十九世纪前半叶是苏南地方社会面临的一个特殊时期，一方面这里遭受频发的自然灾害的严重困扰，另一方面当地由于赋税制度的弊端而引发各种社会矛盾。在这种情况下，之前由官方主导的荒政制度衰落了，地方政府与民间都在寻求新的灾荒救济措施以应对这一特殊时代。因此，荒政在道光朝出现了新的变化。一方面，是商人、高层绅士大量兴建义庄，并更多地介入灾荒时期赈厂的经营，另一方面，是官方建立了新的仓储制度，即丰备义仓。出于规避超额税负的目的，一批普通绅士将土地捐入丰备义仓，这形成了义仓的经济基础。因此，丰备义仓是得到普通绅士支持并由布政使监管的新型仓储制度。丰备义仓制度的出现，是地方政府自我制度革新的努力，也体现了财政危机背景下，地方政府与绅士之间的竞争与相互利用。

Southern Jiangsu faced serious natural calamities in the first half of the nineteenth century; meanwhile，there werealso abuses in the land tax system that contributed to social conflict．Thus，both administrators and local societyimplemented some new measures to relieve people from natural calamities and replace the former social securitysystem．On the side of local society，gentry and merchants constructed many lineage-organized facilities for disasterrelief that dominated the rural relief system．On the other hand，government officials constructed charitable granaries creating a new type of social security granary system．These new granaries were based on the contribution of land andfunds from local gentry who suffered under the existing land tax system but found opportunities to reduce tax liabilities under the new system．The establishment of charitable granaries reflected the complicated relationship among government and different local interest groups in mid nineteenth-century Suzhou．