The Study Of Yuan Baoheng In Henan's Ding-wu Disaster

A great drought happened in North China from 1876 to1879. It covered five provinces of north China, included Shanxi, Henan, Shaanxi, Hebei and Shandong. It also affected the northern part of Jiangsu, the eastern part of Gansu, the northern part of Sichuan and so on. So, the great drought was called “Ding-wu Disaster”. As one of the worst-hit provinces, Henan had been destroyed unprecedented. It's agricultural production, population, social order had been seriously affected. Leaving back to his hometown on leave, Yuan Baoheng witnessed the famine of Henan and began to give attention to this great drought. It manifested informing Henan provincial government and the Qing government about Henan's situation, giving Henan provincial government suggestions and raising money. After the leave back to Beijing, Yuan Baoheng was sent to Henan to handle famine relief due to the large population and the arduous relief work in Henan.Yuan Baoheng adopted a series of relief measures after accepting this task.He tried to raise money, which manifested asking the Qing government for money and requesting interception and borrowing money; actively raising money from the Henan Province and borrowing from the local rich merchant;turning to other provinces for help,in addition to borrowing idle money from every province's rich businessmen and officials,urging the assist fund from other provinces to support Henan;borrowing foreign funds;turning to donation and trying to persuade to donate by requesting to restart its branches,by promoting Henan province's relieve with donated funds,and slowing Yunnan's branch.He also sought to raise grain, which manifested not only asking the Qing government for grain and requesting interception and borrowing grain, but also attracting businessmen to traffic grain and buying grain.Almost every river became shallow due to drought,so Yuan Baoheng asked people to dredge the river for helping transportation. In order to save freight,he also made rice grain handled flexibly. On his way to Henan,taxes were deferred by him in order that the hungry poor were no longer urged to pay taxes.When arrived Kaifeng, with Li Henian who was temporarily acting as the governor of Henan,Yuan Baoheng send people to continue to survey the disaster and commanded man to check on residents in order to make relief clear and set relief chapter. On the basis of original porridge factories, they also set up porridge factories to relief of the sufferers on main paths. What's more,they also provided habitat places to intercept and shelter vagrant,wrote letters to Henan's adjacent provinces to keep Henan's refugees,and implemented work relief.At the same time,Yuan Baoheng had also taken other measures which lay a certain foundation for the recovery of Henan.He made money articles to repay the borrowed money and grain;He paid more attention to agricultural production, and advised the construction of water conservancy and extend pitting field;He rectified the official, cleared up drawbacks, punished the people who was not responsible for handling the famine relief, praised the people who was responsible for handling the famine relief,thirsted for seeking the talented and appointed them;He also maintenanced local social order and paid attention to the business of suppressing bandits.However, Yuan Baoheng's raising money had largely backfired. His borrowing and buying grain had very little effect and so did the relief and pension. Besides, the method of repaying arrears failed to implement.Yuan Baoheng's doing relief was characterized by seeking help from army and seeking help from both the Hunan faction and the Anhui faction.It is limited by organizing difficult and thought of superstition. As an epitome of officials and gentry's doing famine relief, Yuan Baoheng made little progress in the case of both the court and local government were short of money. But his efforts cannot be denied. His relief had great influence both on Henan and the Yuan family in Xiangcheng. However little effect,Yuan Baoheng's doing famine relief had made some achievements,and we can't deny efforts what Yuan Baoheng made in Henan's famine. After the death of Yuan Baoheng, his famine relief results still played a certain role.