The Study On Disaster And Famine Relief During The Ming And Qing Dynasties In Fengxiang

Fengxiang mansion is located in the western of Guanzhong. Northernmountain is north of it, Long mountain is northwest of it and Qin Mountain issouth of it. The Wei River and its tributaries flow through here. Fengxiangmansion has seven counties and a state in the Ming and Qing Dynasty. They areQianYang county, Baoji county, Fengxiang county, LinYou county, QiShancounty, Mei county and FuFeng county. Nowadays, it is the equivalent of Baojicity except Feng and taibai county.The history of Disaster and Famine relief isone theme of the life of human’s production, it reflects history of strugglebetween natural disasters and human being. In this paper, the author discussesthe problem about Fengxiang mansion’s famine and how to relieve the famine inthe Ming and Qing dynasties.During the Ming and Qing Dynasties fengxiang mansion has experienceddifferent kinds of disaster, which it adds up to374times. And an average1.5years it may happen disaster. Frequent famines of Fengxiang mansion has adifferent degree of influence on the local social order, population change,economic development, the folk belief and so on.Faced with so frequent famines and the social and economic damage, thefengxiang office has put forward to various relief measures. At the same time, thecentral government also has carried out some measures. The central governmentand the Fengxiang mansion have agreed with establishment of storage, waterconservancy, relief porridge, ransom, relief the refugees, borrowing, milletadjustment, prevention catastrophe and so on. In addition, we cannot ignorepopular force, such as, squire family and the clan, which they have make acontribution to relief in famine. In the late Qing dynasty, Jiangnan’s merchantsalso have been a help to Fengxiang famine, and the foreign missionary havegiven money or food for victims when they do missionary work. Owing to aidfinancially from Government, private and foreign church, which they have useddifferent manners to succors, those succors is of great significance and havehelped victims to get rid of difficult position; maintain the stability of the socialorder; mitigate famine’s economic loss.But groups that have helped Fengxiang famine during the Ming and QingDynasties have some limitations, such as Famine relief system imperfect makes the government in the late dynasty Famine relief ability is often inadequate. Inaddition, there are problems. For example, incomplete relief systems makegovernment have no more ability to deal with famine at the end of dynasties. Andthere exist a series of corruption problems in the process of relief. Despite thereexist some these shortcomings of famine, its valuable experience are made us todraw on the experience of them. Experience including the followings; tostrengthen our comprehensive strength, specially the economic strength; toreserve material or money for disaster prevention and reduction; to lay a solidfoundation of disaster prevention and reduction; to improve the government’sdisaster prevention and mitigation system; to strengthen the regulation andsupervision of materials and funds in the process of famine; to fully and usefullymobilize kinds of relief group and correctly guide these group; to from interactionrelationship between government and folk group; to shoulder together the task ofdisaster prevention and relief; to combine prevention with elimination whilefocusing on the prevention; to try our best to famine work; to respect the laws ofnature and protect of the ecological environment. At least, we also pay moreattention to reduce the loss that caused by natural disasters.The author analysis the famine of Fengxiang area during Ming and QingDynasties through its history dissects the local social famine and discussespractical activity of famine. Summing up some lessons and experience aboutrelief of famine, the author hopes that he provides these useful references to helpdisaster prevention and mitigation in Baoji region or Shaanxi.