A Primary Study On The Earthquakes Of The Gansu District In The Ming And Qing Dynasties

Historical seismology,or historical material seismology,is related to history and seismology.It focuses on the influence of earthquakes on human society through historical materials.In Ming and Qing dynasty,earthquakes happened frequently in Gansu province.In the middle and later period of Ming dynasty and the middle and early period of Qing dynasty,earthquakes in Gansu were frequent,strong and destructive.The typical examples included a seven and a quarter-level earthquake at Jiuquan in 1609,an eight-level earthquake at Tianshui in 1654,a seven and a half-level earthquake at Tongwei in 1718,and an eight-level earthquake at Jiezhou in 1879.The strong earthquakes brought destructive disaster to human by destroying ecological environment and local residence.The great decreasing of population hampered the development of local economy,causing society issues such as price inflation,refugee robbing and so on.It also disrupt the order of local society and brought huge pressure on government.The influence of seismic disaster on environment and public life was in every aspect.The influence on eco-environment behaved directly as the destructions on forests,farmlands and rivers.But there may be some advantages in the long term.We have known some cases that the route-change of rivers improved the eco-environment.In the aspect of disaster treatment,although the frequent earthquake existed in Gansu province in Ming and Qing dynasty,it didn't brought adequate attention from government and also didn't establish valid earthquake prevention and reaction mechanism.The response and treatment to every earthquake were inflexible and random.The power of the local elites was very weak.Although they wanted to take on heavy responsibility when facing catastrophes.Their struggles and endeavors were useless,too.The government undertook the heaviest task.By careful studying,we find that although the most parts of rescuing work fell on government ' s shoulder,the central government behaved great inflexibility and randomness in decision-making and rescue procedure and couldn't deploy the national resources to support disaster area efficiently.The specific rescue work was charged by the local government.When there a strong earthquake happened,the local government showed extreme disability in managing the distress area and just focused on maintaining order after disaster.All of these caused deterioration of situation and aggravated social conflicts.