著者

村田 遼平

出版者

東洋文庫

雑誌

東洋学報 = The Toyo Gakuho (ISSN:03869067)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.100, no.4, pp.31-60, 2019-03

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This article examines the background to the government’s operation of soup kitchens (zhouchang 粥廠) in Beijing in the late 19th century. During that time, especially in Beijing, soup kitchens deemed important in providing famine relief. It has already been pointed out in the research to date that soup kitchens in Beijing were frequently operated from the beginning of the 19th century in response to such urban problems as transients and wealth discrepancies between the rich and the poor. What seems to be lacking, however, is ascertaining the government’s overall logic regarding famine relief efforts and analysis of individual cases based on long-term trends. That is why the present article focuses on the case of soup kitchens temporarily operated during the 9th year of the Guangxu 光緖 Era (1883), based on documents written by Zhou Jiamei周家楣, then governor of Shuntian 順天 Prefecture, to examine the process of the project. Soup kitchens in Beijing during that time can be divided into three types: government-operated regular and provisional facilities, and private sector kitchens. Provisional kitchens would be set up near the gates of Beijing and in its suburbs. Then from the Tongzhi 同治 Era (1862–74) on, opening provisional kitchens became more and more frequent, with kitchens operating in both locations during the same year. In 1883, Shuntian Prefecture did not follow the locational formula for provisional soup kitchens, deciding rather to choose sites which did not overlap with existing ones. Moreover, the rule that provisional kitchens at the gates be located at the Inner-City gates was expanded to include kitchens at the Outer-City gates. The closure of the provisional facilities was implemented first in the suburbs, then at the gates, indicating that the Shuntian Prefecture government planned the operation of soup kitchens in and around Beijing Castle in holistic, organic terms. It was in this way that provisional soup kitchens were designed to serve transients in the region rather than the resident population of the suburbs, in response to changes occurring both in Qing Dynasty governance and social conditions during the latter part of the 19th century.