The Impact Of Natural Disasters On Food Security In Henan Province In Qing Dynasty

Henan is located in the hinterland of the Central Plains,which has been an area dominated by agricultural economy since ancient times.However,in the Qing Dynasty,the problem of food security in Henan was very prominent,with frequent and serious natural disasters.This paper mainly analyzes the natural and social environment of Henan Province in Qing Dynasty,summarizes the temporal and spatial characteristics of natural disasters,and discusses the impact of natural disasters on food security,a series of social problems caused by food security crisis and social response during the famine period.It mainly includes five aspects:The first part mainly discusses the natural ecological environment and agricultural social environment of Henan in Qing Dynasty.Henan is located in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River.In the Qing Dynasty,it was seriously affected by the migration of the Yellow River.The obvious transitional climate,uneven distribution of precipitation,poor soil farming conditions and so on made the natural disasters frequent.Moreover,the social disaster bearing environment was very fragile,the productivity level was low,and the per capita cultivated land was insufficient.In addition,the layers of social exploitation made the livelihood of the people more difficult.In the second part,through sorting out the disaster data in the literature,the author analyzes the temporal and spatial variation characteristics and periodic laws of each natural disaster,and summarizes the overall characteristics of each natural disaster by comparing various disasters.In the Qing Dynasty,the natural disasters in Henan were mainly water and drought disasters.As a whole,the frequency of disasters in the middle Qing Dynasty was relatively low,which belonged to the period of low occurrence of disasters.In the late Qing Dynasty,the frequency of disasters was relatively high,which belonged to the period of high occurrence of disasters.The spatial distribution of natural disasters affected by topography is significantly different,and the disaster frequency in the East is higher than that in the West.The third part mainly discusses the impact of disasters on food security from three aspects: food production,food circulation and transportation,and food price.Natural disasters cause the loss of labor force and means of production,affect production activities,and lead to the reduction of grain production,which leads to the shortage of grain in the grain market,the disorder of order,the increase of grain price,the increase of grain input and the decrease of grain output.The fourth part mainly analyzes the impact of food security crisis on the social life of Henan Province in Qing Dynasty,which caused a series of livelihood problems such as famine,plague,exile,and caused a strong impact on the social order.In order to survive,the victims lost their wives,sold their children,and even ate meat and bone.During the disaster,social morality was in decline and bandits were rampant.The fifth part mainly discusses the disaster relief measures taken by the Qing government and the measures and contributions made by the people to the disaster relief.Generally speaking,in the period of disaster relief,Henan Province in Qing Dynasty still took the government as the leading role,and the system of disaster relief was more complete and the intensity of disaster relief was stronger.But the folk disaster relief has the advantage of flexibility and timeliness,and also plays an important role.