Analysis on the Formation and Operation of a New Folk Relief System --- Taking the Flood Relief in Zhejiang Province in 1922 as an Example

The flood in Zhejiang in 1922 led to numbers of disaster victims. In the case of insufficient government relief, non-governmental organizations had become the main force in disaster relief, and in the process of disaster relief, a new model had gradually formed with relief fundraising as the core and various small and medium-sized organizations united around it. Under this model, the disaster relief process and results showed many different characteristics from the past and set a typical model for future charitable relief movements.


Introduction
In modern times, some areas of Shanghai and Zhejiang became ports for foreign trade. This layout promoted the development of Folk Commerce in this area, and then the continuous accumulation of folk wealth led them to be active in all aspects of society. Relief was one of them. The best example was the non-governmental organizations involved in the relief of the 1922 flood in Zhejiang. Due to the special geographical environment of Zhejiang, it was very easy to induce mountain floods. In addition, in the early years of the Republic of China, the warlords fought in a scuffle, and the financial rights fell aside. The investment in disaster management was seriously insufficient. Natural disasters occur frequently, and it was difficult to cope with frequent natural disasters. Disaster management had also become an important topic in Zhejiang. At this time, the Traditional Charity Association was declining. In addition, since the opening of the port, merchant mobility was also increasing. The regional restrictions between charities were being further broken, and a modern charity relief model of regional cross cooperation was gradually formed.

Background of Flood Disaster in Zhejiang
As there were many mountains and lakes and rivers in Zhejiang Province, mountains, and hills account for 74.63%, rivers and lakes account for 5.05%, and flat land only accounts for 20.32%. However, the local government neglected the construction of water conservancy facilities, and the arrival of rainy season was easy to form the siltation of rivers and lakes, which would flow thousands of miles with mountain torrents and eventually led to flood; In addition, the warlord scuffle in the early Republic of China, the finance was mostly used for military expenses, and many drainage facilities were in disrepair for a long time. Due to this dual reason, modern Zhejiang suffered from floods. From the perspective of the report of <Shenpao> alone, there were four major floods reported in the newspaper during 1920-1930. Among them, the Zhejiang flood in 1922 (also known as the Renxu flood) was also the most representative in the floods over the years because it was prominent in the affected area, time, disaster relief methods and other aspects.
were all disasters." Unfortunately, this was only the impact of heavy rain on Zhejiang. August was also a time for frequent typhoons. From August 5th, the weather in Zhejiang began to be obscured by stratus clouds, and it was more serious at night. Then since August 8, there have been news reports of typhoons for seven consecutive days. In this flood that spread throughout Zhejiang, Shaoxing and its subordinate Zhuji suffered the most.
Since it is surrounded by mountains and the Puyang River passes through the city, the location of Zhuji is approximately equal to the basin in the mountains. Therefore, once a flood occurs, the consequences will be extremely serious. According to local newspaper records in Zhejiang, on August 6, strong winds and floods followed, and the south and east of the city were the first to be hit by floods, and houses along the river were quickly washed away. Because it was night, the people did not respond, and many people died in their sleep, the body floated in the river. After the flood, livestock ran wild. Then on August 12, the strong wind came up again, and the heavy rain continued day and night. As the floods passed, the victims returned from hunger and tried to rest on the trees. At this time, the living and production capacity inside and outside the city was no longer available. On September 2, the disaster struck again. Outside the east gate and south gate of Shaoxing, roads and houses were washed away. Looking at the city, the water in the city is higher than the city wall, and the roofs of the houses cannot be seen; the disaster situation is more serious than before.
At this time, the actual leader of the Zhejiang region was Lu Yongxiang, a warlord of the Anhui faction. If such a disaster happened, the government would naturally pay attention. According to Lu Yongxiang's letter to the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce, By the end of September, the disaster had affected 50 counties in Zhejiang, and most of the province's grains had not been harvested. There were tens of thousands of people who died after flood, and people in urgent need of rescue. as many as tens of thousands. This was just an official investigation report. The same disaster report was also sent to non-governmental organizations in Zhejiang, such as the Shaoxing Townsmen Association. A total of 245 villages in the entire region were affected, 31,580 mu of rice fields were destroyed, and 20,079 houses collapsed. 19,765 dams were washed away, 51 bridges were damaged, and 8,390 feet of roads were damaged, with a loss of about 23 million yuan. In the disaster report for only September, there are already twenty pieces of information.
In short, from the perspective of the scope and population affected by the flood, it could be described as a rare disaster in Zhejiang Province since the Republic of China. Under the dual influence of survival crisis and social governance crisis, Zhejiang urgently need the help of rescue forces.

Relief Organization Model of Flood Disaster in Zhejiang
After the flood, relief for the people has become a top priority. However, because the affected area covers almost the whole of Zhejiang, and the finances were often faced with various problems. Therefore, even after the floods, the government had taken actions such as financial allocation, the results had always been unsatisfactory. The American sociologist Salamon once put forward the third-party theory, that was, the government is the first sector, the enterprise is the second sector, and the non-profit organization is the third sector. In the theory of government failure and contract failure (market failure), nonprofits are often seen as an auxiliary derivative after government and market failures. Therefore, Zhejiang provincial government could only choose the civil society.

Relief of Zhejiang Flood Relief Association
The idea of a relief meeting was not groundless. In 1920, the government of the Republic of China promulgated a charter that stipulated that the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, the Ministry of Communications, and four departments would form a relief office to discuss disaster prevention methods and eliminate disasters in various provinces. Half a year later, the government of the Republic of China added in the provisional regulations that the Relief Office would comprehensively handle the relief and aftermath matters in the disaster-stricken areas. All disaster-stricken areas and relief matters are reported to the Government Offices by local governments. It was not difficult to see that, from these documents that the Relief Society is not only an executive agency, but also a management agency. After careful consideration, the organizations that were selected as the core positions of the relief fundraising organization were the Townsmen Association of people from Zhejiang in Shanghai and the China International Famine Relief Commission.
For the Townsmen Association, the first thing to do was to announce to the society. As a result, the Association of Hometowns published an announcement on September 3, 1922. The Association received a telegram on the disaster situation in the mainland. At present, it had established a flood relief organization in Shaoxing. In addition to distributing donation books to pray for relief, it was scheduled to borrow the Tianhougong at 2:00 p.m. on September 3. The Townsmen Association will hold a fundraising meeting first. The two details mentioned in this report, one was the "distribution manual", and the other was the "relief-raising conference".
The first was the donation book. During the process of publicity, the Association could inform the public of the severity of the disaster and the urgent need for relief materials; at the same time, the activities of charitable organizations involved the sensitive issue of money would inform the society. The government's public announcement was the best way to maintain credibility. The other was the "raise-raising conference". If it was to be carried out, a wide range of participants must respond the distribution of the donation book was also to pave the way for the following activities. Although during the Republic of China, there were often cases of fraudulent donations, but in the face of organizations such as the Hometown Association, ordinary people and celebrities naturally believed in donations. The public welfare rather than profit, and the government's supervision of these large organizations was more convenient and labor-saving, and it was willing to make them responsible, this is only at the macro level. At the micro level, Zhejiang people were all over Shanghai's business, financial and other circles, although During the period of the Republic of China, the means of communication and mass media were not developed in modern times, but with the social network built by these people, the seriousness of the flood disaster in their hometown could be conveyed in just a few words, and the effect achieved by the publicity of the local association was naturally higher than that of a single This could easily attract more influential people to participate.
Unlike the Townsmen Association, it was not until December 16 that the Huayang Charity Relief Association formally established a cooperative relationship with the Flood Disaster Relief Committee and signed a charter. The activity "Winter Relief" was related. Because with the arrival of winter, the weather becomes cold, and the situation had changed a lot compared to the floods that occurred in summer and autumn. It was necessary for fundraising to adjust the disaster relief strategy according to the current situation; the China International Famine Relief Commission had always had a tradition of winter relief since its inception. At this time, the Fundraising Council cooperated with it. First, the China International Famine Relief Commission had experience in winter relief and disaster relief, and its operating system was more mature. Combined with the winter relief, it could not only expand the scale of the winter relief, but also use the winter relief to publicize the flood disaster in Zhejiang, and to a certain extent, it could save the costs.
Compared with the peripheral organizations, the core participants need to consider more practical, how to ensure the smooth and effective operation of the relief fund in the disaster area, how to build the organizational structure, what kind of activity relief model to adopt, the speed and scale of capital flow, etc. Within the scope of consideration, the above-mentioned aspects should naturally be reflected in the structure of the core departments of the relief committee. For these problems, the solution was to establish coordination and cooperation among multiple departments, such as the establishment of the General Affairs Office and the Accounting Office in the Standing Department of the Committee; because of the particularity of disaster relief, it also had the needs of grass-roots activities, so additional affairs departments were set up, to ensure that the grassroots investigation and disaster relief could be carried out in an orderly manner, and its specific structure was roughly as follows:

County branch offices
After the organizational structure was determined, the rest was a matter of details. The "Articles of Association" also clarified the ways and details of the cooperation between China International Famine Relief Commission and the government during the relief fundraising. From the general rules, the work that China International Famine Relief Commission need to undertake includes the following points. The first was the regional setting.
The charter clearly stipulates that it should be set up in each county, The second was the composition of the volunteers in each county. The charter stipulates "two presidents; two officers; two accountants". Finally, regarding the relationship between superiors and subordinates, it was stipulated that the chairman and accountants were jointly elected by the members of the association. The accountants should follow the local rules and keep various accounts, and the use of funds should be supervised. All payments must be signed by two accountants at the same time. The books of accounts must be keep open for auditing purposes. It could be seen from this that although the government initiated the establishment of the fundraising organization, all the members of the China International Famine Relief Commission, from the president to the accountant, are easily out of the control of the government. But because of the constraints on jurisdiction and financial rights. The independence of the China International Famine Relief Commission may be affected, but it also ensured that the policy and guidelines of the China International Famine Relief Commission could be carried out.

Relief Actions of Non-governmental Organizations in Shanghai
Compared with the previous two, a large number of small and medium-sized civil organizations were also actively contributing, but these groups did not have a clear relationship between superiors and subordinates, coupled with the lack of unified leadership, the driving force has also changed from government forces to social forces. In addition to the common donations, many organizations chose the charity show as a supplement. The charity show itself was a product of modern times. From the initial number of rare and unremarkable, to this time it can occupy a seat in the disaster relief information of the <ShenPao>, <Ta Kung Pao> and other media, which showed that the people across the country had a high degree of acceptance of it. The city of Shanghai was quite special, and the charity performance in this city has some special features: The first was regional characteristics. Charity performances were also a large category. In order to attract the public to buy tickets to watch, the first choice was familiar drama. For example, in Suzhou, the choice was mostly Kunqu Opera Suzhou Pingtan. Shanghai had a unique Shanghai-style culture in China. Therefore, when choosing a cultural carrier, more consideration should be given to the influence of Western culture on the city. The entertainment fair was the most representative form of benefit performance. Entertainment fair began to appear in the late Qing Dynasty, and under the influence of foreign cultures, they were first produced in Shanghai and gradually developed in China as a form of entertainment assembly. Compared with more professional charity performances, entertainment fairs had the characteristics of small expenditure and rapid organization. As an amusement fair with the same concept of imported products, Shanghai had a higher acceptance than other cities. Because compared with a single drama, the entertainment will contain more kinds and attract more audiences. For example, in January 1923, the entertainment fair was held for the Zhejiang disaster. In addition to the traditional plays "Catch and Release Cao", there were also some "English dramas", "dancing parties" and "magic performances" that only appeared in the Republic of China. "In the past, most of the Peking Opera could only be attended by professional troupes or famous actors in the world of actors. However, the entertainment club provided many programs that non-professional performers can participate in. For the public, it can not only provide financial sponsorship, but also could take the stage if they have no financial ability. Using talent to raise funds for them, this two-way feedback was far higher than the single traditional drama benefit performance, so the evaluation of these entertainment conferences is full of traffic and lively.
The second was the breadth of the participating groups. The participants of this round of Zhejiang disaster charity performance involved all walks of life in Shanghai, and their functions in the preparation of this charity performance were also different. The representative ones are the entertainment industry and the business world. Here Xu Shaoqing was an example. Xu Shaoqing was a well-known agent in Shanghai. He constantly uses the <Shenpao> to distribute announcements. The agent of Dangui Stage was so concerned, and the artist would naturally not ignore it. The other was the business world, most of which were involved in the sponsorship of charity performances. Since the business group had huge capital and goods circulating in the market, for the organizer, the participation of the business group would undoubtedly reduce the cost of the amusement fair. For the Chamber of Commerce, it was a question of how to choose. There were two main methods. One was cash donations to charities after the entertainment fair, and the other was to sponsor the entertainment fair in terms of cost. Most business groups chose the latter. Considering this, the reason for speculation is that in terms of publicity, compared with the end of the charit performance, the marginal benefit was at a stage of diminishing. Most of the news was concentrated in one article, and it was difficult for anyone to pay attention to the contribution of the Chamber of Commerce; however, during the rising period of activity, the organizer was also suffering from financial problems. Naturally, assistance was given during this period, and the effect received was naturally higher than that in the later period. At the same time, for the chamber of commerce, sometimes the provision must be financial sponsorship, but the consumables in the entertainment club, such as tea, catering prizes, etc. Although these still need to consume funds to buy, but for the chamber of commerce, they themselves are selling these goods, compared to Directly providing cash assistance, providing material assistance could save the cost of the chamber of commerce, and at the same time, it could also promote the sales of its own products and boost the reputation of the products.

Effectiveness of Flood Relief in Zhejiang
Compared with traditional government relief, the emerging folk relief had a short formation time and an http://ajsss.julypress.com Asian Journal of Social Science Studies Vol. 7, No. 5; 2022 immature operation model. Coupled with the limitation of productivity in this era, various problems were naturally exposed in the relief process. But it should not be denied that the active forces of the people had made the relief model of the floods innovative and exemplary, and have made breakthroughs in disaster relief effects.

The Relief Effect of the Relief Fund
The first was the fundraising aspect. Since the core personnel of the relief fundraising organization are from China International Famine Relief Commission, the disaster relief ideas generally follow the pattern of China International Famine Relief Commission. But donation was not enough. Since the famine had severely hit local industries, even if assistance was provided during the disaster, once the relief was over, the refugees' lives were likely to return to poverty. Aiming at this reality, the measures taken by China International Famine Relief Commission mainly combine prevention and control.
In order to ensure basic survival, some folk customs must be banned. The local diet was on the sweet side, and the extraction of sugar was a big consumption of food. The area affected by this flood was too large, and the relief would naturally not end as soon as usual. The Flood Relief Committee was well aware of the situation of the "protracted war". Naturally, the consumption of these non-necessities of life should be prohibited. In addition to materials for winter, there was also medicine relief. After the flood, the humid environment was easy to breed bacteria. As long as there are corresponding drug relief and hospital facilities, and the corpses are buried in time, the outbreak of large-scale infectious diseases could be stopped. Therefore, after discussing with the relief organization and the country gentry, the government put forward proposals such as cleaning up blocked pipes in the city, cleaning city streets, establishing temporary hospitals, and burying corpses. It was precisely because of such planning and execution ability that only a small-scale plague occurred in some areas of Ningbo, and the Zhejiang area had gone through the most difficult time.
In addition to the traditional relief mentioned above, the "work relief" proposed by China International Famine Relief Commission was quite creative. Work-relief referred to calling refugees to participate in reconstruction work. The most intuitive manifestation was the reconstruction of local public facilities and the restoration of agricultural production. Due to the wide coverage of work-relief, here were two examples to illustrate. One was seeding. Since the flood relief process continued until January 1923, spring planting was crucial for farmers. It was necessary to make up for the losses caused by last year's floods and to prepare for the next year's livelihood. Because of this, according to the population situation of each county, the Flood Relief Committee will distribute seeds at fixed points and quantitatively, so as to help farmers complete the spring sowing process. The following was an example of some distribution shares in Jinhua County. Judging from the table, the types of grains donated were barley and wheat. Although the Flood Relief Committee had the idea that people could support themselves, because the water network was dense and the land was broken, it was still unknown whether planting barley and wheat here could achieve the expected results, which also showed that China International Famine Relief Commission had been ill-considered. However, compared with the traditional Association of the Christian faithful model, most of the relief methods only chose to distribute money instead of providing means of making a living. This not only gave farmers hope for survival, but also helped the government to rebuild the order of production and life in rural areas.
In addition to agricultural production, the other side was the construction of public works. Taking Jinhua and Quzhou as examples, the local governments cooperated with the China International Famine Relief Commission at all levels to collect funds, and finally raised 15,000 yuan to promote the construction of flood control facilities.
The second was about the restoration of the road. Here was the road restoration project from Jinhua to Lanxi as an example. China International Famine Relief Commission and the Flood Relief Committee had have communicated for a long time. It was proposed to organize labor relief, so that each village would be organized to build roads in poverty and paid wages, so that traffic could be restored and victims cpuld be relieved. The most intuitive change is to solve the resettlement of the people. After the flood, farmland was destroyed, factories were shut down, and a large number of people were idle. This could be said to be a ticking time bomb in social stability. Over time, the above-mentioned problem of banditry will appear. Therefore, while giving work to the victims, it also reduces their psychological burden. The most important thing was the change of psychological orientation. From ancient times to the present, disaster victims had often appeared in the bad image of being insatiable and greedy, but through the method of labor relief, the identity of the victims had become a rebuilder and participant of their hometown after the disaster, and their mentality had also evolved from the charity of others to a group of workers and farmers who support themselves. From a small perspective, this was a manifestation of protecting the dignity of the victims, but in a large scale, it builds the identity of ordinary people at the bottom of the"Zhejiang people" group.

Disaster Relief Effectiveness of Civil Organizations
Although the Flood Relief Committee undertakes a large number of core tasks, as a relief system, peripheral non-governmental organizations were also essential. Many disaster relief matters could be effectively promoted by the fundraising committee, which was closely related to the effective publicity of a large number of small and medium-sized non-governmental organizations in the non-governmental organizations. Therefore, the evaluation of such non-governmental organizations should not be based solely on economic aspects, but more attention should be paid to their social influence. This was mainly from the regular fundraising and charity performances.
The publicity and distribution of regular fundraising were mainly various kinds of newspaper announcements. From September to December, according to the incomplete statistics in the <Shenpao>, there were more than 20 large donations in the name of individuals. During the period of the Republic of China, many people were keen on charitable causes, such as the donation of 10,000 yuan by Mr. Sun Muhan of the Flood Relief Committee, and 5,000 yuan by Chen Zongxu and Xia Hu Sunjun. For the recipients of the fundraising, it was necessary to report these large donations in person to thank them in person, so as to show the importance of their donation behavior and show their charitable and benevolent heart; and the organizer also obtained a large amount of donations, it led a win-win situation. However, according to the normal distribution, the main body of fundraising was still small donations, and the proportion of large donations was actually not high. Since Shanghai residents are scattered in alleys all over the city, if fundraising offices were set up everywhere, it would increase the cost, and there was a greater probability that the donations would be lost. Therefore, the following approach was adopted.
With the reputation of a famous financial institution in the Republic of China as its endorsement, it was entrusted as the payee to collect all donations from the public, and finally reported the amount of donations through the mass media. This method was very common in the early Republic of China, and gradually developed into the prototype of the "fundraising conference" during the Nanjing National Government period. Although sometimes the total amount of fundraising was not as high as individual donations, the original plan was that this type of donation was mainly based on publicity and supplemented by collection. More people need to know the seriousness of the flood and make contributions for subsequent fundraising activities. Good foreshadowing, from this point of view, it also achieved the original goal.
In addition to donations, there were also charity performance mentioned above. From August to September, there had been folk charity performances one after another. Also in October, more and more organizations joined the charity performance. By December and January of the following year, the number and scale had grown and expanded tremendously. The first was the change in quantity. Since December, the number of charity performance reports related to the flood in Zhejiang has skyrocketed, reaching 22 in December alone, and there were still 19 related reports in January of the following year, which showed the public's acceptance of the charity performance. The enthusiasm for participation and participation remained at a high level, and the venues for charity performances also included various venues in Shanghai. Moreover, compared with the previous disaster relief charity performances with a single number, this relief charity performance started from September 1922 to February 1923, with almost no interruption for more than half a year. A charity performance could not meet the needs of the disaster-stricken areas, but it could better reflect the high enthusiasm of the people for participation.The <Shenpao> also published such a charity performance and relief process. The final ticket revenue and expenditure were as follows: Compared with other charity performances, the final donation amount of this charity performance accounted for a very high proportion of income, and it was very successful in all aspects. The author summarized the following two reasons: First, the location selection, this charity performance was held in "Small World", because it avoided popular stages such as "Dangui Stage" and "Big World", the largest venue cost could be greatly reduced, and its location was not remote, which was adjacent to the residential area, the participation of the public here had become a hands-on effort; the second was the employment of artists, although well-known artists came, but compared with the more famous Mei Lanfang, Cheng Yanqiu , etc., these theater groups only It could be counted as a second-tier artist group, so the invitation fee or the performance cost of the troupe would not be a burden. Moreover, this charity performance troupe deeply felt the suffering of the victims and volunteered to perform for them -that was, no performance fee was charged. Its spirit was even more precious. President Li Yuanhong even awarded him.
Still, the benefit performance itself was not a perfect choice. Compared with the relief fundraising, all aspects should be complete. Most of the non-governmental organizations in the periphery chose to donate money. It was natural that the currency had the best liquidity. However, at this time, Zhejiang Province was in the process of production stagnation to recovery. In Modern China, the purchasing power parity of the currency was difficult to be equal to the Shanghai area, and sometimes there was no commodity to buy. The only option could only be purchased locally in Shanghai, and then transported to the disaster area. In addition to the inconvenience of transportation and time-consuming, it was difficult to say the materials at this time. Arriving in disaster areas can also play the same role. Therefore, the role of charity performances was a publicity medium. Charity performances are social activities, which mainly reflect the participation of urban people in charity and public welfare undertakings. Organizers, participants, performers, audiences, etc., construct a social network structure. This also shows that most of the areas affected by the charity performance were in non-disaster-affected areas, and for the core areas affected by the disaster, the influence of the benefit show may be greatly reduced. At the same time, although the income of the charity performance was shown in the above account, there are many hidden costs-that is, the sunk cost cannot be measured in money, the time required to convene, the human and social resources required for the promotion activities, the energy consumed by the venue and the troupe's negotiation, etc. If these are included among them, the book may not be as good-looking as the previous statistics. But it should not be denied that the education and propaganda functions of the charity performance itself are irreplaceable, and its role is more "moisturizing and silent". Therefore, since the flood, more and more disaster relief was no longer limited to a single area, and remote relief and cross-regional relief had become the normal.

Epilogue
In general, the government during the Republic of China was relatively weak, and various civil organizations were active in all walks of life. As an emerging force, civil society had formed a new relief model in the process of relief, that was, with 1-2 organized civil groups as the core of the rescue, a large number of small and medium-sized organizations form peripheral forces, together they form a relief system. This system maximizes the mobilization of civil forces in the disaster-stricken areas and adjacent areas, extensively collects all social resources that can alleviate the social disaster and ensures that the area can still develop sustainably after the disaster is over. This significance is not limited to modern China. Today, the state advocates "streamlining administration and delegating powers". Today's civil organizations need to undertake more obligations to meet the new governance system. Participating in the rescue of major national disasters is also an indispensable link. This also reflects the ability of the state and the people to prevent and defuse major crises. The actions of the non-governmental charitable relief groups active in the Renxu flood can bring us a lot of inspiration.