Famine Relief Policies And Practice In Xi’an And Fengxiang Prefectures In Shanxi Province In The30th Year Of Kangxi

Xi’an, Feng Xiang Prefecture is located in the north of Shaanxi, the natural geographical conditions are severe and disasters occur frequently. In Kangxi thirty years, Xi’an, Feng Xiang Prefecture happened a severe drought, resulting in starvation, people’s famine flow, and agricultural production declined. This drought resulted in a bad influence to the local society. Investigate its reason, it has dual function of natural environment and social environment.After the disaster of Xi’an and Feng Xiang Prefecture in Shanxi province, Emperor Kangxi,the key figure of central government of the Qing Dynasty, put forward a series of relief disaster measures and practiced, such as emperor Kangxi have taken a self-examination, dispatched officials survey, exempted land tax and grain, appeased the refugee, transported food cooperatively by neighboring and so on. But these measures are mostly oral policy. They are not clearly written. In the absence of disaster supervision mechanism, government officials are not in place in the implementation of relief policies, and there are many disadvantages.Facing the unexpected drought, the local government of Xi’an, Feng Xiang in Shanxi province did not take effective relief policies, but passive waiting, for each array, beggar-thy-neighbor policy. This lead to the expansion of the impact of disasters. Yu Sen, the local official of Xiang Yang Prefecture in Hubei province, his attitude and behaviors of collaboration relief is complex, it seems somewhat passive. In the famine relief, he initially ignored the relief and had no idea. Later he changed his attitude and taken positive relief measures. He did not dare to defy the will of the central government, so his relief act mediated between the clear stipulation of the central government and the specific situation of the disaster. The final purpose is to maintain the local social order of Xiang Yang Prefecture and control the local society.In the disaster, spontaneous relief of the folk force can not be ignored. The local people and the gentleman in Xi’an, Feng Xiang Prefecture involved in disaster relief. But the effect of Relieve, relief capacity of the affected people and gentlemen were very weak. the majority of their relief act were spontaneous and scattered, they didn’t get together to form an effective group. Therefore, their relieves played an insignificant role in the disaster relief, and it had less effect on relief.In famine practice of Xi’an, Feng Xiang local government in Kangxi thirty years, we are pleased to see that in the initial stage of Qing Empire, the central government is in a leadership position in the famine relief. But because of limited financial resources, the central government delegated power to the local government in the relief practice, and expected local government played a leading role to alleviate the pressure of central government on disaster relief. However, under the circumstance of lack of effective supervision, the local officials were corrupting, and the local government were financially strapped. Due to the restriction of objective factors such as traffic etc. and subjective factors such as their own interests, in the aid of neighbouring Province, there is no active communication and contact between neighbouring local officials. This bungleed a great opportunity for collaboration relief. Relief policies did not implement, it greatly reduced the efficiency of relief.Therefore, in relief, the central government need supervise the local government’s relief timely and effectively. the neighboring government should also put local protectionism prejudices aside and work together. Only both the supervision and cooperation, is relief efficient, long-term, and win-win.