[
    {
        "id": 205065,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1966",
        "page_number": 21,
        "title": "RAS-1966",
        "content_text": "16\n\nJOHN J. NOLDE\n\nFirst of all, it is generally agreed that Imperial authority throughout the empire had begun to weaken during the latter years of the eighteenth century. After the era of the great Ch'ien-lung emperor, China was governed by two rather weak rulers. The sale of offices increased markedly in the latter part of the Chia-ching period and continued throughout that of Tao-kuang. Provincial authorities were being held in more and more contempt by the local populace and the gentry. We have, in short, a typical example of the setting in of a traditional dynastic decline. The mandate of heaven was running out for the Ch'ing Dynasty, and nowhere is this usually more apparent than in the outer reaches of the empire... the areas farthest from the Imperial center of power. Especially was this true in an area such as Kwangchou, with its linguistic, racial, and economic uniqueness. My guess is that Imperial control in Kwangchou had at best always been tenuous. Now it was almost non-existent,\n\n17\n\nSecondly, Kwangchou, during the 1820's and 1830's, suffered a series of severe natural calamities. In 1822 a disastrous fire swept Canton itself, doing incalculable damage. Beginning in the late 1820's catastrophic floods ravaged the area. In 1829 high tides \"to a degree unprecedented in the memory of the oldest inhabitant\", flooded the provincial city and swept away villages. Hundreds were drowned, and the rice crop was largely destroyed. An English-language journal reported that \"the loss of property far exceeds the sum of that sustained at the great fire of 1822\". The most serious of these disasters occurred during the summers of 1833 and 1834. Torrential rains raised the level of the rivers as much as ten feet above normal. Boats were reported navigating the streets of Canton. In July, 1833 10,000 lives were reported lost, 1,000 in the large town of Fushan alone. Most of the rice crop was lost in 1833 and the destruction of the mulberry-plantation-dykes in the southern part of Nan Hai Hsien resulted in the loss of the silk crop. The latter disaster would, of course, have long-range consequences. In September, 1833 the crew of the ship-wrecked vessel Bee, returning overland to Canton, reported \"the greatest possible distress among the inhabitants and a destruction of property such as has not been witnessed for many years\". The flood of 1834 was even worse and the loss of property and damage to the rice crop exceeded that of the previous",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208396,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1978",
        "page_number": 120,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "104\n\nFREDRIKKE S. SCOLLARD\n\nArchaeological excavations to date have failed to uncover any flambe wares in Yangjiang Xian of the above-described type. In 1955, excavations instead indicated that pottery produced in Yangjiang Xian in the Song period (A.D. 960-1279), belonged to the green celadon tradition. Furthermore, even more recent discoveries in the vicinity of Shiwan town in Nanhai Xian at a location called Ji Shi (†), Northern Song (A.D. 960-1127) “dragon kilns” (i.e. sloping tunnel-like kilns) are found built on top of earlier Tang dynasty (A.D. 618-906) \"mantou kilns” (i.e. round bun-shaped kilns). (Figures 1 & 2.) In association with the Northern Song kilns have been discovered shards with an early type of blue flambe glaze. As the date of these shards is much earlier than the Southern migration of the Honan potters in the Southern Song period, the discoveries raise the possibility that this blue flambe glaze was an indigenous development and not stimulated by influx of Northern potters and techniques. Combined with the earlier excavation in Yangjiang Xian, where no flambe glaze of the Song period was found, archaeologists in Guangdong now seriously question the historical connection of Shiwan village in Yangjiang Xian with the present Shiwan village in Nanhai Xian.\n\nIn addition to the above discoveries, archaeological finds reveal a succession of kilns from the Tang site of Ji Shi (*) to the present day village of Shiwan as, over the centuries, the potters moved down the river closer and closer to Fushan municipality (†) which by the Ming and Qing periods (A.D. 1368-1912) had developed into an important commercial and handicraft centre.\n\nAs it developed, Fushan was no elite or scholastic art centre, but rather an unpretentious city of craftsmen with the pervasive idea that beautiful things could be made from waste materials. The town is said at one time to have had a population of over 300,000 which supported over 240 different types of business. The artists were famed for their skill in turning commonplace and useless materials into godlike creations. Clay and papier mache were moulded to look like old pottery, copper and jade; sesame seeds created figurines; silkworm cocoons made decorative flowers and grass. Every year at the time of the autumn festival, a competition was held in Fushan in which people vied to make the best \"autumn colours\" (i.e. paper handicrafts), not for the purpose of gaining fame or making money, but rather simply for the enjoyment of the people.*\n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208399,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1978",
        "page_number": 123,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "SIIIWAN POTTERY EXPLORED\n\n107\n\nthe theme of \"restoring rivers and mountains\" to the point of becoming formula, but no one complained.\n\nMai further describes how the Guangdong opera actors practised the martial arts of the Shaolin branch (*) and finally put this art to use when in 1854 their leader, the actor Li Yunmao (***) also known as Wen Mao () led three armies of actors to join the Taiping effort against the Manchus. These armies were destroyed along with the rest of the Taiping army, and in the aftermath, the Qing court issued an order forbidding the performance of Guangdong opera and had the actors' Qiong Hua (hortensia flower) Association Hall (1446) in Fushan burned to the ground.\n\nA gilt wood carved altar in the Ancestral Temple in Fushan, and a Shiwan frieze depicting the story of the Yang Family Generals, preserve in their carvings the significance of these events and their broader implications for a community not under the domination of a foreign Manchu government, but also besieged with Caucasian foreigners pressing for trade and territorial rights.\n\nThe Qing dynasty gilt wood altar carving has double meaning. The carving depicts the story of Tang dynasty Li Yuanba fighting the dragon colt (*£#£#6). On a second level however, the horse represents the unruly foreigners, and Li Yuanba, having the same surname, represents Li Wenmao. Verifying this are two hidden plaques hung above the scene which can only be seen from a crouching position. One reads \"Great Ming Mountains and Rivers\" (11) and the other \"Qiong Hua Hall\" (44), with the middle character Hua (4) substituted as disguise for the similar sounding Hua (*) of the Hortensia Flower (Qiong Hua) Association. Furthermore, according to Mr. Zhang Tao (**), curator of the Ancestral Temple, the characters on these two wood plaques were originally covered with extra slabs of wood and were only discovered while renovation was being done to the temple between 1971 and 1972. (Plate 14).\n\nIn addition to this gilt wood altar scene, a beautiful ceramic frieze depicting the story of the Yang Family Generals, Song dynasty loyalists, is displayed in the rear courtyard of the Ancestral Temple. In addition to this anti-Manchu theme (the Yang family's loyalty to the native Song dynasty during the period of barbarian Yuan conquest, symbolising the loyalty of the Chinese people to the",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208400,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1978",
        "page_number": 124,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "108\n\nFREDRIKKE S. SCOLLARD\n\nnative Ming dynasty while under barbarian Qing rule, close scrutiny reveals the presence of two men in European dress—a strange phenomena in a Song dynasty setting. According to the curator, this scene refers to an incident involving French aggression in the Fushan area. (Plate 19).\n\nA similar incident involving skirmishes between troops led by British Consul Harry Parkes and residents of Fushan led the Shiwan potters to create pottery urinals and pillows out of the likeness of Harry Parkes. Most of these were destroyed by British order, but in 1942 one was discovered and put on exhibition, attracting much attention.13 (Plate 20).\n\nWhile I was contemplating these earlier evidences of cross-cultural interaction in Shiwan, it seemed of great significance to the town members that I was the first foreigner to be driven around the entire town. This heightened my own sense of exploration. The town itself evidences stark contrast between modern construction and underdevelopment, panoramically revealed from the observation deck on top of the new five-story \"Pottery Capital Restaurant.\" To the northwest are seen a heavy concentration of pre-1949 red brick residential houses, some prominently displaying roofs with \"ears\" which used to indicate the residences of wealthier families. The background is dominated by shorter chimneys of the traditional \"dragon kilns\" (sloping tunnel kilns). To the southeast the contrast is striking, with new concrete residential buildings and factories under scaffolding, and the tall slender chimneys of modern continuous kilns crowding the sky. The people can clearly remember the layer of soot which previously covered the town and made houses difficult to clean, and appreciate the cleanliness of the new kilns. The town has had paved roads since 1958; to the northwest of the town a public park with an artificial lake is being built, and a new \"Pottery Capital Restaurant\" was opened in March of 1978 largely to meet the demands of increased numbers of tourists.\n\nInside the factories the differences in the rate of modernization are just as striking. While the daily utensil factories as a whole operate eight continuous kilns, Daily Utensil Factory No. III operates only four dragon kilns (one dating back to the Ming Dynasty became a protected monument in 1964). The Arts Factory, which hosts all the tourists visiting the town, includes two new and large modern buildings with a partially yellow-tiled roof. The Daily",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208401,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1978",
        "page_number": 125,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "SHIIWAN POTTERY EXPLORED\n\n109\n\nUtensil Factory No. I makes use of many low buildings built just post-1949, as well as a few larger, more modern buildings, while in the grounds of Daily Utensil Factory No. III, the workers' residences consist of pre-1949 buildings in narrow alleyways. The new look of the town inspires optimism, while its old structures invite comparison with the past and are a constant reminder of its developing state.14\n\nJust as the town combines old and new, so the potters in the Fushan Shiwan Arts Pottery Factory combine a new work force with a preserved family tradition.\n\nIn 1952, two members from PLA \"propaganda units\" (i.e. publicity units), Zhuang Jia(4) and Zeng Liang(R), joined the newly established State-owned arts factory, under the tutelage of the two best-known artists in Shiwan at the time, Liu Quan(F*) for figure sculpture, and Ou Qian(§#) for animal sculpture. After 1958 there was a concerted policy of bringing in outsiders to build up the industry. Of the 21 designers in the design studio, seven came to Shiwan between 1961 and 1963 directly from specialized pottery training in technical or art schools. Four out of these seven have married spouses in the pottery business.\n\nAn examination of the designers' family trees, however, revealed the continuation of old family traditions and the beginning of new family traditions. Three old Shiwan families are represented in the design studio; two in the fourth generation (families of Liu Quan(#1), and Liao Hongbiao(A)), and one in the fifth generation (family of Liu Zemien(###), Plate 21). In addition, the sons of both former PLA members Zhuang Jia and Zeng Liang have joined the pottery industry, indicating that these new families are now thoroughly integrated into the industry and beginning new family traditions.\n\nFamily involvement appears to be characteristic of the industry as a whole. Of the 21 artists in the design studio there are three married couples, two brothers and three father and son teams. Seventeen of the 21 designers have family members in other aspects of the pottery industry at Shiwan.\n\nThese artists vigorously carry on the tradition of Shiwan ceramic art, continuing to sculpt historical and folklore figures in addition to personalities of contemporary society, both well-known ones",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208875,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1980",
        "page_number": 37,
        "title": "RAS-1980",
        "content_text": "CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES, ALTARS\n\n9\n\nThese are the wooded valley running down from Lantau Peak through Luk Wu to Tai O, the wooded area around Lo Wai to the north of and above the new town of Tsuen Wan, and the oldest of all, the easterly wooded slopes of the hill known to foreigners as Castle Peak. (Plate 2)\n\nBuddhist temples can also be established by a monk wishing to set up an establishment of his own to earn credit. The usual pattern would be first to open a small temple consisting of a Buddha Hall, a living room and kitchen. As others join him, if of course they do and if the temple retains its popularity, so the establishment will thrive and grow. However, should he die prematurely, his establishment usually dies with him.\n\nBuddhist monasteries, nunneries and temples usually follow a pattern based on the origins of the monk who first founded or organized the establishment. Hence, a monk from Shandong will reflect his provincial background in the organization and iconographical features of the establishment.\n\nBuddhists rarely have simple temples. Whereas traditional folk religion temples consist of a single storey, monasteries tend to have an upper and lower hall. Buddhist and Daoist monasteries and temples may best be described as being a series of \"boxes\" which, unlike a very high proportion of traditional temples, do not need to be symmetrical. They tend to run to complexes with their numerous rooms and halls, separate buildings and shrines, each housing one or more images. In each devotional hall the main sanctuary or altar which holds the image or symbol of the deity (or in the case of the Halls of Long Life and Rebirth, the spirit tablets) serves as the focal point of devotions and rites. Some monasteries and a few temples have a separate hall dedicated to the Ten Judges of the Underworld (with Di Zang Wang on the main altar) or the Eighteen Luohan (the disciples of the Buddha Sakyamuni).\n\nThere are, in addition to the devotional halls, monks' and nuns' quarters, kitchens, visitors' halls, refectories, study rooms, reading and meditation halls. Many small images are to be seen in each, though they are not always Buddhist. The occasional state religion cult hero or folk religion deity may be seen usually donated by a not too discriminating devotee. Abbots rarely refuse an image, particularly if it is accompanied by a donation to the establishment.\n\n*路盧遮那寺 in Lo Wai.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207",
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    },
    {
        "id": 208876,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1980",
        "page_number": 38,
        "title": "RAS-1980",
        "content_text": "10\n\nKEITH G. STEVENS\n\nInside the library large cases of books cover the walls and some books, used more frequently, are individually wrapped in cloth and lie on tables and altars. The larger monasteries have rooms for the aged, and most have halls where ashes of devotees may be deposited.\n\nIn general, a visit to a Buddhist monastery would take you first past the shrine of the folk religion tutelary deity of the neighbourhood, the Earth God (1✯✯). (Illustration 3) Once through the gates and the entrance hall with its six \"guardians” (Mi Luo Fu, Wei Tuo and the Four Heavenly Kings) the layout follows a fairly standard pattern. The main altar will be straight ahead in the Great Hall which houses the main Buddhas. The main altar may be occupied by a single image, a group of three, or an array of a dozen or so. On and along the secondary altars, altars down the side walls and side halls there are images of other lesser deities. These, in twelve monasteries and temples in Hong Kong and Macau, include the well-known groups of eighteen or five hundred Luohan. Frequently, immediately behind the main altar and back to back with the main deity, stands the most popular and honoured of the Bodhisattvas, Guan Yin, with her two assistants.\n\nMahayana Buddhist temples contain a large number of images of Buddhas and major Bodhisattvas, some of which are considered to be more important than the image of Sakyamuni Buddha himself, unlike the Theravada Buddhist temples of Thailand, Vietnam, Burma and Srilanka in which Sakyamuni is the most important.\n\nThere appears to be only one temple in Hong Kong in which Lamaist images are worshipped, although there is one other, above Tsuen Wan, where in a private room, some forty or so Lamaist bronze images are on display.* The temple in which the Lamaist images appear on its altars is a shoddy, fairly modern concrete and corrugated iron construction above a new estate in North Point, where an elderly and now deceased Cantonese gentleman settled after spending some years in Tibet. Most devotees appear to have little idea of the style or origins of imagery, and the rituals and ceremonies performed in the temple by the widow of the founder are identical with those in other temples in Hong Kong.\n\n* Guan Yin temple in Fu Yung Shan,",
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    },
    {
        "id": 214915,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 11,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "CONTENTS\n\nPRESIDENT'S REPORT ............................................................ XIV\n\nFRIENDS OF THE HKBRAS (UK) REPORT .......................... xxvii\n\nHON. AUDITOR'S REPORT ....................................................... xxx\n\nHON. LIBRARIAN'S REPORT ................................................... xlii\n\nARTICLES\n\nSolomon Bard - Tea and Opium ............................................... 1\n\nTeresa Kowalska - Tea, Ivory and Ebony: Tracing Colonial Threads in the Inseparable Life and Literature of Han Suyin ........ 21\n\nBrian C. Fawcett - The Chinese Labour Corps in France, 1917-1921 ............................................................... 33\n\nKeith Stevens and Jennifer Welch - The Celestial Ministry of Time ............................................................... 113\n\nKeith Stevens - Images on Popular Religion Altars of the Heroes Involved in the Suppression of the An Lushan Rebellion (AD 755-763) ........................................................ 155\n\nDan Waters - The Two Obelisks at Tai Tam ....................... 185\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nKeith Stevens - Patron Deity of Prostitutes: Zhu Bajie ........ 195\n\nBarbara Park - A Walk along Harlech and Lugard Roads ...... 197\n\nDan Waters - Designatory Letters after an RAS Member's Name ............................................................... 205\n\nDan Waters - Photographs from the HKBRAS Photographic Exhibition held in January 2001 at the City University ........ 207",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215102,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 198,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "155\n\nIMAGES ON CHINESE POPULAR RELIGION\n\nALTARS\n\nOF THE HEROES\n\nINVOLVED IN THE SUPPRESSION\n\nOF\n\nTHE AN LUSHAN REBELLION [AD 755 - 763]\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nChina suffered a major internal political upheaval between 755 and 763 when General An Lushan led a rebellion against the Tang emperor. It took some seven years for it to be decisively suppressed by government forces.\n\nFrom some records it would appear that An Lushan was half Turkish and half Soghdian, the son of a Soghdian officer and known as Rokhshan before he took the Chinese name of An Lushan. Recent histories written by foreigners only rarely refer to An Lushan prior to his command of a punitive expedition against the Khitan in 736. This campaign was a failure to such an extent that his superior general considered having him executed. Within ten years, however, he became one of the most powerful of the generals, ruling most of the north-east of what was then China, and in particular holding the governorship of three frontier cities, Pinglu, Fanyang and Hedong, along the northern borders of present day Hebei and Shanxi provinces. This meant that he commanded the best and largest armies of the Empire.\n\nProfessor Giles' provided An Lushan's biography in some detail, and although very dated it is still of great interest:\n\nAn Lu-shan died in AD 757. He was born in Luk-chak, of Turkic descent, whose original name had been K'ang. [Presumably Giles was quoting Chinese sources when he related that]... An Lu-shan's mother had been a witch who had prayed for a son on the Ya-lao mountains and at his birth, a halo was seen around the house, and the beasts of the fields cried aloud. The authorities sent to have the child put to death, but he was successfully concealed by his mother. His father died young and his mother re-married, a man named An;",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215104,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 200,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "157\n\nBut First, the Story of the Rebellion.\n\nTang Ming Huang, or Xuan Zong, the sixth emperor of the Tang dynasty, who reigned between AD 713-756, became infatuated by Yang Yuhuan, the consort of his son, Prince Shou, and caused her notionally to enter a Daoist nunnery. She soon became the favourite concubine of the emperor who shared with him her love of music and dance and whose hold over him led to his neglect of state affairs. It is rarely explained that the Concubine Yang was comparatively plump, conforming to the social concept of beauty of the era. By about 740 the Emperor, tired of the daily routine of his high office, now addicted to luxury and women, also became indolent. As the eunuchs gained ever greater control over state affairs so the emperor surrendered power into the hands of two men, Li Linfu and Yang Guozhong, the latter being a relative of the concubine.\n\nOnly this one woman, the Concubine Yang [Yang Guifei], a famous beauty, was able to fascinate the ageing emperor. He took her into his own harem where she speedily dominated the aged emperor's consort after which he gradually slid into dissipation with his name forever linked with her and their ill-fated romance. Her hold over him led to his loss of interest in imperial duties transforming him from being a staid and good ruler to a playboy. This led to his downfall and her murder. In the late 740s she adopted An Lushan as her son and she, the emperor and An remained in a very friendly relationship until immediately prior to him rebelling. Despite An's gross and huge frame scandalous stories have circulated down the ages of his sexual excesses with the emperor's concubine, Yang, which may or may not have had any truth to them.\n\nGeneral An lost the emperor's favour when Yang Guozhong, a distant relative of Yang Guifei who had worked his way into power, became the most powerful man in Court. He hated An and with the ear of the emperor he was able to turn the emperor's fondness into one of hate and distrust. Eventually, believing the calumny spread by Yang Guozhong, the emperor lost faith in his favourite general, An Lushan found his position untenable and finally, at the end of 755, he rebelled, almost certainly to counter the threat to himself posed by the ever-growing power of Yang Guozhong and his realisation that he had lost the support of the emperor. An Lushan's army drove east and in a series",
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    {
        "id": 215105,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 201,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "158\n\nof victorious battles he captured Kaifeng and Luoyang where he had himself proclaimed emperor of the new dynasty of Greater Yan. His further campaigns and those of his subordinates were at first victorious; however, they then began to suffer a series of defeats at the hands of Guo Ziyi, one of China's most renowned generals, whose successes led to increased loyalist resistance to the rebel forces.\n\nA major consequence of the rebellion of An Lushan, was the withdrawal by the emperor of his forces garrisoning the North-west thereby losing control over China's far dominions in Zungaria and the Tarim Basin [today's Xinjiang province] for the best part of the next thousand years.\n\nFor a while it seemed that the balance was turning in the emperor's favour. However, the Capital garrison at Chang'an [Xi'an] was incapable of resisting the attacks of the rebel forces and after the defeat of his main army on the banks of the Yellow River the emperor in great alarm was forced to flee Chang'an accompanied by some of his entourage. They fled west heading to Sichuan province ahead of the rebel advance. En route, at Ma Wei, his escort mutinied, killed Yang Guozhong and forced the emperor to order the Concubine Yang be strangled to pacify his discontented guards. Stories have varied but the most popular versions claim that the emperor had no choice but order her to be strangled by his chief eunuch or that she was forced to commit suicide. On reaching the safety of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, the heir apparent had been persuaded to usurp the throne. Weary and distressed the old emperor, now in Chengdu, gave his assent to the new reign and became the retired emperor. The new emperor bestowed the title of Taishang Huangdi\n\nupon his father but kept him under house-arrest.\n\nThe heir-apparent made his way to Lingzhou in Gansu where he was proclaimed emperor Su Zong and was soon joined by two armies, one under Guo Ziyi. By 757 Guo had recovered the main and subsidiary capitals of Chang'an and Luoyang from the rebels, whereupon the new emperor summoned the former emperor back to Chang'an to ensure that he would not be the focus of any further intrigue and threat, where he died in 761. The father was then canonised as Zongming Huangdi\n\nthough usually he is still referred to as Ming Huang.",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215106,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 202,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "159\n\nMeanwhile, General An's army was facing the threat of yet more foreign forces coming to the aid of the new emperor and the armies of Guo Ziyi. These were mainly Uighur and during the summer of 757 after the two Chinese capitals had been captured by the Uighurs, one of the cities, Luoyang, suffered several days of carnage and plunder. An was assassinated, some say by his son, Qingxu, others by a fellow rebel early in 757, but all agree that he was succeeded by his son who was in his turn murdered by his general, Shi Siming. Shi Siming was also a native of Liuchak, of Turkic descent, who had co-operated with An Lushan in his campaign against the Kitans. After the death of An Qingxu, he proclaimed himself emperor Yingtian Huangdi of the Great Yan dynasty.\n\nIn the east, severe fighting had been going on; but, owing to the valour displayed by the garrisons at Pingyuan and Chang Shan, the progress of the rebels in the direction of Shandong was checked. Nor were they more successful in their attempts to invade the Yangzi region. In the direction of Anhui, they were confronted by the stronghold of Suiyang,\n\nof which we will learn more later; and in the direction of Hubei, their advance was blocked by the city of Nanyang, both of these cities held out stubbornly. Shi Siming was in his turn murdered by his own son, who proclaimed himself emperor and reigned for a matter of months before he too was overthrown and put to death, thereby ending the four-year-old rebel dynasty. The rebellion had lost its impetus and festered on with intermittent battles until 763. Even during the last years, the outcome was far from certain. It was ultimately quelled and the dynasty regained the throne, but not before the emperor and his son and heir had both disappeared from the scene in death. This epic story is well known to all Chinese, having been related down the centuries throughout China by village tea-house storytellers.\n\nNow that we have a picture of the Rebellion, let us focus on the emperor Tang Ming Huang and the eight generals who took part in the suppression of the An Lushan rebellion and have become local, regional, and even nation-wide popular religion cult deities with their images, euhemerized heroes revered on a number of altars. Although images of leaders of various rebellions down the centuries have become popular religion cult deities, no image has been seen on altars of An Lushan.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215112,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 208,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "165\n\nIn 755, during the revolt of An Lushan, Guo helped defend the capital, and in 760 he was despatched to recover territory from Central Asian barbarians and finally, three years after the Turfans [Uighurs] had captured the capital, Guo raised an army and drove them out, more by cunning than military force. The disasters which broke out during the declining years of the Tang Ming Huang emperor were suppressed chiefly by the vigour and determination with which Guo wrested province after province from the hands of the insurgents. He spent a considerable part of his life in warfare and was uniformly successful.\n\nHis images in temples in Northern and Central China usually portrayed him as an old mandarin, with a parted beard, both halves held separately in each of his hands, and with a tiered hat. Occasionally his image depicted him as an old man, sitting, with a long white beard and a white robe, carrying a ruyi sceptre engraved with the four characters for 'Everything shall be as You Desire'. According to one sect, the Jin Dan H., Guo is said to have founded the sect in collaboration with Lü Dongbin, the doctor of renown and one of the Eight Immortals. His image on altars in Sichuan was referred to as Cifu Tianguan14 where he was regarded as a God of Wealth.\n\nNo images of Guo have been noted on temple altars in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau or South-east Asia, though a temple in Haikang in Tainan county bears the hall title of Fenyang Dian and contains on its main altar not an image of him but one of a local provincial cult deity, Guangze Zunwang, the patron of the Guo clan.\n\nBoth Mesny and Timothy RichardR claim that Guo Ziyi was a follower of Nestorian Christianity, Mesny even claiming that Guo's name was carved on the famous Nestorian tablet at Xi'an.\n\nWe move on to images of the two major deified heroes of the era on temple altars who have had their historic figures embellished by tea-house story-tellers down the centuries include:\n\nZhang Xun✯ and Xu Yuan,F are heroes of renown and unique deities whose images have been seen on temple altars in Zhejiang, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South-east Asia [Photographs 6 and 7]. Both are protective deities worshipped particularly by the southern Fukienese, both within Fujian province and in southern Fukienese",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215113,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 209,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "166\n\ncommunities outside mainland China, and also local non-Fukienese Chinese in the vicinity of Hangzhou, sometimes individually, alone on an altar or together as a pair.\n\nFrequently confused both by devotees and professional god carvers, the two deities are known to Chaozhou-speaking devotees as the Civil and Military Lords of Peace (Wenwu An Zunwang) or individually, Zhang Xun as Wen'an Zunwang and Xu Yuan as Wu'an Zunwang. They are also known by titles respectively [possibly within Chuanzhou communities only] as Baoyi Zunwang 保儀尊王 and Baoyi Dafu 保儀大夫. Both deities hereafter will be referred to as Zhang and Xu, and in a number of temples an individual, lone deity of either Zhang or Xu is known as the patron of local Zhang or Xu clans.\n\nThe most common story of the two heroes as related by a great number of temple keepers describes how Zhang and Xu were loyalists opposed to the rebel An Lushan. They died heroically defending the provincial city of Suiyang in Henan province in AD 757, which fell to the enemy after a siege of 49 days. Most temple keepers claim that they died by their own hands rather than fall into those of the enemy, though some claim that the heroic defenders were betrayed by cowards after the food gave out.\n\nZhang was born in Henan on either the 10th of the fourth or the 12th or 29th of the fifth lunar months in AD 709 and died with Xu on either the 15th of the second or the 9th of the tenth lunar months in 757. These are now celebrated annually with temple festivals in Zhang's honour.\n\nZhang was the military mandarin in Suiyang and is occasionally referred to in temple records as Zhang Suiyang. He had been employed in military operations in Central Asia before being posted to Suiyang, where his discipline was legendary. In 756, during the rebellion of An Lushan, he fought many battles, was wounded on a number of occasions, and performed prodigies of valour. The climax was reached by his heroic defence of Suiyang against the army of An Lushan's son. He refused to yield and even sacrificed his favourite concubine to no avail. The enemy broke in, and as he scorned to offer allegiance to his conqueror, was immediately put to death. It is said that during the siege",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215117,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 213,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "170\n\nThere would appear to be two minor generals also in this story. Several temples in the Chia I and Yunlin coastal strip of Taiwan are dedicated to the Three Princes, San Wangye Zhang, Li and Mo. These were identified in the temples as Zhang Xun with two of his subordinate generals, Li and Mo, both of whom died with him at Suiyang5 One temple keeper related the story of how Mo Ying15, whose real name was Gai TuoE, was one of the generals at the siege of Suiyang with Zhang Xun and his sworn brother, who committed suicide when Zhang was executed and quartered.\n\nTwo further minor soldiers, again generals who served under Zhang and Xu whose images have also been seen on altars in Taiwan and Fujian province beside those of Zhang and Xu, are Lei WanchunS, an image either with a black face with six or seven golden stars on it or with a red face, and Nan JiyunE, an image with a blue face.\n\nNothing is known about General Nan; however, General Lei Wanchun, a native of Hebei province, was a military officer who served under General Zhang Xun in the first half of the 8th century AD, commanding the garrison in the area to the north of Xi'an, within the loop of the Yellow River. During the An Lushan revolt Lei was besieged by rebel forces in Luoyang, the secondary capital of the Tang. He remonstrated with An's forces from the garrison walls accusing them of being traitors to the Tang and remained there even though six rebel arrows had struck him. He continued to exhort the rebels to surrender until his forces were overcome and he died with them. His image usually has six or seven spots on the face where, so it is claimed, the arrows pierced him. During the reign of the Qing Kang Xi emperor a military officer named Zai carried an image of Lei over to Taiwan where his cult developed and he is now revered in some dozen or so temples in and around the central plain of the West coast.\n\nA protective Wangye, a pestilence deity, in Jiali, a town just north of Tainan city, better known as the General of the Lei clan, Lei Fu Jiangjun, is the secondary deity on the altar of a small temple. The history as recorded in the temple explains that the original temple, having been badly damaged by an earthquake in 1862, was rebuilt and enlarged by devotees. During the hard labouring necessary to achieve their aim the spirit of the then main deity, General Lei, having transformed himself into an old man dressed in a feather coat, went",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215129,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 225,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "182\n\nMarshal Wen Qiong was said to have been one of the subordinate generals serving Guo Ziyi during the campaigns to suppress An Lushan's rebellion. This modern portrait depicting him as a celestial general hangs in a Daoist temple in Pudong, a suburb of Shanghai.\n\nPage 225\nPage 226",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215131,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2000",
        "page_number": 227,
        "title": "RAS-2000",
        "content_text": "184\n\nMarshal Tiandou is the patron of actors and a popular deity revered in particular by southern Fujianese. He is said to have been Lei Haijing, the doctor who accompanied the Tang emperor during his flight to Sichuan province during the An Lushan rebellion. After his death in exile his spirit remained with the emperor as his protector. This image, with the crab painted round his mouth, is in the same small temple in Seremban in central Malaysia as Tang Ming Huang.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215346,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2001",
        "page_number": 123,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "71\n\nobvious to any Chinese with an ounce of nous. Two years later he wrote a play, Hai Rui Dismissed, purporting to be about Hai Rui. This was seen as a covert attack on Mao Zedong's purge of Marshal Peng Dehuai who had openly blamed Mao for the 1959 famine. The purge of the Peking hierarchy led by Yao Wenyuan, a Communist political writer in 1965 [who was later one of the Gang of Four], is usually seen as the overture to the Cultural Revolution in China, Hai Rui being used as a symbol for Peng Dehuai, Mao's fallen rival.\n\nIn a Hainanese community temple dedicated to the Jade Emperor near Bukit Mertajam in northern Malaysia two images flanked the main deity, on his left hand his Fourth Daughter and on his right Luo Yanhua, about whom nothing more is known other than she is claimed to be a unique Hainanese deity. Her image has not been seen or recorded anywhere else, hand, and aide to the Fourth Daughter.\n\nAlthough Lishan Laomu is primarily a Chaozhou local folk religion cult goddess she is also worshipped widely in Hainanese temples where she is regarded as a Hainanese cult. Lishan Laomu is her more popular title rather than Lishan Shengmu, though considering the ambiguities in legend, title and the initial character, it is open to question whether we might have more than one deity here. Three different characters for Li, all homophones, have been noted. The first means black, the second pear, and the third black horse. The first is the more popular version in central Malaysia and Hong Kong. The second appears to be the character preferred by the Hainanese, and the third has only been encountered in Taiwanese temples. She was referred to in a Saigon Hainanese temple as either Yimei Niangniang 懿美娘娘 or Yide Niangniang 懿德娘娘.\n\nAn elderly lady temple keeper in Kowloon approached the deity and \"introduced\" me to Lishan Shengmu as ‘a foreigner who wished to disperse the mists of his ignorance.' She told me that Miss Fan, a Daoist nun, had been summoned by Tian Hou to Heaven to be trained to become an Immortal and is now a caring spirit known as Lishan Shengmu, the Saintly Mother [or Matron] Lishan.\n\nIn an interesting but typical misconception an odd title of a deity was noted in a temple in Lincoln Road in Singapore where the custodian who claimed to be Hainanese also claimed that all the deities were",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215347,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2001",
        "page_number": 124,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "72\n\nuniquely Hainanese. In practice of the seventeen only one was Hainanese and that bore the odd title. It was Li San Shengmu, literally the Saintly Mother Li the third. This is obviously Li Shan, misheard with the 'san' assumed to be the 'Third'.\n\nThe most widespread claim is that Lishan Shengmu or Lishan Laomu24 was a ferocious lady general of the Tang dynasty known for her love of fighting, and is now a popular character in Chaozhou plays. However, to many Chinese she is better known by the maiden name of Fan Li-shan as merely the wife and mother of two famous generals, Xue. Several stories told about her contain in addition to common factors, others involving unconnected genuine historical heroes, some from entirely different eras. The composite story of the best known legends about Miss Fan25 begins with her warrior father giving her a 'sword to execute Immortals' and a 'whip to beat the spirits' and after she had completed her military training and prior to her going off to help General Xue Dingshan26 to pacify the west. In one version she joined up with him, served and fought alongside winning his trust and favour. In another Xue met and fought her on the battlefield. She defeated him but, because he was a handsome general, and with a bit of persuasion, she married him. A photocopied broadsheet distributed by the temple keeper in a small immigrant settlement shrine above Kowloon claimed that the Lishan cult had been popular in central China, and that her story, described in the 'Conquest of the West,' ostensibly written by Xue Dingshan himself, explained that she had been the wife of Xue, later transformed into an Immortal as a reward for her miracles and achievements.\n\nThere is also a Lishan Laomu who is also a definitive goddess appearing in the great novel The Journey to the West, the story of the fantastic journey made by Xuanzang, together with Sun, the Monkey, Sha the monk and Pigsy. In part of the story it appears likely that Lishan was Monkey's elder sister, a courtesy title rather than a blood relationship. She, together with her three daughters, all Bodhisattvas, named Truth, Love and Pity, transformed themselves into beautiful women in order to tempt the Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang and his entourage of Monkey, Pigsy and Sha with their beauty. She changed herself into a widow and proposed to Xuanzang who rejected her. She and her daughters teased Pigsy, who after many adventures found that they were merely figments of his imagination. This goddess would",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215348,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2001",
        "page_number": 125,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "73\n\nseem to be in no way connected with the wife and mother of the Tang dynasty generals.\n\nAlthough her image is popular in South-east Asia where it is to be found as the main deity on secondary altars in both Chaozhou and Hainanese temples, it has also been noted in Taiwan, and in Hong Kong in four temples and a further one in Macau. She is the main deity in one Hong Kong temple, and the main deity on secondary altars in the other three and in Macau.\n\nShe is accompanied in many instances by two anonymous aides or maids, though in a Hainanese temple in Malate in Manila they are known as Li Laoxian Gu #t, and in Medan in Sumatra in a Hainanese temple by two guardian generals, General of the Iron Ox, Tieniu Jiangjun and the General of the Bronze Ox, Tongniu Jiangjun. [see below 6 a]\n\nWeng Zhong is yet another deity regarded by Hainanese as uniquely theirs even though his image was noted in several places across central China during the late 19th century. Weng Zhong lived during the Tang and is only known for one remarkable incident. He was suddenly showered with gold. He was born in Gansu province and was a poverty-stricken scholar who lived alone - however, his windfall, the cause of which has never been explained, has led him to be regarded by some devotees to revere him as a God of Wealth. His image has been seen in a temple near Haikou in northern Hainan, simply portraying him as a scholar, standing, dressed in his robes and holding a tablet in both hands before his chest. His full name was Weng Zhongru 翁仲儒.\n\n6: Images of Aides to deities\n\na] As we have seen the Iron Ox General, Tie’niu Jiangjun 铁牛将军 is a tamed demonic spirit and guardian of the major deity Lishan Shengmu. He has only been noted once, paired with her other tamed demonic spirit guardian, the Bronze Ox General, Tongniu Jiangjun 銅牛将军, on the main altar in a specifically Hainanese community temple in Jalan Rindu in Singapore, now long pulled down for urban development. This may, of course, be an entirely Chaozhou cult but revered also by the Hainanese devotees of the local community and",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215349,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2001",
        "page_number": 126,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "74\n\nperhaps taken over within their own ethnic temple.\n\nThe Iron-ox General is a black-skinned demonic figure dressed in pantaloons and anklets, standing, with a tiger skin draped around his waist, and with a bolero covering his shoulders. He has a narrow plain coronet, and is holding a heavy chain in his left hand and an axe raised above his head in his right.\n\nThe Iron-ox and Bronze-ox were both live oxen transformed by Lishan Shengmu into human, albeit demonic form, to be her guardians and to protect the gateway to her mountain. They have powers in their own right which include, it is claimed, the prevention of natural disasters, and in particular flooding.27\n\nb] In Fujian province prior to 1949 it was not uncommon to see the Eight Youths, young boys running round the procession when the palanquin containing the image of the deity was being borne around his parish. The boys were regarded in most places as the incarnate soldiery of the spirit armies of the deities. In others they were underworld generals whose exorcising dance was performed to rid the vicinity of demons. In Taiwan groups of young men regularly meet in certain temples and practice exorcist drills which they then perform for the public during annual ceremonies. Their other function is to act as bodyguards to the major deity in their temple when he is taken out in his carrying chair to process around the town. These youths are known in Taiwan as the Eight Underworld Generals A#. They are skilled in martial arts, have their faces painted in specific patterns using a number of bright colours, somewhat similar to the actors in Peking opera but generally regarded as demonic faces, and are dressed in a uniform of jacket and trousers and in a few temples, according to one temple keeper, they wear red bands, similar to those worn by the Boxers of the 1900 Rebellion, identifying which unit they belong to. The markings and forms of these youths tend to be identical with the Ba Jia Jiang, the statues lining the walls of Underworld temples in Taiwan. Such statues have also been noted in several Hainanese temples in South-east Asia where the group of Eight is known as Ba Ban Gong A, The \"Eight Bosses\". Whereas the total, Eight, would appear to be somewhat immaterial to most devotees and temple keepers, in Singapore the Eight represented the large number of gaolers in each of eight of the Ten Courts of the Underworld responsible for purging\n\n28",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 215355,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2001",
        "page_number": 132,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "80\n\n21 This is present day Maoming in western Guangdong province, not too far from the Liaozhou peninsula leading down to Hainan.\n\n22 A city in south eastern Guangdong province, half way between the Liaozhou peninsula and the Pearl River.\n\n23 Note that there are two different deities, Longwei Shenggong worshipped by the Hainanese and Longwei Shengwang worshipped by the Chaozhou people. The latter is, to all intents and purposes, a local Earth God.\n\n24\n\n25 Laomu, Old Mother [or Elderly Matron], is a title often mentioned in popular stories. In Xue Dingshan's Campaign to the West Laomu was Fan Lihua's teacher who, in eight years, taught her the art of moving mountains and raising armies from a handful of beans.\n\nAn elderly Chaozhou man in a Kowloon temple confided that Lishan [‘Fan Lihua' he called her] is a fictional character to support the story of the two generals Xue, and that much of their legends have little or no historical basis.\n\n26 Xue Dingshan's father, Xue Rengui, also a general, was an early Tang hero who not only also led an expedition to the west, he also served in the Korean campaign of Tang Tai Cong. Xue Dingshan, otherwise known as Xue Gang, is claimed to have saved the life of his emperor and is now a Fukienese cult deity, the face of whose image is characterised by extraordinary and colourful decorations.\n\n27 William Mesny relates that recumbent iron images of oxen were believed to be a protection from floods when these images were placed along the banks of river courses and lakes likely to overflow. He noticed several along the banks of the Grand Canal in 1874 and was told that they had been placed there by Liu Bowen Mesny's Chinese Miscellany: Vol. IV: Shanghai: 11 February 1905.\n\n28 As in Taipan, the Senior Boss.\n\n29 The shrine and its images disappeared, doubtless into a high rise flat, though it could have gone the way of so many minor cults and disappeared due, perhaps, to the aged temple keeper's demise.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
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    },
    {
        "id": 216029,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2002",
        "page_number": 328,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "262\n\nWar in 218 AD between two of the Three Kingdoms [San Guo], between Sun Quan of Wu and Liu Bei of Shu, led amongst other things to the capture of the city of Qingzhou. One of Liu Bei's generals, Guan Yu, hurried south to defend the city but was ambushed, captured and decapitated by Sun Quan after he refused to change sides. Guan was later deified as is now the immensely popular deity, the Patron of Uniformed Bodies and is known as the God of Loyalty, Guan Di. Thus, the founder of Zhenjiang had the distinction of slaying the consequent Patron deity of Soldiers, Firemen and Detectives and the second most popular god on Chinese popular religion altars.\n\nIn the first years of the 6th century AD the first emperor of the Liang dynasty, Wu Di, who was renowned for his support of Buddhism and the Buddhist clergy, visited Zhenjiang. He had been visited by a divine monk in a dream who urged Wu Di to institute a great fast in order to rescue all sentient beings from the miseries of their existence. The Emperor ordered a new monastery to be built at Tse Hsin [Zexin], known today as Jin Shan to accommodate the Congress held in AD 507, and for centuries within the monastery there was a building known as the Hall of Liang Wang. This tradition is at odds with the date usually given for the founding of the monastery - AD 317.\n\nOur next story involves a deified hero who had nothing to do with Zhenjiang in life but, for some unknown reason, his cult would appear to have become centralised along the Grand Canal and especially at Zhenjiang. He is a canonised hero of the Tang dynasty, but one of a pair whose images elsewhere appear together on popular religion temple altars. These two euhemerised heroes, Zhang Xun and Xu Yuan, ***, have been seen on altars in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Beijing, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South-east Asia. These two protective deities are known individually as the Venerable King of Peaceful Pacification, Wen'an Zunwang ✰✰ E [Zhang Xun] and the Venerable King of Military Pacification, Wu'an Zunwang ✯✯ [Xu Yuan] though they will\n\n+\n\nbe referred to hereafter simply as Zhang and Xu.\n\nThe most common history of the two heroes as related by a great number of temple keepers describes how Zhang and Xu, loyalists during the reign of Tang Ming Huang, opposed the rebellion led by An Lushan. They died heroically in AD 757 during the civil war defending the provincial city of Suiyang in Henan province which fell to the enemy",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216030,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2002",
        "page_number": 329,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "263\n\nafter a siege of 49 days. Most accounts claim that they died by their own hands rather than fall into those of the enemy.\n\nOur interest lies in Zhang. He was born in Henan in AD 709 and died with Xu on either the 15th of the second or the 9th of the tenth lunar months in 757. Zhang was the military mandarin in Suiyang and is occasionally referred to in temple records as Zhang Suiyang. Before being posted to Suiyang he had been employed in military operations in Central Asia where his discipline was legendary. In 756 during the rebellion of An Lushan he fought many battles, was wounded on a number of occasions and performed prodigies of valour. The climax was reached by his heroic defence of the Henan provincial city of Suiyang against the rebel army commanded by An Lushan's son. Zhang refused to yield and even sacrificed his favourite concubine to no avail. The enemy broke in and as he scorned to owe allegiance to his conqueror was immediately put to death. It is said that during the siege his patriotic rage caused him to grind his teeth so that after his death it was found that all but three or four had been worn down to the very gums.\n\nIn central China the rain and crop deity, the Bodhisattva of the Whole of Heaven, Doutian Pusa or the Marshal of the Whole of Heaven, Doutian Yuanshuai, was believed to be an incarnation of Zhang who, it was said, had intervened to assist the imperial forces during the Taiping wars ca. 1855 and had been awarded the title of Zhangwei. His major local shrine is some distance outside the southern gate of Zhenjiang, a little beyond the shell of a Ming pagoda. There was also a shrine to him in the city's new main street, Ma Lu; another in a village on the road to the Bamboo Grove, and yet another in the village of Doutian Miao where the Imperial battery had been located on the north shore of the Yangzi abreast of Jiao Shan. Annually, during the Fourth lunar month, Zhenjiang was crowded with country folk who came to enjoy the procession of gods being borne through the streets of the city, including the image of Doutian Pusa.\n\nWhen the Tang dynasty collapsed China fell back into feudal kingdoms, one of which was the Xiu dynasty of Nantang. Under their rule the walls of Zhenjiang were repaired. Xiu Lijing succeeded his father in 946 and during his reign he annexed what today is Fujian province and added it to his dominion of Jiangxi, most of Anhui and Jiangsu, thus becoming one of the largest states in China at the time.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216316,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2003",
        "page_number": 75,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "24\n\nas seated, holding a long-stemmed lotus flower with a small temple perched on the blossom, and has a third eye in the centre of his forehead. Wei Tuo Pusa is represented by a golden statue in which he poses wearing armor and holding a drawn sword. Wei Tuo is the protector of all Buddhist temples.\n\nOn the other side of the Tian Wang Dian is the third courtyard, on the far side of which is the Hall of the Great Hero (Da Xiong Bao Dian). This hall's origins date to an 1878-1879 reconstruction, when it was rebuilt to replace an earlier structure destroyed during the Taiping rebels' attacks on Shanghai in 1860-1862. The hall was closed for a massive reconstruction and renovation in November 2002, but had been reopened by January 2004. The interior is now nothing less than spectacular. Three large Buddhas (San Fo) are placed in the centre. Sakyamuni Buddha stands in the centre, flanked on the left by the bodhisattva Samantabhadra (Pu Xian) seated on an elephant, and on the right by the bodhisattva Manjusri (Wen Shu) seated on a blue lion. Overhead the hall's ceiling is pierced by a massive wooden dome that spirals upward, looking much like the wooden domes (Zao Jing) often found over traditional Peking Opera stages (Xiju Wutai). Behind the San Fo facing out the rear exit is a large Guanyin statue in front of a floor-to-ceiling landscaped rockery covered with smaller figurines depicting the Buddhist heaven and hell. Along the side walls stand 36 quite expressive human statues of the Buddhist saints, 18 on each side of the hall. This is an unusual number, which seems to include 16 Arhats (Luohan) and 20 Devas (Zhu Tian), and an assortment that includes such non-Buddhist figures from Chinese tradition as Confucius (Kong Fu Zi), the War God (Guan Di), the God of Literature (Wen Chang), and the Kitchen God; Hindu gods such as Brahma, Indra, and Yama (Yen Lo); as well as Buddhist deities such as the Four Heavenly Kings (Si Tian Wang) and the bodhisattva Wei Tuo as well. The hall also houses one of Longhua's three bronze bells, this one dating from 1586.\n\nOn the other side of the Da Xiong Bao Dian is a fourth courtyard. On the far side of this fourth courtyard is the Hall of the Three Gods (San Sheng Dian). This hall is dominated by enormous floor-to-ceiling golden statues of three Buddhas (San Fo) who appear side by side in an unusual standing position with golden flames rising up behind them. In the centre is Amitabha Buddha (O Mi Tuo Fo), to your left is the bodhisattva Da Shi Zhi, and on your right is the bodhisattva Guan Shi Yin.\n\nPage 75\n\nPage 76",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216508,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2003",
        "page_number": 267,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "219\n\nLuoyang at Binglingsi (where a ferry took Silk Road travellers across the Yellow River) also shows influence from further west, this time from Gandhara (see below). These caves date from around 420. Indian influence was significant too in the magnificent complex of four hundred and ninety-two caves at Dunhuang, 'the art gallery in the desert', nearly fifteen hundred kilometres (as the crow flies) northwest of Chang'an. The practice arose at Dunhuang of travellers making offerings for a safe trip as they set off into the Taklamakan desert, or for a safe return, in the form of commissioning Buddhist devotional cave paintings. Dunhuang also became a monastic centre, particularly flourishing after the great fair at Zhangye (nine hundred kilometres northwest of Chang'an) in 609, which was sponsored and attended by the Chinese Emperor Yangdi. Among those who travelled to attend this fair were people from twenty-seven different nations, according to Tucker. This indicates the greater freedom of travel established by this period, and it is not surprising that Gandharan influence is to be seen in Dunhuang's paintings, although Tucker argues that their style is distinctively Chinese.\n\nClearly, by the time of the Zhangye fair, the Silk Road was thriving. By then, Xinjiang Province (meaning 'New Dominion') had been firmly in Chinese hands for four centuries. The roaming hordes of nomads that had formerly menaced travellers on the routes through the Province had been brought to heel by Chinese military control and lines of forts extended west into the desert beyond Dunhuang. One of the most important power groups beyond the Taklamakan desert with which the Chinese had established good relations beginning with Wudi's efforts in 105 BCE was the Kushan Empire (c. 2nd century BCE to 3rd century AD), the territory of which straddled the Pamirs and the Hindu Kush, and is now occupied by Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. It had been established by a formerly nomadic tribe, the Yuezhi, which had settled after fleeing west from the nomadic Xiongnu. The Kushan Empire, with its provinces of Bactria and Gandhara, was the primary nexus of cross-cultural interaction along the Silk Road, straddling as it did the mountains and passes between the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, Persia, and the plains and great river valleys draining northwest into Europe. It was in the Kushan cities of Peshawar (now in Pakistan) and Mathura (India), where magnificent schools of art emerged that blended western and eastern influences and that, in turn, spread further east into China. For example, in what is now the north of Pakistan, then known as Gandhara, Greek sculpture strongly influenced statues of",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    }
]