Study On The River Works Of Henan Province In The Period Of Kangxi, Yongzheng And Qianlong

River works, called the Yellow River harnessing projects in this thesis. In the early and middle age of Qing Dynasty, great amounts of laborers, material resources and financial resources were put into remedying the river. The construction of the Yellow River, which was in the charge of the government, needed the common people to widely get involved in so that it could make sure the project would be implemented smoothly. It had a strong sense of public nature, which related to many and a wide range of factors. Therefore, the research on the Yellow River works could get a whole and clear idea of political, economic and social development of Qing Dynasty.In the early and middle age of Qing Dynasty, the Qing government regarded the river works as a major theme under the policy of remedying Yellow River and protecting the water transport. The government made the first step to set up a huge river-protection administrative division in order to manage the Yellow River by stage and by section. Henan area, as an important region flowed through the Yellow River, was naturally the focus of the government when it controlled the Yellow River. The both sides of the Yellow River in Henan area set up different administrative districts in charge of different affairs. Chenxu Dao and Zhang Weihuai Dao were civilian agencies to purchase materials. While Huaihe Battalion and Yuhe Battalion were military institutions to guide labor to repair the Yellow River. As a result, Henan river works got an effective management.As the most basic parts of river works, materials and laborers experienced great changes from the period of Kangxi, Yongzheng till Qianlong. Compared with Jiangnan river works, Henan river works changed for longer periods of time resulted from the preferential policy of the Qing government for managing the river in Henan area and the unique factors itself. Generally speaking, the reforms of river works started during the Kangxi period. In the case of the materials used in river works, willow branches were gradually replaced by sorghum straws. Meanwhile, the common people took the major responsibilities for various things about materials. Moreover, the requisition method of laborers was preliminarily transformed from "qianpai" to "gumu". Following the example of Jiangnan area, Henan area established the materials procurements system in the reign of Yongzheng. From then on, the materials procurements which had strict rules in terms of time and price were mainly funded by the state. In addition, the government added the river solders system, improved the "baofu" system and established the "gumu" system in annual repairs. Because of the powerful national strength in Qianlong period, the authority managed the affairs of materials instead of the common people, the requisition method of laborers completely changing from "qianpai" to "gumu" on the basis of work relief measures took by the government.The development of Henan river works from the reign of Kangxi, Yongzheng to Qianlong gone with the trend of social development, reflecting the changes of social conditions in Henan area and even in the whole country in Qing Dynasty to some extent. The Qing government made great efforts to reform the river works in order to make use of national finance supporting the river works and ensure that people no longer suffered from the heavy work of the river engineering. It could exactly mirror the progress of the age.