Court’s Acquisition of Wood in Ming and Qing Dynasties in View of Ecological Civilization

Rulers of Ming and Qing dynasties invested a large amount of timbers on charcoal, ship building, palaces, and making furniture. The timbers mainly came from Sichuan Province, Hu-Guang district (about in some areas of Hunan Province, Hubei Province, Guangxi Province, Guangdong Province and Guizhou Province nowadays), Zhejiang Province etc. All these timbers were transported by land and water to Beijing after logging, and stored in woodwork mill. In this process, a large amount of timbers were wasted without appropriate management. This paper analyzes the characteristics of transportation and storage of the timbers at that time, and draws the conclusion that the court’s acquisition of woods was beyond the carrying capacity of ecological environment, and had bad impact on virtuous circle of human being, society, and environment.