Research On Yan Sisheng’s Local Social Governance

The Yans were a noble family in Xinyu county of Jiangxi Province,keeping a good family tradition from Tang Dynasty to Qing Dynasty,and the whole family attached great importance to study and esteemed virtue.Yan Sisheng,a member of the family,made relatively high achievements in office,study and relations,who had been different duties in the provinces of Shanxi,Guizhou,Anhui,Shandong and Hubei.During official life,he was honest and upright with outstanding performance,putting morals,agriculture and savings in impotent place,particularly,he made a lot of efforts in bleak aspects.He also made many good friends,such as Xia Lisu and Jing Daomo.Besides,He made further research geography,literature and many other fields.In Yan’s official life,floods and droughts often occurred in the provinces of Anhui,Hubei and Shandong,which seriously affected people life and agricultural production.Thus,Yan Sisheng paid special attention to the salvation of floods and droughts and strongly promoted warehouse construction in each place.He analyzed the problems of Changping cang(常平仓)and Shecang(社仓),such as huge debts,insufficient grain and some other accumulated defects,and then emphasized that they should be replenished in time,and debts should be cleared.On the basis of previous systems,he improved the construction and management system of the storehouses.After disasters,he took kinds of measures actively to relieve,such as comforting,loaning grain,selling grain in a cheap price,dismissing,postponing the imposition of a tax,giving the refugees places to live,and the purpose was to restore production and life of victims and maintain social stability.Yen Sisheng paid great attention to school construction,academic study,examination and other educational undertakings in Guizhou Province.He encouraged establish more free-school in minority areas to improve local children’s learning content and ceremonial behavior.He actively improved the system of reporting advantages and disadvantages,and made strict regulation of examination to rectify the custom and morals of scholars.Also,he put forward a series of suggestions on the monthly and quarterly examinations,Tusi’s examination and children’s examination for military.Meanwhile,he had also made great achievements in the maintenance of social order.He had put forward corresponding solutions to the social problems,including: arresting of "Laoguazei",prohibiting cults,managing the minority.He had also contributed to managing the customs affairs,low officials and economy.Besides,he did a lot of things to pay attention to special group,for instance,adjusted the assistance standard of the almshouse,concerned inmates and arrange for prisoners exiled.In the practice of regional social governance,Yen’s activities not only achieved good results,but also formed thoughts on solving social problems.Yen believed that in the construction of water conservancy,people should paid attention to investigating,adjusting measures to local conditions,taking comprehensive management.During the course of disaster relief,disaster prevention was first,and basic officials’ the talents and functions should be fully made use of.Yan Sisheng emphasized that disaster relief should not be divided into any area.In order to develop education,he attached importance to the role of teachers,took the study of classics as the guidance,and actively carried out the recognition and education at the same time.In a word,Yen Sisheng’s measures and thoughts contained the idea of diligent government,loving the people and taking the people as the basis of governance.He was not only a talented and honest official then,but also an elite and model in the ranks of government officials in the middle of the 18 th century.