to the fact that the original strategy of recruiting and reserving river workers has gradually become a way to improve their position,and it has lost its original intention of selecting river workers.Big programs(大工)are major national water conservancy project,which involves not only raising funds,but also reporting the overflow situation,allocating personnel,and dealing with the aftermath of major projects.It can be said that the Yellow River Big programs are different from the emergency repair at the age of.It is a concentrated reflection of the governance ability of the Qing government,an important perspective to see through the river policy of the Qing Dynasty,and an important reason for the transformation of the river policy system.By studying the Yellow River big programs(大工)from different angles,this paper explores its practical significance as a state act in the history of river politics in the Qing Dynasty,show the actual operation of the river government affairs in the Qing Dynasty,and deepens the research on the history of river industry,financial history,political history and other related fields in the Qing Dynasty.