The Beijing Government's Disaster Relief Research (1912-1916)

The natural disaster in various types occurred frequently during the period of Beijing government of the early Republic of China,which mainly had drought and flood,with other natural disasters.And all kinds of natural disaster interacted with each other.From the regional distribution point of view,the flood disasters were centralized,mainly occurring in the region of Huaihe River and to the south of it,whereas drought disasters were comparatively decentralized,distributing all over the country.A large bloom of natural disasters occurring one after another had bad effects on people's lives and property,resulting in the starving everywhere,refugees everywhere,epidemic diseases,declining production,and high-rising necessity prices,which made masses live in dire poverty.The disasters affected seriously the stability of social order and governance of social environment.Furthermore,the disasters made it difficult to rule the country for the government.Thus,disaster relief became an issue that the government had to face with.In addition,the feudal autocracy had just ended and the Beijing government was just set up with the internal tasks of stabilizing the political situation and safeguarding the social environment and the external tasks of dealing with the great powers.In the face of so difficult situations,the Beijing government took many disaster relief measures.The government constructed a modern disaster relief system stemming but differing from the traditional system after absorbing the disaster relief ideas at home and abroad.The activities of disaster relief revolved around the Beijing government and highlighted the dominant position of the government.On the basis of that,the other social factors got planned and worked,and a variety of disaster relief measures got taken,and the works of disaster relief got promoted.Firstly,from the perspective of building up the disaster relief system,the government enacted laws and regulations that centered on disaster relief and set up a monitoring and practical system,which also called vertical administration system.The system emphasized the accuracy,normativity and timeliness of disaster report and the ordering,honest,and efficient features of disaster relief.Besides,the government should regulate preliminarily the disaster reporting program.Secondly,the local administrations should set up a series of regulations according to the central government regulations.The division of labour was clear and the rights and duties were separated,which is conductive to disaster relief.Thirdly,in order to fully mobilize all social forces into the civil relief matters,the government also issued a series of regulations to reward the individuals and groups.This action with distinctive characteristics complemented the disaster relief system and combined social forces and government forces,which attributed to build up a complete disaster relief system.Considering the specific implementation in disaster relief,including disaster relief information publicity,funds raising and scattering,and so on,the government can take measures according to the severity of the disaster and the abilities of the government.This reflected the diversified,multilevel and multidimensional characteristics.With a variety of many factors of modern disaster relief,the Beijing government's work went tough.Objectively,there were many defects and problems,but all the relief forces still pushed the disaster relief work forward slowly.The disaster relief system of Beijing government constantly developed.It not only inherited many traditional characteristics,but also absorbed many abroad thoughts about disaster relief.At last,the government built up a relief system with distinct characteristics of the time.These new factors mainly embodied in the disaster relief system and measures.Compared with the feudal disaster relief,the works of disaster relief got further developed in the aspects of relief system,specific measures,further development of society,and the modern disaster relief.This inevitably became a part of the modern political,economic,and cultural transformation.The Beijing government played an important guiding role in this process.The characteristics of the modern transformation formed owing to the objective historical background,not because of the simple fabrication.In other words,at the same time,in the area of disaster relief,Beijing government conformed to the historical trend,then promoted the transition and transformation of the modern disaster relief,which provided a good reference to the further development of disaster relief and had some certain positive effects.