Research On Poverty Relief In The Song Dynasty

Nowadays poverty problems exist in different countries in development degree. The solution to poverty problems aims at stabilizing society and carrying out the control on the society and is a progress. This is the original intention of writing this article.The poor population of Song Dynasty included Qiongmin who had the defective ethics relations and lost source of income and laborious ability completely, and Pinmin who turned into the poor condition when the famine neared or tax increased. Their conditions changed with the season. The poverty relief of Song Dynasty had four treasures: (1) the relief according to Juyang system: the government of Tang Dynasty started to take part in the poverty relief which were done by religious organizations before Song Dynasty. Song Dynasty continued this. Before Jiayou periods, Futianyuan in capital and Guanghuicangs all over the country besides the capital gave relief to poor populations. At the first year of Yuanfu, the government issued formal Juyang system and promoted it all over the country. In south Song, Juyang system shrunk. (2) the funeral relief: The government established formal Louzeyuan used for public graveyard to bury skeleton whose family couldn' t afford in the third year of Huizong Congning period. But in Zhenzong, Renzong and Shenzong period, government had bought farm lands to bury the ownerless skeleton, though it hadn' t yet become the system. In south Song Dynasty, many Louzeyuan were disused because of the war and recovered gradually everywhere until 14th-year of Shaoxing under the impelling of imperial government and existed till the end of south Song dynasty. (3) the medical relief: Song Dynasty' s medical relief to the poor population included the illness treatment in ordinary time and the medical relief in Spring and Summer when the epidemic disease occurred. Government-operated medical treatment facilities and organizations included three systems: the Bingyuan system, the hospital system and the pharmacy system. (4) the seasonal relief: Because of the seasonal predicament of the poor population, the government of Song Dynasty carried out different relief such as medical relief in Spring and Summer, helping the poor deal with hungry in Winter and Spring and chillness in Winter.The poverty relief of Song Dynasty had five characteristics: (1) the wide scope and low level of the relief. (2) the relief facilities often innovated but maintained for a short time. (3) the relief management inclined to systemization gradually, but had the obvious characteristic of ruling of people. (4) the relief items exceeded the front dynasty. (5) the seasonal characteristic of the relief. Because of the strain of the financial power and the social and economiccharacteristic of Song Dynasty, the poverty relief had functions of recovering production, keeping the reproduction and realizing the social control.The reasons that Song Dynasty' s poverty relief developed greatly: (1) the economic reason: The social economy is flourishing. The land system transformed so that poor problem was serious ;(2) the policy' s reason: because of the policy " guarding inside the country and relaxing outside" , the poverty relief had to be the mean of stabilizing the society. (3) the thought' s reason: There is the influence of Confucianism, Buddha thoughts and Taoism thoughts.By the investigation to the poverty relief of Song Dynasty, we can get some conclusions: The poverty relief of Song Dynasty was a kind of progress in history. But it also had the shortage that the rise and fall of it was decided by the authorities. The medical relief was an important aspect of poverty relief in Song Dynasty. The ancient relief was passive and the poor population could be relieved only when they were in worse circumstances, but the modern relief is positive, it applies for comprehensive social relief from birth to death, not confining to limited season. The developed poverty relief shows that Song Dynasty had high degree of civilization which we couldn' t understand before.