[ { "id": 216022, "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": 321, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "THE YANGZI PORT OF ZHENJIANG DOWN THE CENTURIES\n\n鎮江\n\nPART I\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\n255\n\nIntroduction\n\nZhenjiang is a former walled city on the south bank of what is known to the Chinese as the Chang Jiang, the Long River, or simply as The Great River, and to Westerners - the Yangzi [Yangtze]. The city lies some 40 miles downstream from Nanjing and 156 miles upstream from Shanghai, and in its prime during the Northern Song, in the eleventh century, it was one of the major ports on the River, and even though its influence and authority came to a sudden and dramatic end with its capture and destruction by the Taiping rebels in 1853 it remained the provincial capital of Jiangsu province down to the 1940s.\n\nZhenjiang commanded one of the two junctions of the southern or main arm of the Grand Canal with the Yangzi. The city is surrounded on one side by the Yangzi and on three other sides by hills, none at all high or steep, with the Grand Canal winding past the southern and western face of the walls to its convergence with the River at the Xiannü Temple. The city has been walled since the Yuan [13th century], and was built on the level ground between the Yangzi and the Grand Canal. Three of these numerous hills, all islands or former islands in the Yangzi, Jiao Shan, Beigu Shan and Jin Shan, are part of the city's legend. Some ten miles to the south lies a range of higher hills within which foreigners used to seek their exercise, riding and hunting.\n\nOf all the treaty ports Zhenjiang is possibly the least remembered by the great majority of westerners, with very few nowadays even having heard of the place. Not even when it is explained that in former romanisations it has been known to foreigners as Chinkiang, Chin-kiang, Chen-chiang Fu, Chin-keang-foo, Tsing-kiang-foo, Kin-kiang, Chingkiang, Tsing-kiang and Jingkou [i.e. Gateway to the Capital - Nanjing]. It was even known by the title of Chin-shan [Jin Shan], Gold", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216037, "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": 336, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "270\n\nwriting home in October 1861, four years after the Taiping evacuation of Zhenjiang wrote 'it gives me the blue devils to walk in the neighbourhood of this wretched city. Thousands of acres of rich land lie uncultivated and overgrown with rank grass. The cottages are all destroyed and a very few old men and women represent a tottering population. Not a junk moored off the city wall and only one very dirty street remains of what was once a large and haughty town. I don't think the rebels will be back this year. They have lost a very important post up the river and their head den [Nanjing] will soon be threatened by the Imperialists'.\n\nIn 1854 a new American Commissioner arrived en poste in Shanghai and decided to visit the Taiping headquarters in Nanjing as a US diplomatic representative. He sailed up the Yangzi in the USS Susquehanna but as they passed the Taiping fort at Zhenjiang a shot across their bows caused him to send a small party ashore to demand a reason for the 'insult' and an apology. The Zhenjiang Taiping commander explained that they were keeping a vigilant eye on traffic on the Yangzi and required all vessels to hove to until permission to proceed was received from Nanjing. The US representative repeated his demand for an apology and threatened to sail on on the morrow come what may. He also provided a sketch of the US flag so that such an insult may never be repeated. They sailed on as planned and having had many meetings with Taiping commanders at various levels, including one with the Eastern King, the US Commissioner realised that in view of the tone of the Eastern King's written response, amongst other things requiring Tribute from the Americans, any continued attempt to institute diplomatic relations with the Taiping was a waste of time. Whereupon they returned to Shanghai, wiser but no further forward. However, they did take the opportunity before returning of sailing a hundred or so miles further up stream to areas not before visited by US or British expeditions. The Americans, sad to say, appear to have obtained little new about the Taipings to add to what was already known,\n\n13\n\nZhenjiang temples\n\nThe four major temples were the Jin Shan Temple with its pagoda, the Ganlu Si [Sweet Dew Temple] on the Beigu Shan, the Dinghui Si on Jiao Shan and the City God temple. There were also a number of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216045, "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": 344, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "278\n\nBeigu Shan\n\nThe Ganlu Si [Sweet Dew Monastery] is situated in the north-west corner of the city on the summit of Beigu Shan, a low hill with steep cliffs down to the coast. It is the site described in the old legend of the marriage of Liu Bei, the ruler of the Kingdom of Shu. Traditional operas and tales of teahouse story tellers based on this legend are still popular today. The romantic legend, which may have a genuine historical basis, is said to have taken place during the Three Kingdoms period, 2nd century AD, when Liu Bei was the ruler of the kingdom of Shu [in what is today Sichuan and then, one of the Three Kingdoms]. Liu went to the rival state of Wu [nowadays Jiangsu province and part of Zhejiang] and married as his secondary consort the sister of its ruler, Sun Ce, whom we have already mentioned. He is said to have either courted or married her in the Sweet Dew Monastery during his stay there. Another version claims that Liu Bei was invited by Sun to visit the Sweet Dew Monastery to meet his future mother-in-law. Sun actually planned to have Liu assassinated though Liu learned of the plan and escaped taking the ruler's sister, Sun Shangxiang, with him. Yet another version describes how Sun Quan, the king of Wu and brother of Sun Ce, was displeased by Liu Bei's failure to return a piece of land he had borrowed from Wu. Sun offered Liu the hand of his sister in marriage but planning all along to withdraw the marriage offer when the ceremony was about to be held and Liu Bei was in Wu territory. At the same time he would require Liu to hand back the land. Liu's secret agents warned him of the plan and Liu managed to get Sun Quan's mother and, of course, the prospective bride, to meet him at the Ganlu Temple. They were delighted with what they saw and immediately consented to the marriage. Sun was furious at being outsmarted and not only losing his sister but without even regaining the land.\n\nThe dating of Liu Bei's visit and the conventional date of the foundation of the temple during the Eastern Jin dynasty cannot be reconciled unless Liu Bei's host, Sun, had a palace on the site which two hundred years later was either converted into the temple or the temple was built on the site of the palace.\n\nThe Ganlu Si iron pagoda was first built during the Tang, originally with nine storeys. However, down the ages natural disasters have removed the top five, though a further two storeys have been added.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216078, "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": 377, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "311\n\nZhenjiang city has grown beyond all recognition. Since the Communists came to power in 1949 Zhenjiang has suffered the same trials and tribulations as all other cities in China and only within the last decade or so of the 20th century did modernisation and development take off. Today it has wide streets, modern shops, drainage and factories as well as all the benefits, or otherwise, of westernisation. Also, three historical sites have been granted Asia-Pacific Heritage Protection Awards for 2001 by UNESCO. They are the Stone Pagoda, the Guan Yin Cave and a charitable association hall, all on Xijindu Street.\n\n1\n\nNOTES\n\nZhenjiang city walls were said by the British military to have been thirty feet high and five feet thick.\n\nAllom, Thomas (1844) China - in a series of views, displaying the Scenery, Architecture, and Social Habits of that Ancient Empire. London: Fisher, Son and Co Vol. IV p 41\n\n3 The area selected to be the foreign settlement was chosen in 1861 and divided into lots. Ground rent was paid to the Chinese government by leaseholders to whom titles for 99 years were issued through the British Consulate. They would have expired in 1960 had not the treaty port as a whole been formally surrendered [rendited in official parlance to avoid using the word surrendered] in 1929 after it had been decided that minor concessions were more trouble than they were worth.\n\nA\n\nCunynghame, Captain Arthur [1845] The Opium War: London\n\n\"Taot'ai [Daotai] was the term for a Qing dynasty Circuit Intendant.\n\n*Percival, William Spencer (1889) The Land of the Dragon-My Boating and Shooting Excursions to the Gorges of the Upper Yangtze. London: Hurst and Blackett, Ltd. [Percival was a member of H.B.M's Civil Service in China].\n\n'Clennell, WJ (June 1922) The Historical Setting of Chinkiang or a Bit of ‘Consular Bluff Shanghai: New China Review: Vol IV. No. 3 [Clennell provides much greater detail than is offered here].\n\n&\n\nSun Quan's city was built on Beigu Shan.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]