Guizhou Flood And Drought Disaster And Village Society (1912～1926)

During the year of 1912-1926,frequent flood and drought disasters occurred in Guizhou.Their were almost plague years,ardent disasters years,and in many times these were erupted simultaneously.Certainly, the natural geographical environment and climate conditions were the main inducement to incur the frequent flood and drought disasters, whether a natural disaster could spawn a famine or not still depended on anti-disaster ability and defending disaster mechanism of a society.While Guizhou was governed by warlords,bureaucracy corruption,social unrest, economic damage,people's ability to resist natural disasters got seriously atrophy,once occured disasters namely bringed about serious famines.Frequency of flood and drought disasters not only affected the ancient tradition of rural ecological environment,made the victims lack of food,resulted in the rising prices,vast of victims had to live on substitute food,it also bringed the inherent moral system of rural with heavy impacts,forced the victims to sell their children,even went to reverse side of the society,the disasters caused severe influence to the rural society,the rural economy was on the verge of collapse,the land became barrened,ecological environment deteriorated,the rural labor declined,so as to make the country lost the most fundamental production capacity,the post-disaster reconstruction is very difficult.By the disaster intrusion,this already very sharped social contradictions became more acute,so that bandits rised in swarms during the disaster years.This in a extent intensified the social unrest and anxiety.Because the warlord government declined day by day,the fiscal extremely scarce,it unable to carry on effective relief to relieve the frequent and serious floods and drought disasters,coupled with the government bureaucracy corruption, and the disaster relief taked by the government unable to accompany with the reality,so that relief activities got undeserved rewarding.While the government as the main body in the disaster relief lost its due significance, the folk self rescue appeared particularly important.After the plague,the immensity victims try their best to deal with disaster years,they shrinked normal food and clothes,even ate something that cattles were not willing to eat so as to live through failyears,by this time the local gentlemen and rich families also played an important role in disaster relief.In addition, during the period,the new and efficient folk relief also played a positive role in disaster relief.They used modern media and tools to carry out great amount of charities,obtained the certain effect.Folk strength offsetted the deficiency of disaster relief taked by the warlord government to a great degree,they played an important role in disaster relief.