A Study On The Adoption Of Sweet Potato And Society Of Qing Dynasty

In the middle and late Ming Dynasty,the population of China was 150 million.After a series of wars such as peasant revolts and Qing's invasion,the population fall to about 70 million.On Kangxi thirty years which is in 1691,the population of China rose to about 10 million.In the year of 1776,this figures changed into 200 million.Finally,in the year of 1850,the population of Qing Dynasty reached to 430 million,which are the highest level of all ancient China Dynasty.Meanwhile,the agriculture,the handicraft and the business of Qing Dynasty developed quickly.In the middle of Qing Dynasty,the whole of society's economy were booming than ever.Although,the emperors of Qing Dynasty had carried out some policies which were beneficial to the growth of population,these policies were emulated from previous dynasties.The rulers of Qing did not invent too many methods.And much more importantly,no matter how big the territory of Qing,how quick the improvement of technology,itself still was a feudal dynasty based on the small farmer economy.It had no difference of previous dynasties in productivity and relation of productivity.Then,why there were explosive growth of population during Qing Dynasty?Why Qing had much more active economy?During the 150 years,which the growth of population expanded quickly,sweet potato,maize some other American grains spread out quickly in China.The promotion of American grains had stimulated the economy of Europe and population,per capita income and urban rates.Then were there any relationship between American grains and the development of economy of Qing's society?This paper uses provincial panel data which are across from 1724 to 1898 to study the effect of sweet potato on the population,war and economy.Here are the content and conclusions.Content one:the impact of sweet potato on the growth of population.This paper uses OLS,Fixed Effect Model and Random Effect to study the impact of sweet potato on population and find that sweet potato had positive effect on the growth of population of Qing Dynasty.This paper also divided the sample into two parts.One part is hills sample,the other is plain part.And the outcome shows that sweet potato had much more effect on hills sample than plain sample.That outcome are suitable to the attributes of sweet potato.Besides,outcome also shows that sweet potato had much more effect on population in the middle of Qing Dynasty.Content two:the impact of sweet potato on the occurrence of war.This paper studies the effect of sweet potato on war's dummy variable,frequency of war and the intensity of war.The outcome shows that the intensity of war,which are represented by the duration of war,can be actively reduced,when extreme drought happened.Content three:the impact of sweet potato on the economy of Qing DynastyOn this part,this paper focus on the impact of sweet potato on grain price,real wage and urban rates.The conclusion shows that the adoption of sweet potato could control the rising of grain price when the extreme drought and flood came out.Besides,during the Qing Dynasty,the adoption of sweet potato had no significant effect on real wage and urban rates.