Ming Dynasty, Guizhou Field Landscape Analysis

Guizhou is the province that boasts the widest Karst area, as well as one of the districts that suffer serious Karst Rocky Desertification. Guizhou was made a province in the Ming Dynasty. The Ming government launched a series of development actions such as building roads, setting up Weisuos and migrating people to this province, all of which never carried out by prior dynasties. These actions made Ming Dynasty the commencement of wide development of Guizhou Province. Relying on the historical documents such as local gazettes, travel journals and so on, this essay describes the wild landscape of Guizhou in the eyes of people of Ming Dynasty when they traveled along the roads, including physiognomy, climate, vegetation and so on. This essay also contrasts the perceptions of people of Ming Dynasty with that of modern people. In the end, this essay evaluates the impact of development actions of Ming Dynasty on the wild landscape of Guizhou by demonstrating the distribution of roads and migrants, and the process of reclamation.This essay is divided into five parts. The first chapter concentrates on the purpose of this essay and its practical meaning, as well as the retrospect of relevant research and the definition of key words. The second chapter demonstrates the main roads of Guizhou of Ming Dynasty, therefore constructing a spacial layout for the coming analysis in the third chapter. The third chapter, being the key part, describes the wild landscape observed by the people of Ming Dynasty, including six parts, i.e., landform, climate, malaria, vegetation, Rocky Desertification and tigers. This chapter also contrasts the landscape with the nowadays landscape, and analyzes the subjective effects of observers. The fourth chapter evaluates the impact of the actions of migrants on the landscape by observing distribution of roads, migration, reclamation and planting techniques.Through the whole research, I reach the conclusion that the wild landscape of Ming Dynasty was very much different from that of today, and it might change slowly during the Ming Dynasty. Besides, the subjectivity of the observers such as emotion, prospective and social vogue also effected their observation. Due to the lack of the amount and comparability of material, this essay do not tend to make sound conclusion on the relationship of the change of wild landscape and the action of people, instead just proposes the possibilities.