Study On Natural Disasters In Henan Area During The Jiajing Period Of Ming Dynasty

During the period of Jiajing in Ming Dynasty,natural disasters occurred frequently in Henan area,especially drought,flood and locust disasters.Although it was not on the seismic belt,earthquakes also occurred frequently at that time,and famine occurred after the disasters.Although the academic circles have conducted many studies on disasters in the Ming Dynasty or Henan,special studies on disasters and relief in Henan area during the Jiajing period have not yet appeared.This paper takes the disasters and relief in Henan during Jiajing period as the research object.On the basis of extensive collection and consulting of relevant local chronicles in Henan area,History of Ming Dynasty and Records of Ming Dynasty,made statistics on the disaster situation in Henan during Jiajing period.On this basis,the high frequency of floods,droughts,locusts,earthquakes and famine events after disasters were analyzed,and the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics were summarized.It is concluded that the number of disasters in Henan during the Jiajing period was large and the frequency of disasters was high,showing continuity in time and extensiveness in space,but the distribution of each region was unbalanced,and it had the characteristics of clustering and concomitance.At the same time,the causes and impacts of disasters are analyzed.It is believed that although the occurrence of disasters is related to natural factors such as "Ming and Qing Little Ice Age" and the topography and physiognomy of Henan Province,it is more the result of man-made disasters,such as the weakening of the national capacity to relieve famine,inappropriate human activities and the influence of unhealthy folk customs.Disasters had caused serious negative effects on social economy,regional social order,disaster victims'morality and local ecological environment.The disaster relief measures in the Jiajing period had gradually become more complete.Official through disaster preparedness warehouse construction,juanmian,gaizhe,huanzheng,tingzheng,and relief for aiding the victims of disasters,also actively called on non-governmental forces to participate in disaster relief by means of persuasion and donation policies.However,the development of social economy and clan organization in henan during the jiajing period was not enough,the folk forces were active in relieving the victims of disasters,their scale and strength were still small,and most of them were the result of the oovernment's incentive policies.Therefore,the disaster relief in henan during the jiajing period was still dominated by official relief.