Jiangsu Coast Salt Activity Geography And The Changes Of Human-land Relationship In Ming And Qing Dynasties

Coastal zone is the transition zone of land-ocean interactions. Jiangsu coastal zone is the representative region to observe the geographical environment and human activity changes in history. Jiangsu coastal plain has been from silting up to forming in hundreds of years rapidly. Today, There still is the largest tidal flat throughout the nation and even worldwide.During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there has been a long-term salt and farming activities, the drastic changes of geographical environment and diversity of human activities changes. The dramatical changes of geographical stages and the colorful humanity dramas have important academic significance as for discussing land-ocean interactions, as well as man-land relations in the historical period.In this dissertation, the coastal zone in Jiangsu province in the Ming and Qing Dynasties is regarded as a typical regional man-land system. Starting from the research perspective of regional historical geography and LOICZ(Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone) and based on thethree aspects discussion of regional natural process, the process of social economy and the political process, the author tries to reveal the basic process of man-land relationship changes in the coastal zone during the period of history and to conclude the complexity and basic characteristics of man-land interaction between the land and sea. Among them, the coastal zone of natural processes take the succession law of tidal flat elements as a pivot, to discuss the deep impact on the social economic procession in the coastal zone. The process of social economy is as the long-standing Huainan and Huaibei salt activities during the Ming and Qing Dynasties as center, the author examined the relationship between salt, cultivation, fishing as well as the "succession" process of social economic activities, and affirmed the adaptability to the natural process of social economic process in the historical period. In the political process, he also highlighted the initiative differences about the use of coastal zone resources between the nation and the local region.During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Jiangsu coastal zone presented long-term process of silting up in the north of Jiangsu coastal. Under the influence of tidal flat elements succession law, ecological environment also performed for a certain change regularly. Environment changes led to different degrees of changes in the relationship between spatial distribution of ecological elements and the resources combination in the coastal zone. This changes aroused the varied way that people get their available resources.Jiangsu coastal natural environment change also led to the differentiation of appropriate tillage, salt, and fishing region. But the government took long-term policy of encouraging salt rather than agriculture, growing grass for frying and prohibiting cultivation. This resulted in natural resources allocation mainly on salt for a long time.Overall, the coastal zone is characterized by the unique salt activities, and along with the coast east moving and saltworks migration.During the process of social economic and political changes in the coastal zone, themonopoly on coastal zone resources and salt activities by the government was to stabilize the levy for salt and made it continue to become the profit source of feudal regime to maintain its governing. The huge fiscal dependence became internal as the a highly motivated of monopoly of coastal zone, then it strengthened the inhibition of balanced development for the man-land system in the coastal zone and autogenic succession and local social forces lacked the initiative for a long time. The Dynasty need to be stablein the system for the long-termsupply of materials and energy. While it long-term encouraging salt rather than cultivation in the coastal zone management has led to inefficient allocation of the coastal zone resources, distorting the system itself "succession",intensifying the contradiction between human and land, accumulating to the destructive forces of the old policy, and speeding up the disintegration of their own. Once the government regulation collapsed, the local social forces could quickly push the layout reconstruction of coastal zone.This provided the historical conditions for the salt abolishing and cultivation prosper in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China.In the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, under the premise of exaggerated profit pursuing by the profiteer, the policy was from one end of the previous encouraging salt than cultivation towards cultivation important than salt activity at the other extreme——vigorously promote salt abandoned and cultivation prosper. As a matter of fact, this accelerated failure in salt declines in Huainan. Resources configuration is no longer with salt activity as the center. But the existence of appropriate salt zone in the coastal areas make it difficult to completely abolish. Finally, salt activity and cultivation carried out concurrently, and oven abandoned but not salt has been highlighted in the social economy during this period in the coastal zone.