The Research Of Opium Plague In South-western China In Late Qing Dynasty And Kuoming Governance

During the time of late Qing Dynasty and early Kuoming Governance, the plague of opium spread in the south-western China. From a historic-geographic view point, this paper discusses the plantation, transportation and distribution of the opium industry in south-western China, and analyses the origin and effects of this opium plague.Modern Chinese history was accompanied with the plantation, transportation, distribution and consumption of opium, and south-eastern China was the main production area of the Old China.This paper describes the origin of the opium problem, answers the following questions:what is opium? Where do they come from? How they became drugs? The author believes the opium plague in that age was the consequence of malaria, but this cause got less important. Used to be medicine, opium became daily consumption item and then further turned into drug.Describes the plantation, production and distribution of opium in that age, which is the main part of the paper. The opium plague had experienced two stages:the Late Qing Stage and the Early Kuoming Governance Stage. The Kuoming Governance Stage could also be categorized into three distinct sub-stages by policy difference. The author believes that the opium plague had much connection with the local climate, fiscal policy and the market demand.And describe the spread and plantation of opium in Sichuan and Guizhou. The paper author considers that the spread of opium to Sichuan and Guizhou was the natural consequence of the geographical adjacency and the warlord fiscal policies.Also analyses the demand support and distribution network of the South-western opium market. The author believes that the large consumption population is the demand support of the market, and the neighboring Guangxi, Chongqing area was the important transportation route of opium.The author believes that opium is originally an economic crop, also a winter crop. If not planted widely, it could be a good supplement to grains, which would be good to the national economy. But the over-plantation of opium had used up the cultivated lands, then lead to a kind of weak economy.The climate geographic situations and the unique warlord politic environment made south-western China an ideal place of planting and distributing opium. And the large demand also supported the growth of this drug market, which spread from Yunnan to around China.