Table of Contents

@fmct:Contents @toc4:List of Tables iii List of Illustrations iii Acknowledgments iii @toc2:Introduction 1 Chapter 1: "Heaven, Earth, and Man" in North China 000 @toc3:History of the Hai River System 000 The Hai River Basin of North China 000 Climate of the Hai River Basin 000 Historical Climate 000 Floods, Droughts, and Disasters 000 Local Records and Social Consequences 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Chapter 2. Managing the Rivers: Emperors as Engineers 000 @toc3:Kangxi and the Yongding River 000 Yongzheng, Prince Yi, and a Comprehensive Plan 000 Qianlong and Routinization 000 Jiaqing: Heroic Hydraulics 000 Daoguang: Earnest Efforts 000 Fin-de-siecle Floods 000 Local Initiatives 000 Emperors, Bureaucrats, and Ecology 000 @toc2:Chapter 3. Population, Agriculture, and Food 000 @toc3:Population and Land 000 Land and Agriculture Under Manchu Rule 000 Agriculture: Grains and Other Crops 000 Cropping Patterns and Yields 000 Diet and Standard of Living 000 Not Quite a Malthusian Tale 000 @toc2:Chapter 4. Food and Prices 000 @toc3:Long-Term Price Trends 000 Multicropping and Seasonality 000 Natural Crises and Harvests 000 The Copper Coin-Silver Exchange Rate 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Chapter 5. Provisioning Beijing 000 @toc3:Beijing and Grain Tribute 000 Grain Stipends: Distribution, Timing, and Sales 000 Pingtiao and the Beijing Market 000 Social Unrest, Pingtiao, and Soup Kitchens 000 Markets, Merchants, and Gendarmerie 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2: Chapter 6. Storing Grain: Granaries as Solution and Problem 000 @toc3:Granaries in Chinese History 000 Kangxi-Yongzheng Origins 000 Ever-Normal Granaries in the Qianlong Period 000 Ever-Normal Granaries in the Jiaqing and Daoguang Periods 000 Community and Charity Granaries 000 External Grain Supplies 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Chapter 7. Markets and Prices 000 @toc3:Market Integration Within Zhili 000 Price Integration with Other Regions 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Chapter 8. Famine Relief: The High Qing Model 000 @toc3:Famine Investigation 000 General Relief 000 Grain Versus Cash/Millet Versus Sorghum 000 Soup Kitchens 000 Pingtiao 000 Tax Remissions 000 Shelters and Famine Refugees 000 17431744: Famine Relief Model 000 1759: Disaster Without Relief 000 17611763 and Later: Relief With and Without Disaster 000 Overall Evaluation 000 @toc2:Chapter 9. Famine Relief: Nineteenth-Century Devolution 000 @toc3:The 1801 Flood 000 The 18131814 Crisis 000 Daoguang Crises and Corruption 000 Midcentury Political Crisis 000 The 18711872 Floods and the Li Hongzhang Era 000 The 18761879 North China Famine 000 The 18901895 Floods 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Chapter 10. The "Land of Famine," 19001949 000 @toc3:1917 and Later Floods 000 The 19201921 Drought and International Aid 000 The 19281930 North China Drought and National Crisis 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Chapter 11. Rural Crisis and Economic Change, 1900<- >1949 000 @toc3:Famine and Poverty 000 Changes in the Economy 000 Local Experiences 000 Economic Trends 000 Japanese Aggression, Communist Insurgency, and Rural Poverty 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Chapter 12. Food and Famine Under Socialist Rule, 19491990s 000 @toc3:Population, Agriculture, and Grain in Hebei 000 Socialism and Subsistence in Hebei, 19491958 and Beyond 000 The Great Leap Famine, 19581961 000 Controlling Nature 000 Unleashing the Market 000 Regulating the Grain Market 000 Conclusion 000 @toc2:Conclusion 000 @toc4:Reign Periods of the Qing Dynasty (16441911) and Use of Dates 000 Weights and Measures 000 Glossary (Chinese Characters) 000 @toc4:Appendices 000 @toc3:Appendix 1: Prefectures and Counties in Zhili Province in Qing Period 000 Appendix 2: Data 000 Appendix 3: Quantitative Methods 000 @toc4:Abbreviations Used in Notes 000 Notes 000 Bibliography 000 Gazetteers List 000 Index 000

About the Author

Lillian M. Li is Professor of History at Swarthmore College. She has previously published China's Silk Trade: Traditional Industry in the Modern World, 1842-1937 (1981) and coedited Chinese History in Economic Perspective (1992).

Reviews

"Li's book makes an important contribution to the study of famine and Chinese economic history ... Li's work is truly monumental for the study of China's famine and famine fighting." - Yixin Chen, Chinese Historical Review "Li's work deserves the serious attention of those who are interested in understanding how emperors, leaders, and civil societies in China, especially in North China, have dealt with natural catastrophes and famines in the last three hundred years ... [T]he book provides a comprehensive examination on factors that might have contributed to food shortage or famine during the long period from the 1690s ti the 1990s." - Guanzhong James Wen, China Review International "This is an extraordinary monograph, one that will long remain the definitive account of a most challenging issue - the long-term problem of human sustenance on the northeast China plain." - CHOICE "In this long-awaited book Lillian Li offers us a masterful account of three centuries of environmental and socio-economic history in one of the core regions of China Li's achievement is especially noteworthy when we consider the multiplicity of variables she addresses with equal thoroughness and clarity and combines into a convincing narrative of ever-mounting problems and tensions. Certainly Li's monumental work is a must-read for present-day planners and decision-makers." - EH.NET "People have been looking forward to this book for a long time; the wait was worth it. Lillian Li's Fighting Famine in North China: State, Market, and Environmental Decline, 1690s-1990s is as close to a definitive account of efforts to prevent and relieve famine in North China as we are likely to get for quite some time It goes well beyond the mid-Qing to consider both the century of North China's worst famines and the efforts of the last few decades that seem, for now, to have banished famine from China." - Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies