Study On The Operation Of Official Positions In The Disaster And Drought In Shanxi Province In The Late Qing Dynasty

In the late Qing Dynasty,there were frequent and serious disasters in Shanxi,especially the "Ding-wu Disaster" in 1877-1879 and the "Jinbei Disaster" in 1892-1893.There have been many excellent achievements in the research of the former,but the research of the latter is obviously lagging behind and little known.The above two disasters fully show the complex operation process of various official relief agencies in Shanxi Province in the late Qing Dynasty,as well as the interactive relationship between different levels of officials participating in the relief,which has important academic value for understanding the integrity and accuracy of the evolution of disaster relief in the Qing Dynasty.Facing a disaster,the local governments need to deal with the deployment and transportation of a large number of personnel,money and food,as well as the disorderly flow of a large number of victims.Whether the official relief agencies can operate effectively is directly related to the success or failure of the relief effectiveness.In the early and middle Qing Dynasty,the relatively fixed temporary official organization in the process of disaster relief was the "factory" of the smallest relief unit,which was coordinated by the local government.Although the government of the late Qing Dynasty still set up disaster relief agencies,they had developed a more complex hierarchical system,and the corresponding officials were temporarily filled by local officials at all levels.The general administration of disaster relief of the provincial government was mainly responsible for the overall situation,which was divided into donation and transportation bureau,donation and relief bureau,transit bureau,rehabilitation bureau,children’s care bureau,etc.Officials at different levels are divided into different organizations,from governors to prefectural and county officials,and then to Zuo Er officials below the county level,forming a set of official relief system with orderly operation and separate responsibilities.This paper makes a comparative analysis of the changes of Shanxi official relief agencies in the early and middle Qing Dynasty and the late Qing Dynasty,and systematically discusses the efficiency and supervision of the operation of Shanxi official relief agencies in the late Qing Dynasty with two typical cases of "Ding-wu Disaster" and "Jinbei Disaster".In the actual operation process,the official relief agencies often exceeded the provisions of various rules and regulations,so the supervision of official relief ran through the whole process of disaster relief.The assistance from other provinces and the flexible allocation of temporary agencies made the official relief system in the late Qing Dynasty more complex.