The Research On The Social Security Thoughts And Practice Of The Emperor Qianlong

The emperor Qianlong had lots of thoughts and practice in the construction of traditional social security. According to the previous experience and the specific situation at that time, he carried out a series of reforms and innovations. He put the social security business of the Qing Dynasty to the peak of traditional society. In the aspect of disaster relief, he stressed the importance of laying a solid foundation and determined some basic principles of relief, such as no concealed, rapidly relief and regardless of expense. By means of issuing grain first, implementing work-relief programs, intercepting the tribute rice and attracting traders, disaster loss had significantly reduced and the basic life of people’s in disaster area had supported. In the aspect of poverty relief, first of all, the emperor implemented large-scale tax cuts that had never happened before to reduce the burden on the people’s life. He improved the system of porridge emission in winter to ease the difficulties of the poor. He distributed some subsidies to the poor officials and students in order to maintain the basic stability. At the same time, the emperor tried to solve the problem of bannermen’s poverty by many ways, such as moving some bannermen of Beijing to the northeast areas and removing the Hans from banner system. In the aspect of relief those who have no kith and kin and cannot support themselves, the emperor Qianlong argued that the government should bear the main responsibility. He improved the social welfare institutions and implemented various support policies to rescue those helpless from civilian and military. In the aspect of pension, the emperor tried to promote respect for the elderly in the whole country by holding dinner banquet and awarding official position or some other methods. He strengthened the old-age security of bureaucracy system further and paid extra attention to supporting officials’ parents and grandparents. In the aspect of treatment and pension for army, he continued to maintain the preferential policy to the Eight Banners, at the same time, the green camp and local soldiers’ treatment had improved a lot. The pension gap amongst all kinds of forces had narrowed. The emperor Qianlong’s thoughts and practice about the social security weresystematic and complex. We can get some preliminary understanding about the social control mechanism of that prosperous era by analyzing his thoughts and practice. Finally, we can obtain some useful reference to guide the construction of a fair and sustainable social security system.