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R. G. GROVES
Kinship ties played a large part in the organization of the resistance. In the Yuen Long area, leadership and probably manpower were overwhelmingly supplied by the three Tang lineages of Ping Shan, Ha Tsuen, and Kam Tin. In the Shek Wu Hui district, it was a matter of cooperation between a number of lineages of roughly equal status. At Tai Po, the Man lineage of Tai Hang provided leadership, within the Ts'at Yeuk, for a large number of smaller lineages. Ties of clanship enabled the Tangs of Yuen Long to enlist the help of the Tangs of Pan T'in. They, in turn, received support from agnates living in Tung-kuan City.
The Tang higher-order lineage of the New Territory did not act as a unified lineage during the resistance movement. The leaders of Ping Shan, Ha Tsuen, and Kam Tin were concerned, first and foremost, to consolidate plans for resistance within the Yuen Long area. Leaders of the Tang lineages of Lung Yeuk Tau and Tai Po Tau only subsequently became formally involved with preparations for resistance, along with other leaders from their respective marketing areas. The leaders of the three Yuen Long lineages carefully coordinated their plans. There is no evidence that representatives of Lung Yeuk Tau and Tai Po Tau were similarly consulted. Moreover, the Lung Yeuk Tau settlement, along with others in the Shek Wu Hui area, was threatened with attack by the Tangs of Yuen Long.
There is insufficient evidence to materially advance the discussion concerning the relationship between hsiang and marketing areas. However, the data strongly suggest that, for the purposes of resistance, the highest order of effective inter-lineage cooperation among the Tangs of the New Territory was achieved within the Yuen Long marketing community. There is also the possibility that long- or short-standing disputes between the various local lineages of the Tang higher-order lineage inhibited their cooperation across the boundaries of marketing areas during the resistance movement. But this would not necessarily weaken the argument that the standard marketing community was the optimum unit for inter-lineage cooperation.
Wakeman, in his discussion of militia, has stressed the importance of gentry leadership. The documents concerning the resistance name 63 people as active in the movement, in that they: (i) took part in the meetings which organized it; and/or, (ii) acted