118
JAMES HAYES
to play havoc in it. The Japanese wo-jen had been particularly active. In 1571 the small walled town of Tai Pang on Mirs Bay in the northeast of the district had sustained a siege of over forty days by Japanese pirates equipped with scaling ladders.1
The district gazetteer gives an account of the troubled times at the end of the Ming period, which brought much misery and suffering to the people of the district, since famine accompanied the disturbances.2 These disorders lasted for a considerable time. It is reported that Tai Pang was held for nine years against all comers by a band of soldiers.3 The clan record of the Tsui family of Shek Pik contains a vivid account of the disasters of the time, as it affected their relatives and friends in their old home near Tung-kuan city which was the centre of an unsuccessful revolt against the new dynasty. These disturbances extended to the present New Territories. A former officer of the Ming, Li Man-wing, held this area on his own account between 1647 and his surrender to the new dynasty in 1656, and the walls and moats of the principal villages of the Tang clan in the New Territories are said to date from this time. The land presented a pitiable sight in these years: there was much burning and pillaging and many of the inhabitants fled. During this time, it was said, "The ground was covered with bones, in the day time nothing could be heard but the hum of flies, and at night the voice of weeping."
The evacuation of the coast in the early years of the K'ang Hsi reign between 1662-1669 followed soon after these prolonged miseries and had a profound effect on the lives of the population and on the pattern of future settlement.
Under instructions from Peking, the provincial authorities required the evacuation of the coastal areas of Kwangtung. The provinces of Shantung, Chekiang, Kiangsu and Fukien were also affected to varying degrees.7 This measure was in accordance with a five-point plan to deal with the pro-Ming ruler of Formosa, Cheng Ch'eng-kung, suggested by one of his former lieutenants
1 IHNHC 13/7.
2 HNHC 13/8-9.
3 HNHC 13/9-10.
4 JHKBRAS, 7 (1967), p. 154.
5 Sung Hok-p'ang in HKN, VIII, No. 2:107-108.
6 ibid, presumably a quotation from the Tang clan's genealogical record. The YCKC has a lengthy entry on the disorders of this troubled time, chuan 4/46-60.
7 Hsieh Kuo Ching, pp. 585-593.