Abstract: Through an examination of the interrelations between special circumstances of disaster assistance and the local custom of providing relief this article outlines the establishment and spread of the fenchang system of relief ( 分厂制度) in Jiading and Baoshan from the Qing to the early Republican period This examination provides the basis for an inquiry into the relationship between late Qing early Republican local self-government, the changing function of relief directors , and the forms of rural administration.During the early Qing, the market town was the administrative locus of relief activities, afterward these units gradually became formal administrative divisions By the late Qing and early Republic, even though the boundaries of the fenchang were not always clear, the self-governing units of the region were defined according to the area of the existing fenchang.