The Qing Dynasty Reclamation Policy and Ecological Environment Outside the Great Wall in North Shaanxi

Based on the valuable historical documents, this paper approaches the ecological environment change which was caused by the Adjustment of the Cultivation Policy in Huo Pan Di outside the Great Wall in the North of Shaanxi during the Qing Dynasty. The analysis results are as follows: The cultivation policy, which was formulated by the central government and locality to deal with the relationship between the Han ethnic groups and herdsmen, had an apparent divergence in Qing Dynasty’s different times. Four stages of the land reclamation were identified, i.e., a stage of desolation in the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, a stage of recultivation from Kangxi Emperor to Qianlong Emperor, a stage of expanding reclamation from Qianlong Emperor to Guangxu Emperor, and still another stage of desolation from Guangxu Emperor to the end of Xuantong Emperor. To analyze the intrinsic nature of the different stage’s cultivation policies, the adjustment of the cultivation policy is not apparent in the early time of Qing Dynasty. But from the Kangxi Dynasty, the government unceasingly carried on the adjustment in this local reclamation policy, under this background, the Han Nationality immigrants unceasingly jumped over reclamations, people ploughed the area unceasingly to expand, the animal husbandry landscape is gradually substituted by the agricultural landscape.