REGIONAL APPROACH TO CHINESE HISTORY
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ditti" abounding in the countryside,' “instances of kidnapping by ex-pirates [which] were so frequent that no man could feel himself safe alone in the streets of Canton after 9 o'clock at night".8
Time and again during these years the local officials issued proclamations condemning such activities and urging the people to revert to peaceful pursuits. In 1828 the district magistrate of Nan-hai hsien urged the people at the New Year's time to remain peaceful and orderly and not to imitate "the vagabonds" and “local blackguards” who cause much trouble. In 1829 the same gentleman complained of the fact that "the people of this province are addicted to gambling, opium, whoredom, and lotteries. And the city of Canton is preeminent in all of these vices." It was, he said, "the shameless banditti that are to blame". In another proclamation of about the same time, he condemned the bandits who extorted money from the peasants. "In the vicinity of Canton, Whampoa, and Macao," he complained, "and in the districts of Shun-teh, Tung-kuan, and Hsin-huy (all within the Hong Kong-Macao-Canton axis), the people who cultivate land on the banks of the rivers are particularly distressed by these practices."11
In 1832 it was reported that in Hsiang-shan hsien bandits were levying taxes on the people in like fashion.12
Village and clan feuding compounded the problem. In 1828 the Kwangchou prefect issued a proclamation in which he condemns the feuding between clans. "The larger clans," he said, "in villages insult smaller ones... They presume on their numerical strength and seize the best land and the most useful streams. They insult both men and women of the smaller clans. And when disputes arise about graves and debts they proceed to barbarous violence."13
And in the same year the Canton authorities, condemning clan feuds, complained of how “..... in pursuance of the feuds of the halls of their ancestors, they (the clans) proceed to collect together a multitude of their own clan's people, and seizing spears, swords, and other weapons, they fight together and kill people".14 In 1829 1,000 men were involved in a village feud in Hsun-teh hsien,15 and in 1834 400 people were reported killed in a similar affair in Tung-kuan hsien.16 In most cases the government was powerless to intervene.
What was behind all this chaos?
Here, of course, we are on tricky ground.