CO129-507-3 China- anti-piracy precautions 31-10-1927 - 25-10-1928 — Page 134

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brought success. After Robin had fired over 100 rounds of 6 pdr. the Chinese troops, advancing with unwonted dash, capturing the fort, set fire to the village behind it and drove the surviving pirates on to the Eastern hill. Here indeed the attack was held up for some length of time, but the valuable moral support of a landing party from Robin eventually induced the troops to advance once more to the attack, and after a period of further bombardment the pirates were finally driven from their last line of defence. Over 60 prisoners were captured and the number killed must have been considerable, it being estimated that of the whole band only about 40 escaped; these scattered to the surrounding villages under cover of the high mulberry trees. Robin fired 144 rounds of 6 pdr. in all.

This operation was undoubtedly a severe blow to the pirates in the delta, and it was therefore particularly unfortunate that it should have been followed by a period in which they were completely immune from attack owing to the political events in Canton.

Operations of Gunboats and Armed Launches, 1924 and 1925.— Reference has already been made to several cases in which gun- boats gave moral and material support to the somewhat timid Chinese soldiery in their anti-bandit operations. This was, of course, only one part of the gunboats' work. One large gunboat was normally tied to Canton for political reasons and for liaison with the British Consul-General, but the remainder were almost continuously on the move in the delta, and their visits to Hong Kong for rest and repairs were rare. In the early part of 1924 piracies or minor bandit outrages in some part of the delta were of almost daily occurrence. That there were not many successful encounters with pirates must be set down to the nature of the river and the various difficulties which have been already mentioned. In any case, the value of the work done cannot be judged by the number of actual engagements with pirates; the continuous movement of our gunboats made the pirates' exploits much more hazardous, and the true measure of our success is to be found in the gradual decrease in piracy as the year wore on.

In August and September, 1924, several pirate vessels were either captured or sunk by gunboats, and towards the end of the year it was evident that navigation on the river was becoming less dangerous. November was a particularly poor month for the pirates, at least on the water, but this may have been due in some degree to the fact that the rice harvest was in full swing, for then a fair revenue could be obtained by "taxing" the farmers at the source,

that is on the rice fields themselves. It was the custom of the pirates to use captured steam launches to visit the different districts, travelling by night and leaving the launches up some small creek out of sight of the main channels during the day,when they conducted their business with the farmers who dared not make complaint to the "authorities." Five of these launches were

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eliminated during the month, two being captured by our own armed launches and three being abandoned and sunk when the hunt by our gunboats was getting too warm.

In June, 1925, the armed launch Wing Lee surprised a party of pirates in the act of burning a small village below Plover Island and inflicted severe punishment on them with her machine guns. The discomfiture of the miscreants was later completed by Dom Joao, who got to work with her 3 pdr. on the main body who had sought shelter in a neighbouring wood. The subsequent arrival of the two launches at Kongmun with some of the wounded villagers on board was the occasion of an enthusiastic demonstration by the local Chinese, to whom the partial destruction of the pirate gang came as a considerable relief.

Conditions naturally varied from month to month. The height of the river, the seasonal harvests, the politics of Canton, the occasional disbanding of small military bodies, with the result that the unemployed soldiery augmented the ranks of the brigand forces, all these had their effect on the situation. But as the summer of 1925 approached, it became clear that our efforts were bearing fruit. Piracy was definitely a more difficult and dangerous game. If only the continued co-operation of the Chinese could be ensured, success was in sight.

Conditions during Anti-British Boycott. Then on 23rd June, 1925, came the attack on the concession at Shameen, and the anti- British boycott began. From this date until the autumn of 1926 there was little or no British traffic in the delta, the gunboats were concentrated at Canton and the armed launches were employed on the protection of British communities in the Treaty Ports, Woochow, Kongmun, etc. Things on the river went from bad to worse, and with utter lawlessness prevailing in many parts of the delta, trade, Chinese as well as British, came to a standstill. The valuable work which the British gunboats had done was then amply demonstrated.

During this period three of the armed launches became unservice- able and were returned to their owners. The Dom Joao was retained and renamed Nessus and two other launches, Faulkner and Onslaught, whose characteristics were similar to those of Dom Joao, were chartered by the Admiralty for the protection of British life and property at ports on the river. All three launches ceased to be a charge on the Hong Kong Government whose interest in the river lapsed when trade had to be abandoned.

Resumption of British Trade in the Delta. When conditions quietened down sufficiently to allow the resumption of British trade, there were new problems to be faced. In the first place the Canton authorities showed no inclination to co-operate with us as they had done in the pre-boycott period. Secondly, the lawless state of the country districts made British shipping unwilling to move at all on the river, except on the more open Hong Kong-Canton route.

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