On Measures Of Disaster Relief During The Reign Of Emperor Xiaowen In The Northern Wei Dynasty

During the reign of emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei, natural disasters took place frequently, leading to the poor harvest of agricultural production and famine, which severely threatened civilians’ life and gave rise to many social problems. In order to maintain the stability of Northern Wei’s political situation, emperor Xiaowen implemented a series of disaster relief and reduction measures, most of which were first pioneered in the Northern Wei Dynasty, producing positive influences on the then politics, economy, social culture and even successive emperors’ thoughts and practice of disaster relief and reduction. The main body of this thesis is composed of three chapters.The first chapter illustrates the disaster relief measures in the period of emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei, which mainly includes five aspects: relief aid, borrowing, reducing rent and corvee, pacifying refugees and political disaster relief. Most of these measures were first released by the Northern Wei Dynasty. For example, it was the first time that the practice of relief porridge was adopted to help disaster victims, that farmland was conferred to those who showed filial obedience, who were alone or poor, who were prisoners and other special groups after the disaster, that animal farm was opened and abolished due to the disaster, that the slat pond was opened because of the disaster, that help was given to Qidan to relieve famine, that bodies were buried after disaster, that entertainment and enjoyment were reduced and slaughter was forbidden, that “ZuiJi Zhao”(charge oneself with a fault and proclaim to the masses) was released and that the means of borrowing debts was adopted to give financial help to victims.The second chapter expounds the disaster reduction measures in the period of emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei, mainly including four aspects: encouraging farming, focusing on storage, moving the capital to Luoyang and intensifying water-control projects. Among these measures, emperor Xiaowen gave orders to follow the system of the Han Dynasty and set up “Ever Normal Granary”and organized peasants opening up for grain, which were also original practice by the Northern Wei Dynasty. “Instructing all the commercial and industrial workers to do farm work” opened the heavy curtain of agriculture becoming increasingly close to handicraft industry. While pheasants opening up for grain enabled them to own quite fixed land tenure rights, although emperor Xiaowen’s original intention was to increase levy. After all, this measure increased the grain storage and provided a certain grain guarantee for disaster relief.The third chapter states features and functions of disaster relief and reduction in the period of emperor Xiaowen of Northern Wei. The main features are: When inheriting previous dynasty’s disaster relief and reduction measures, new measures were also pioneered in the Northern Wei Dynasty; disaster relief and reduction practice was usually influenced by traditional Confucian thoughts; the appearance of expenditure of disaster relief and reduction changed the financial structure; the disaster relief and reduction system was not complete; private disaster relief began to unfold. The main functions were to save people’s life, protect national labor force, promote the recovery of agricultural production, balance regional economic development, relieve social contradictions and stabilize ruling order.