饥荒与斯文:清代荒政中的生员赈济

Famine and Urbanity: Administrative System of Famine Relieving for Sheng-yuan in Qing Dynasty

在“郑重斯文”理念指导下,清代对灾荒时期的生员实行单独的、具有封闭性质的赈济制度。赈济生员之银米来源、生员赈济之查报、发放,同居的直系亲属之赈济亦与齐民有别。但生员赈济的标准与普通贫民基本相同。饥荒期间,生员群体的操守遭遇严峻挑战。捏报、虚开贫生户数、口数、多领赈票,甚至“以不得赈为无能”、闹赈等现象的发生,表明不少生员已经难以成为道德的楷模,甚者更不惜沦落反面。进一步反映出明清生员群体膨胀,功名出路壅滞以及荒政制度中存在的深层次问题。

Under the idea of ＂honor urbanity＂ , the low-grade gentries, who studied at country schools or passed the imperial examination at the country level, were applied to separate famine relieving system different from the system for general people in many aspects, in which their families also enjoyed better treatment than general people. However, the standard and procedure for the scholars were the same as those for the general people. In the serious famine correlating with life and death, the personal integrity, single standard and conscience of low-grade gentries came up against great challenges. The phenomena of making troubles and practicing fraud such as making false reports of the number of family and population or tickets of relieving etc. in the course of famine relieving indicated the losing of their morality and reflected some deep-seated problems in the groups of the lowgrade gentries and the systems of famine relieving.