In the Ming, it may have been the Wongs of Fuk Tin who dominated the area, with their market at Lung Tsun Hui. It was at Chek Mei (赤尾, Chimei) within this village cluster that the sub-Magistracy for the area was established in 1370. By the nineteenth century, however, the dominant position in the district had been secured by the Cheungs. Sham Chun was essentially their market, built on their land, in that part of the district most closely controlled by them. The market stood, as a result, at an economically less than ideal site. It was built away from the Sham Chun River and the landing place, about half a mile down the Ching Shui River, at a point navigable even by the smallest skiffs only at the highest tides. Goods exported from the market had to be carried by coolies the half mile to the landing place at the junction of the rivers before being loaded onto the boats. Politically, however, the site was ideal for the Cheungs. The landing place, however, was within the area of dominance of the Yuens. The landing place was built on their land, in the centre of their village area.
District politics throughout most of the nineteenth century centred on attempts by the Cheungs to bring the landing place within their area of control, and by the Yuens to preserve their independence. The other clans of the district tended to be brought into the conflict as allies of one side or the other. The document translated below suggests that conflicts over control of the landing place broke out in 1836, 1856, and 1875.
Control of the landing place brought with it, effectively, the right to collect the tolls charged for the movement of people and goods there. There were two theories on the collection of toll. The one was that toll was the right of the people who owned the land behind the landing site: they had had to give up land to build a road to service the landing stage, and the toll was the compensatory payment for the loss of income from the land thus rendered useless for agriculture. The other was that the landing place was outside the area privately owned: it lay on the riverbank muds, and was "Government Waste". Toll was the right of the Government to levy or grant away, and the adjacent owners of agricultural land had no rights over it. Travellers had the right to pass freely along the field-bunds as elsewhere. The Yuens, as the owners of the adjacent land, naturally tended to consider the first view was the correct one: the District Magistrate, and usually the Cheungs, tended to believe the second.