Preliminary Study On The Policy Of Bureaucratization Of Native Officers And Its Environmental Effects On The Tujia Region In The Qing Dynasty

The border area of Hubei, Hunan, Guizhou and Chongqing, traditionally being called as the Tujia Region, is the home to the Tujia nationality since ancient times. As the dwelling place for the Tujia nationality and the Miao nationality, this region was administered by the hereditary headmen of the national minority before the policy of bureaucratization of native officers being implemented, where fishing and hunting had played an dominant part in its economy.The policy of Bureaucratization of native officers had been implemented in1726, the fourth year under the reign of Emperor Yongzheng in the Qing dynasty. And Tujia Region had completed its transformation from a place administered by the hereditary headmen of the national minority to a place under the direct control of the central government. Mass immigration rushed into this region for reclamation, bringing new high-yielding crops, advanced production tools, and a new mode of production. Under the influence of immigration, the Tujia area ushered in a new era of rapid development with notable achievements in areas of agriculture, handicraft industry, commerce, was free from the backwardness by diminishing its development gap with the Han nationality, and realized the rapid economic and social development.However, the development after the policy being implemented was basically extensive. To consolidate the control on the Tujia Region, the Qing government encouraged the immigrants to reclaim the hills of this region and adopted all kinds of preferential policies, which had changed the traditional economy mode into a new one featuring increasingly large proportion of agriculture. The extensive agricultural development method during that period relyed on expanding cultivation area to cope with the pressure of rapid population growth, which offers the potential to feed more people. Thus, there emerged a vicious cycle of increasingly population and expansion of reclamation, which obviously damaged the enviroment. The introduction of American-high-yield crops aggravated the damage and made it possible to explore the areas once unfit for agriculture and ended with excessive development of the region with reclamation everywhere.The deepening economic development after implementing the policy of bureaucratization of native officers had resulted in sharply decrease of the forest coverage rate of this region, deteriorating wildlife habitat, the shrinking distribution range of plants and animals and their species. After decades of excessive development in this region, the number of south China tiger, leopard, bear and deer and other wild animals under the reign of Jiaqing Emperor had decreased and their distribution range had shrinked compared to early years. A lot of animals traces disappeared in some states and counties.The economy had improved significantly after implementing the policy. But at the meantime, people’s living standards of this region were not improved accordingly. Tujia Region belongs to the Wuling mountainous area featuring barren land, unevenly distributed rainfall both in time and space. Instead of having sound effect on the region, extensive agriculture development caused soil erosion, frequent floods and droughts and consequently attributed to the structural poverty to the mountain people.At present, China is at the time of vigorously promoting the development of ethnic minorities where experiences and lessons from the historical period of the regional development are in urgent need. The policy of bureaucratization of native officers was an important turning point of the historical development in Tujia Regio. Thus, it is of great significance to study the regional development and environmental changes before and after implementing the policy of bureaucratization of native officers. This thesis contains three part:the first part focuses on the process and content of bureaucratization of native officers; the second part aims at analyzing how the implementing of the policy had impacted on the economy of Tujia Region; the third part is about the evironmental changes after implementing the policy of the bureaucratization of native officers.