清代 兩湖 지역개발과 전염병

Abstract

The COVID-19 began in December 2019 in Wuhan City, Hubei Province. In spite of the Chinese government’s mass quarantine of Hubei, COVID-19 spread all over the world and threatened the lives of many people. Until now, COVID-19 has claimed more than 506,369 lives, with more than 10 million confirmed cases globally. In this regard, it is meaningful to study the epidemics of Hubei and Hunan Provinces in Qing Dynasty.BR Despite the value and importance of their social effects, there has not been enough research to identify the exact realities of the diseases. In this context, this article investigates the spatial and temporal distributions of epidemics with special reference to their regional developments and resulting disasters in Hubei and Hunan Provinces during Qing Dynasty.BR The Hubei and Hunan Provinces are located in the middle of Yangzi River area. These regions experienced an increased development of polders(垸田) in plain areas during Ming-Qing Dynasties due to immigration and population growth. The Hubei and Hunan plains were geopolitically important for Ming-Qing Dynasties, since they were major sources of food supply. The unprecedented demographic rise and economic boom caused the environmental degradation. In addition, overcrowded people in the plains moved to the mountainous areas and developed forest. As a result, the immigrants concentrated on food production, which enabled them to resolve subsistence but at the same time caused the erosion of soil.BR In Qing Dynasty epidemics accrued from frequent floods caused by the development of polders(垸田) in plain areas and the soil erosion made by exploitation of mountainous areas. The plainfoothill areas especially suffered frequent epidemics during Qing Dynasty, which usually followed some natural disasters that intensively raged in the years of 1700s, 1720s, 1820s and 1830s. Historical documents indicate that geographical changes in the environment and immigration led to periodical flood disasters, which were followed by series of epidemics.BR Constant development of nature by humans increased natural disasters and subsequently epidemics occurred frequently. There are lessons to be learned by paying attention to these historical fact about epidemic.