The Research Of The Economic Development Of The Towns From Nanchang To Jiujiang In Modern Times

Town is the commercial and industrial center of rural areas. In modern China,the economic development of town plays a very important role in the early times of Chinese modernization. This thesis pays attention to the research of the economic development of the towns from Nanchang to Jiujiang and investigates the economic development and transition of towns at the historical background of the opening of treaty ports and the introduction of new transportation in many aspects, with the assistance of history, economics, geography, sociology and other relevant theories and methods. What's more, this thesis also organizes the status of development and characteristics of the traditional economic towns in Nanchang and Jiujiang. Then on this basis the author discusses how the opening port in Jiujiang and opening of Nan-xun Railway have a profound influence on the economic development of the towns from Nanchang to Jiujiang. And it also indicates the construction of new transportation network and multilevel market network. Moreover, this thesis dissects the development characteristics of the towns from Nanchang to Jiujiang in modern times, the transition tendency of regional society and the restriction factors during the development process.The author thinks the economic development of towns from Nanchang to Jiujiang in modern times has experienced the process of gradual evolution and has different characteristics in different periods. Generally speaking, it can be divided into three stages.The first stage is from 1861 with opening port in Jiujiang to the beginning of the20 th century. And the main performance was that with the intervention of external factors which the breaking the sealed condition, towns started to get involved in market economy system throughout the country even the world. Meanwhile, the traditional towns had a tendency of decline while the economic status of Nanchang and Jiujiang become more important and initially formed the regional dual-nuclei structure. And as the import and export trade, it had an influence on the traditional forms of the economy towns. For example, the focus of main towns in this area gradually made the regional market tight connected with national market which base on the exchange of daily productions such as millet-seed, salt, iron, handwoven cloth, and it was even accepted by the international market through the big market center in Shanghai, Guangdong, Wuhan. In this way, it turned the commerce and trade into the bidirectional exchange between machine-made industrial products in foreign country and local agricultural products and handicraft in mainland.The second stage is from 1916 with the opening Nan-xun Railway to the beginning of 1930 s. It mainly showed that the introduction of new transportation improved the conditions of transportation along the towns, so the material distribution and market transactions could be expanded and the population mobility and information transmission became more active, which led to many changes of the development patterns and economic structures in markets. For instance, the shapes in townships, society structures and social culture and life had changed a lot. The flow of commodities gradually gathered together along the railway and then gradually formed a town system that take Nan-xun Railway as the central axis and the towns from Nanchang to Jiujiang become a growth axis of regional economy. At the same time, the division during towns in marketing function and economic status made an obvious difference between cities and countrysides.The third stage is from 1930 s to 1949. With the damage of big wars which lasted a long time and rural economy was on the verge of bankruptcy, the economic towns was in a big dilemma and the economic growth of a few towns stagnated.The economic development of the towns from Nanchang to Jiujiang in modern times is a typical case of the growth and transition of towns in the interior regions in modern times. It is also an important aspect of difficult transition in regional and social economy. What's more, the regional dual-nuclei structure of Nanchang to Jiujiang, a leading role on the towns affected by the improvement of transportation and the export-oriented development of inland market plays a very important role in the progress of new urbanization and integration of Nanchang and Jiujiang.