Race Of Thousands Of Sails: A Study Of The Fluviomarine Transition In The Grain Transportation In The Qing Dynasty

The Grain transportation system, is an important economic system throughoutthe whole ancient society in China. It is not only played the important part of thepower system in every dynasty, but also had the most important influence in thecountry’s political, economic, military, culture and many other aspects.It is regardedas "Economic lifeline" and "The military plans".In the early stage of the Qing Dynasty, the grain transportation was mainlytransported by river and once reached the golden state. But when the regimedecline,the grain transportation system’s shortcomings and disadvantages graduallyappear. At start, the situation was manageable, in a sense that the river system couldbe maintained, since it was not out of control. In the Mid-Qing Dynasty, the graintransportation began to face many challenges, and was facing a serious crisis.Therefore, to transport the grain by river was difficult to continue, thus the serach forother means such as transportation by sea boat was necessary.Transporting by sea boats has many huge advantages, but due to the bondage ofthe taditional means and ideas, the emperor hesitated to compromise, so theoppositional forces used blockades and other factors, therefore, transporting by seaboats did not go well. Just only considerations that were not not put into practice, wasduring the JiaQing periods(1796-1820) and in DaoGuang periods(1820-1850).Thesetransportantion’s time were short-lived, but significant. The transporting by sea boatspractices instead of by land and the river laid the foundation. These importantperformance is also achieves significant development in the Qing Dynasty. InXianFeng five years(1855), the Yellow River bursted in TongWaXiang and divertedby ShanDong Lijin into the sea, the Yellow River flooded, the grain transportation was completely paralyzed,so in order to get the grain transporting back to full-force,it became the custom-made.A system’s establishment and existence, is closely connected with many factorssuch as society, economy and thought. The change of the system cannot escape theinfluence of his times, therefore, under the effect of natural condition and thechanging times, the grain transportation changed from the river to the sea, as the mainway of the grain transportation in the late of the Qing Dynasty.