Study On The Canal Economy Rise And Fall Of Dezhou During The Ming And Qing Dynasties

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Dezhou is an important commercial center along the canal in Shandong province, just as Jining, Linqing, and Dongchang. However, the academic research in recent mainly focus on the latter three cities. Dezhou is somewhat marginalized in the relevant study of canal economy. On the other hand, although the academic researcher focus more on the Shandong canal policies, transport, urban development, social culture changing, few focused on its economic aspect. The relevant data collection and data mining are not sufficient, especially the research on the evolution process and the reason of the rise and down of canal economic is shallow. Many studies used to do rough sketches and case description and few can describe the rise and fall of the canal economy accurately. So far, almost no one ever did the interdisciplinary research on Shandong Canal Economic History using the theory and framework of western economics or in the perspective of modern economics. Based on the achievements of predecessors, this paper conducted a research on Dezhou canal economic prosperity and decline in the frame of modern western economics, and reports the research process and results as follows.In the first chapter, there are three aspects for the Dezhou Canal Economic vicissitudes background:the development and changes of politics, economy, society of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, which is the macro environment; the water transport, water management and trading policy of the canal area, which belongs to the middle environment; the reality of the situation of Dezhou of the special period, which is the micro environment. This study is to analyze the history of Dezhou canal economy from the above three aspects, by dividing it into seven stages:silence, restoring, prosperity, declining, second restoring, second prosperity, falling. This paper tries to summarize its history as a gourd-shaped development with second boom in mid-Qing Dynasty far prosperous than that in the mid-Ming Dynasty. This kind of division and description is the innovation of this research.In the second chapter, the author analyzes and interprets the following five aspects of Dezhou canal economy:industry, market, population, towns, humanities through fully mining of Dezhou’s records in official records and records of unofficial history in Ming and Qing Dynasties. This proves that the summary in chapter one is right that the development trend is gourd-shaped. In the research process the author draw some charts in the modern statistics analysis methods and computer technology making the complex discourse concise, vivid.In the third chapter, the reasons of the rise and fall of Dezhou canal economy is the purpose and so the value of this paper. Through in-depth analysis, the author found that prosperity of Dezhou canal economy is closely related to with the canal. In the Yongle nine year of Ming dynasty, excavating Huitong river between north-south water transport is the primary cause of the economic prosperity of the Dezhou canal. In Xianfeng five year in the Qing Dynasty, Yellow River cut the canal, so this is the direct result of the rapid decline of the Dezhou canal economy. In addition, the trade policy and management of the Ming and Qing Dynasties was an important reason, along with bureaucracy, war and political environment, economic situation. Of course, factors such as Dezhou humanistic characteristics and regional characteristics can not be ignored in development of the canal economy.This paper integratedly use several research approaches:literature research, historical research, comparative research, quantitative analysis. It draw lessons from western economics, population economics, regional economics, sociology, history and other modem disciplines and theoretical achievements. For the first time, it put forward a gourd-shaped trend of Dezhou canal economic history in Ming and Qing Dynasties. It also confirmed this trend form through a lot of historica rise materials. Through this it also reveals the reason of the ups and downs of Dezhou canal economic. This research finding is also applicable for description of the history of other regional canal economy in Shandong. So it is of strong theoretical value and universal significance.