Yangzi Waters: Transforming the Water Regime of the Jianghan Plain in Late Imperial China (China Studies, 44)

This book is an in-depth study of evolving state-society-environment relationships of the Jianghan Plain in late imperial China, as well as the transformation of landscape and waterscape in central China through lenses that have been overlooked in previous scholarship. Half Title Series Information Title Page Copyright Page Contents Acknowledgments Figures and Tables Introduction: Water, Society and Politics 1 Theorizing Water and Politics 2 Revisiting the Relationship between Water and Society 3 The Yuan 3.1 What Are Yuan? 3.2 A Long-term View of the Yuan 4 The Jianghan Plain Chapter 1 Water-based Disasters and a Cultured Nature 1 The Amphibious Nature of the Jianghan Plain 1.1 A Flood-prone Environment 1.2 Wet-rice Cultivation and Its Significance 1.3 Amphibious Living 2 Networks, Lineages, and the Creation of Yuan 3 Temple-Yuan Relations: Seeing a Cultured Nature 4 Conclusion Chapter 2 Disordering Nature: Wetlands and Empire Reconstruction (1600s–Early 1700s) 1 The Early History of the Wetlands in the Jianghan Plain 2 Crisis and Restoration 3 Migration and Opening the Plain 4 Fluidity of the Jianghan Lifestyle 5 Complexities in Administration 6 The Early Qing State and Its Laissez-faire Policy in Central China 7 Hydraulic Communities: Official and People’s Yuan 8 Enforcement on Collaboration: The Formation of Yuan Zones 9 Customs in Common: Various Solutions for Collaboration 10 Turn Sea to Land: Population Growth and Dike Proliferation 11 Conclusion Chapter 3 The Retreat of the Horse: The Manchus, Pasturelands, and Water Management on the Jianghan Plain (ca. 1700s–mid-1800s) 1 Manchus and Horses 2 The Jingzhou Garrison 3 Population Growth and Land Reclamation in the Eighteenth-century Jianghan Plain 4 The Debate over Land versus Water 5 The Dilemma for Statecraft Officials 6 The Manchus and the Local Ecology of Central China 7 Efforts to Reinforce Manchu Cultural Identity 8 The Retreat of Horses in the Jianghan Plain in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 9 Conclusion Chapter 4 Militarizing Water: Forts, Polders, and Landscape in an Era of Crisis (1796–1860s) 1 The Rebels and the Jianghan Plain 2 Jianbi Qingye: The Qing State’s Counterinsurgency Agenda 3 Fort Building in the Hubei Highlands 4 Local Militarization and the Lowland Communities 5 Yuan and Tuanlian: Qianjiang County as a Case Study 6 Disruptions in the Hydraulic System with Local Militarization 7 The Rural Famine in the Jianghan Plain from the Late 1850s to the 1860s 8 Conclusion Chapter 5 Coping with Environmental Crisis in the Post-Taiping Era 1 Post-Taiping Social Distress and Environmental Crisis 2 Managing the Waters 2.1 Flood Control: Restoring, Diking, or Diverting 2.2 Sedimentation: Ban the Reclamation on Mountains 2.3 Sacrificing the South for the North 3 The Changing Nature of Conflicts over Water 3.1 First, Greater Frequency and on a Larger Scale 3.2 Second, Diversifying Stakeholders 3.3 Third, a “Plebeian Culture” in Popular Action 3.4 Case Study: The Conflicts over the Big and Small Zekou Outlets from the 1840s to the 1910s 4 Changes in Hydrotopography of the Jianghan Plain 5 Conclusion Chapter 6 Centering the Plain 1 The Jinshui Reclamation Project 2 The Social, Economic, and Hydraulic Conditions of the Plain 3 Reorganizing the Yuan System in the Early Republic 4 The Nationalist Government’s Scheme of Unifying Watersheds 5 A Divided Central Yangzi Watershed 6 Hydropower: Centering the Yangzi 7 Conclusion Conclusion 1 An Autonomous Water Regime 2 An Amphibious Water Regime 3 The Role of the State 4 Environmental Changes in the Longue Durée 4.1 Hydrogeographic Changes 4.2 Loss of Biodiversity 5 Hopes and Challenges in the Jianghan Plain Appendix: Glossary of Chinese Measurement Terms Works Cited Gazetteers, Archives, and Other Manuscript Sources (Arranged by Title) Databases Books and Articles Index "This book centers on the changes of polders and investigates the complex hydro-social relationships of the Jianghan Plain in late imperial China. Once a "hydraulic frontier" where local communities managed the polders, the Jianghan Plain became a state-led hydro-electric powerhouse by the mid-twentieth century. Through meticulous historical analysis, this book shows how water politics, cultural practice, and ecology interplayed and transformed the landscape and waterscape of the plain from a long-term perspective. By touching on topics such as religious beliefs, ethnic tension and militarization, the author reveals a plain in between nature and culture that has never been fully examined before"-- Provided by publisher