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TS'IN, FUK (津復)*
(being an account of how part of the coast of South China was cleared of inhabitants from the 1st year of Hong Hei (康熙) 1662 to the 8th year of Hong Hei 1669.)
Sung Hok-P'ANG (宋學鵬)
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The word "Ts'in" (遷) is a short form of "Ts'in Hoi" (遷海) a historic term which means "to shift inland people living by the coast". "Fuk" or Fuk Ts'uen (復遷) means "allow the people to return to their own villages", and the two words together is the term applied to that incident in Chinese history when part of the coast of South China, including the New Territories, was completely cleared of inhabitants by order of the Emperor. Although an incident of not much importance in Chinese history as a whole, yet the Ts'in Fuk caused much suffering and loss of life to many people. In the book Kwong Tung San Yue (廣東新語)* by Wat Taai Kwan (屈大均) a great scholar of early Ts'ing (清) dynasty, there is a passage referring to Ts'in Fuk which says **自有粵東以來 生靈之禍,莫慘於此** "since the establishment of the province of Kwangtung none of the calamities of human beings can be worse than this".
The cause of Ts'in Fuk was Cheng Shing Kung (鄭成功) a Ming (明) general and native of Naam On (南安) district in Fukien province who since the rise of the Manchu Emperors continually attacked the coast of South China with his powerful navy. Using Formosa as his base he harassed the Ts'ing army from Kiangsu to Kwangtung and found the inhabitants of the country on the coast very sympathetic towards the Ming cause, and ready to help him. Cheng Shing Kung's father, Cheng Chi Lung (鄭芝龍) was responsible for the first Chinese settlers in Formosa and had been made P'ing Kwok Kung (平國公), a title conferred on him by the Ming Emperor Lung Mo (隆武). When Lung Mo was killed at Foochow by the Ts'ing army in the 3rd year of Shun Chi (順治) 1646, Cheng Shing Kung put his navy at the disposal of Emperor Wing Lik (永曆), his successor. Fifteen years later Cheng took Formosa,
* The Hong Kong Naturalist November 1938.