Survival Crisis And System Guarantee

The food production in traditional China was obvious seasonality and regionality, the food consumption was continuous and super regional,and the grain circulation was affected by the low level of agricultural productivity and public transport facilities and others. Additionally, much of the world’s rare famine, it was almost "no year without disaster, each year shortage", which was known as "the land of famine".The thousands years of famine relief experience tells us to establish and maintain an adequate grain storage system to be respond to the natural disasters and resist the survival crisis. Therefore, this paper discusses from the perspective of the relationship between security crisis and institutional survival to explore the storage system of Ningxia area in the Qing Dynasty:First of all, summarize the geographic environment of Ningxia area which locates in the ecotone of agriculture and animal husbandry. The Ningxia area of land resources are extremely limited, and the land development and utilization degree was quite low by the way of the traditional mode of production. So that Ningxia people’s livelihood resources still couldnot fundamentally get rid of dependence on the geographical environment. The agricultural production of Ningxia area was vulnerable to the threat of natural disasters, which maight cause people’s survival crisis.Secondly, descripting the survival crisis the people of Ningxia area was mainly from natural disasters in the Qing Dynasty, and the famine was the biggest threat. The ecological environment of Ningxia area was a very weak ability to resist natural disasters, and the grain production was very unstable. The "Little Ice Age" climate made the ecological environment more variety and severity, so that the natural disasters was increasing obviously. The people who rely on the food production even animal husbandry production coundnot be guaranteed. So the Ningxia area people’s survival crisis still existed in Qing Dynasty,which need of national government departments to provide the necessary institutional guarantee for the survival of the most basic rights of citizens--storage system.Once again, recovery the spatiotemporal development characteristics in Ningxia area of the storage system in the Qing dynasty. The Ningxia area mainly used the warehouse grain as the material basis for disaster prevention and mitigation in the previous famine relief activities,and the grain was a kind of at the very least, the most lively and the most straightforward means of famine relief. The governmental and public warehouse constituted a relatively complete storage system, enhanced the ability of the storage system; warehouse expanded from urban to rural areas and distributed by concentrated to disperse,rationalize storage space pattern improved the effectiveness of warehouse system guarantee.Finally, demonstrate the close relationship between security crisis and institutional survival. Storage system was always in a dynamic process:year of harvest, storage reserves against positive; temporary shortage, warehousing cound adjust prices opportunity and lend to farmers for seed to support agricultural production; famine hunger, warehousing function guaranteed the system feeding the hungry, maintain social order and stability. Investigation of storage system from a dynamic point of view of the whole dynamic process, in order to change the academic circles to the storage system of one-sided attitude--the storage system was been seen only as a simple means of relief, in fact, warehousing system function is very wide, such as social security and an important means of social control. Taking the storage system and famine relief activities of Ningxia area in the Qing Dynasty as the center, NaYanCheng compiled records "relief" about Jiaqing fifteen years (in1810) drought famine events typical case analysis, emphasized the important role of storage system in the entire process of relief.Therefore, we have reason to believe that the storage system in Qing Dynasty was a necessary to resist the survival crisis threatens and quite effective institutional guarantee measures.