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coterminous with the standard marketing areas mentioned above, each taking its name from the appropriate market town. The fourth tung, Sheung U, was larger. It included much of the eastern section of the territory, from San Tin and Sheung Shui in the north to Sai Kung in the southeast. Within it were the markets of Shek Wu Hui, Tai Po, and Sai Kung. The extent to which these divisions were the units of organization for the resistance movement will be discussed in the conclusion.
The Occupation of the New Territory in 1899.
The resistance to the occupation of the New Territory is one of the forgotten episodes in the Colony's history. Present-day government publications dismiss it with a line: "the British take-over in April 1899 met with some initial ill-organized armed opposition..."5 Major-General W. J. Gascoigne, who commanded the British forces in Hong Kong at the time, took a different view: "I am confident that if this rising had not been so promptly met from all sides as it was, it would have assumed very formidable proportions, as it is now discovered that it had been most carefully planned beforehand."52 In the paragraphs below an attempt is made to reconstruct the development of the resistance movement, the sequences of events being divided, for purposes of exposition, into three phases: Prelude to Resistance; the Resistance Movement; and the Occupation of Sham Chun and its Aftermath.
Prelude to Resistance — August 1898 to 27th March, 1899,53
Although the Convention of Peking was concluded in June 1898, the take-over of the New Territory did not occur until April of the following year. In the interval there were various portents of impending British rule which can have done little to reassure the inhabitants of the territory. In August of 1898 Stewart Lockhart toured the territory and made enquiries about many aspects of social life. At about the same time agents of a Hong Kong land syndicate began to operate in the area. Their object was to acquire land which might appreciate in value as a result of either government purchase, or, the expansion of commercial activities. Unscrupulous methods were used to persuade reluctant owners to sell their land. For example, the syndicate's agents were the authors of a rumour that the Hong Kong government intended to expropriate all privately owned land. It was believed that the syndicate