Bie Tingfang And Neixiang Rural Construction (1930-1940)

In the 1930s,wars among warlords and foreign invasion existed in China, Chinese people lived miserable lives. In order to save Chinese people, rural construction boomed in China. In neixiang county of Henan Province, Bie Tingfang,who attained governing right in neixiang county by military, began to do many things about rural construction under the influence of rural construction in zhenping county.Local constructon was done for ten years, great changes took place in social security, education, economic.As for education, Leader insisted that education should service reality.In order to enhance people's cultural level,they set up people's schools. To fit needs of rural construction ,they brought up all kinds of technical persons.As for social security, they organized young men teams, they carried out Baojia system, law of many people committing crime together, five kinds of certificated cards to ensure social stability.To tidy up tax sources, as tax sources was confusive at that time, they ordered local officials to take surveys and register account of people living in the conuty of neixiang ,arable land, tax in exchange to make revenue accounts of neixiang county clear .After this work was done,local officials could not get profits.As for economic development, they took measure"two hands'doing"to solve poor problem of people in neixiang county. One was that they took mesures to make people spend less money in buying opium,cigarettes,foreign goods,foreign indigo and gambling,the other was that they took measures to increase people income in agriculture,commerce,industry and finance. Although this county are mainly an agricultural county, most of its territory are mountains, hills, and less arable land. In view of this living environment, they did their best to handle rivers for more arable land ,plant handreds of trees and change agricultural technology for more income. A few years later, arable land and water channel had increased, under of the protection of water channel, agricultural production was stable; economic trees grew taller.Under the guidance of self-government,people in neixiang county began fostering silkworms at home and in the mountains, next to this,they set up factories to produce silk .this production was mainly used by themself,they produced so many silk products that they could not used up .they began to sell the rest outside,commercial developement began in neixiang county,during their economic construction,finance began developing .In turn ,they improved agriculture.Under the efforts of self-government and people in neixiang county,there were no gangs and thieves,people could do things without any worry,they got plenty of harvest in agriculture, industry, commerce, finance.It is possible for schools in the east and north of Henan province to move toward the west during the War of Resistance against Japan.At the end of this article ,I evaluated rural construction in neixiang county and summed up the experience of its success and failure, in order to offer suggestion for new rural construction today.