谢家福与光绪十五年江苏苏属水灾义赈

Xie Jiafu and the Charity Famine Relief of Jiangsu Flood in 1889

光绪十五年,江苏的苏属地区发生重大水灾,之前曾在华北等地举办义赈的苏州绅士谢家福发动各方力量举行义赈。他号召大批外地绅士前来协助,与本地绅士一起,共同举行散发钱物、以工代赈和掩埋尸棺等赈灾措施,在救灾中发挥了重大作用。此次义赈是首次以江南地区为对象的跨区域义赈活动,将江南绅士在以往外地义赈中取得的经验运用于本地,使江南地方社会亦能从义赈中受益,从而保证义赈活动能够继续得到江南地方社会的支持。此次义赈还首次提出和运用"官义合办"的新型赈灾模式,但也暴露出一些突出问题。

In the fifteenth year of the Guangxu reign,a major flood occurred in Jiangsu chief secretary district,Xie Jiafu,a member of the Suzhou gentry who had previously led charity famine relief in North China and other places,mobilized forces to implement?famine relief.Xie mobilized many nonlocal and local gentry,initiated disaster relief measures such as distributing money and materials,providing relief for work and burying corpses,which played an important role in disaster relief.This relief was the first cross regional relief activity targeting the Jiangnan area.Relief efforts applied the experience of Jiangnan gentry acquired in other areas to the Jiangnan local area,so that the Jiangnan local society benefited.This gentry-led relief ensured that charity?famine?relief continued to receive the support of gentry in the Jiangnan area.During this disaster relief campaign,a new relief model of"Official and charity relief cooperation"was proposed and used for the first time,and some prominent drawbacks in relief was also exposed.