The Disasters And Aid Of The Qing Dynasty During Daoguang, Xianfeng, Tongzhi And Guangxu Period

Disaster is a social problem that should not be ignored in the past, at present and even in the future. Only to research it deeply, can we control and even prevent it much better. The history has offered us rich historical materials. By summarizing and analyzing these materials, we can find out the regularity it has, then learn from these experiences and take preventive measures in order to serve on today's economic development and social progress.Different nature disasters happened frequently in Shanxi Province during Daoguang, Xianfeng, Tongzhi and Guangxu period in Qing Dynasty, and the destroy caused by flood, drought, hail, frost and earthquake was more serious than other disasters. From the map distribution, we can see that the center and the south area of Shanxi Province had more disasters, which resulted in more serious influence than other areas. The reason why Shanxi province suffered so many disasters was not only the effect of climatic change and influence of geographic environment but also other social factors such as arduous taxes, broad areas of opium growing, chaos raised by war and damage of ecological environment, all of which added fuel to the flame of disasters.The society of Shanxi was seriously affected by the frequently happened disasters at that time, which resulted in serious social problems: large population's movement and death and great damage to social wealth and public security, and all these damages made serious influence to people's normal production life. Facing the devastative disasters, both the government and various strength of folk groups took a series of measures to aid the disaster areas. But during the period of Daoguang, Xianfeng, Tongzhi and Guangxu period in Qing Dynasty, the national power had gradually declined and Chinese society was changing from traditional to modern, the famine relief presented certain different features: The government was still in the leading place but because of its financial deficiency and diminishing control on local authorities, the famine relief it did was on tendency of wane. Meanwhile the folk strength had vigorously grown day by day and produced an active effect on disaster aid. The rise of voluntary aid with unique feature and foreign missionaries'relieving activities had exerted far-reaching influence on the famine relief at the time and later on.