[
    {
        "id": 205548,
        "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-1968",
        "page_number": 90,
        "title": "RAS-1968",
        "content_text": "FAN LAU AND ITS FORT\n\n85\n\nLau, meaning \"division of flows\" and the name of that point on the southwestern tip of Tai Yu Shan, describes accurately and specifically the abrupt change of colour of the sea off the point, from a clear green to a muddy brown, as any traveller from Hong-kong to Macau can attest. The name Fan Lau is not only appropriately but propitiously applied. In fung shui the confluence of streams or sea currents is considered auspicious (conversely, a site flanked by forking streams is not considered lucky). Fan Lau, situated as it were at such a confluence, is considered a lucky site; hence the presence of a fort, a temple, and a settlement.\n\nConditions must have deteriorated in the Chu Kong estuary some sixty years after the return of Ch'ing control in 1669, for we hear of the garrisoning and reinforcement of troops in Tai Yu Shan in 1730 to shore up existing coastal defences there. \"In the 7th year of Yung Cheng (1730) forts were constructed on two hills, to deploy garrisons for their defence and to reinforce the troops garrisoning Tai Yu Shan, thus forming an angle similar to that made by the horns of an ox, to serve the exterior defence of Macau and the Boca Tigre\". The Kai Yik Kok fort must have been one of the two strong points mentioned, the other being probably the fort at Tung Chung. The analogy between the location of the fortifications of the estuary and the shape of an ox's horns is interesting. A glance at a map of the Chu Kong estuary would show Macau (in reality, the Heung Shan district forts) and Fan Lau to be the tips of those horns. Both these strategic areas cover the entrance to the estuary. The Boca Tigre (Fu Mun19) at the apex of the near-isosceles triangle formed by these three points, served as the pivotal central fortification.\n\nWe know too, that the Fan Lau fort was designated as the administrative boundary between the San On District and the Heung Shan District on the other side of the estuary from Fan Lau. A map of the Chu Kong estuary in the O Mun Kei Leukaz depicts the Kai Yik Kok fort with the accompanying caption “San Heung Fan Kai” (***), meaning \"This is the dividing boundary between the San On and the Heung Shan districts\".\n\nIt is very likely that some of the fort's soldiers were allotted plots of land for their own use. Another interesting possibility is that the soldiers and officials appointed to preserve law and order came from the very ranks of rebels and pirates who had previously\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 205553,
        "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-1968",
        "page_number": 95,
        "title": "RAS-1968",
        "content_text": "90\n\nARMANDO M. DA SILVA\n\nIt will suffice here to say that the exterior defence of the Chu Kong estuary consisted of a series of forts, customs-stations and guard-posts in the Lo Man Shan 老萬山, Kai Pong 鷄澎, Sam Chau Mun 三洲門, Ngoi Ling Ting 外伶仃, and the Tam Kon ## groups of the outer off-shore islands. The civil administration ruled from Nam Tau, the district city of the San On district. The military administration was centred at Tai Pang, on the western arm enclosing Tai Pang Hoi (Mirs Bay). The civil administration operated on a north-south axis, as against the east-west axis of the military coastal defence system. This is understandable when one realizes that the military could facilitate their control of the coast-line by establishing easy communications by water running the length of the coast-line from strongpoints on strategic head-lands and the offshore islands.\n\n3 For the Chinese characters of place names of some locales in the vicinity of Tai Yu Shan see map 3. For names of places within the present territory of Hong Kong see A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories (Hong Kong, Government Printer, 1960).\n\n4 So far as I know there has been no published study of this fort by Hongkong's local historians, except for a brief mention in one work which states that Kai Yik Kok fort was of Ch'ing dynasty date. Lo Hsiang-lin, Hongkong and its External Communication before 1842, (Hongkong, Institute of Chinese Culture, 1963) p. 172.\n\n5 The principal ingredients of this cement are clam and oyster shells which are crushed and burnt to produce slaked lime. The lime is then mixed with fine sand to produce a holding cement. Shells and fine sand are common to many local beaches and are, apparently for this purpose, used in lime kilns.\n\n6 San On Yuen Chi, kuen 22, under section on Coastal Defence reads:\n\n看復界後海絮籹寧而設險更捻周密雖今之汎地 及設兵皆與舊制不同而大嶼山雞翼角炮臺南頭 炮臺赤濘炮蠱最為餓要\n\n7 Fan Lau is also known as Shek Sun meaning \"boulder growths\", a reference to the numerous residual boulders at Kai Yik Kok,\n\n8 Luis Gomes, Monografia de Macau (Macau, 1951), a Portuguese translation of the O Mun Kei Leuk p. 70. \"No 7° ano de long Tcheng (1730) construiram-se fortalezas nas duas montanhas, distribuiram-se as guarniçoes para a sua defensa e foram reforçadas as tropas que guarneciam Tai-U-San formando assim como que um angulo semelhante ao que e constituido pelos chifres dum boi, para servir de defensa exterior de Macau e o Boca Tigre\",\n\n9 J. J. L. Duyvendak, \"Sailing directions of Chinese voyages\" T'oung Pao, vol. 34 (1938) pp. 230-237; and \"The true dates of the Chinese maritime expeditions in the early fifteenth century\", T'oung Pao, vol. 34 (1938), pp. 341-412.\n\n10 The district of San On (新安) was formed in the sixth year of Lung Hing (隆慶) ie. 1572-73, Fourteen years later, in 1587, the San On district gazetteer was written by Yan Tai-kon (縣太君), the District Magistrate. Various editions followed. The latest edition was published in 1819. This gazetteer provides the best primary source of information on pre-British Hongkong. Chapters (kuen) XIV and XXII deal with Coastal Defence. These are chapters of special interest to historical geographers.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 209257,
        "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-1981",
        "page_number": 160,
        "title": "RAS-1981",
        "content_text": "146\n\nWEI PEH-TI\n\nNavigation channels were so situated that the passage into Canton foreign ships had to take because of their deep drafts was well protected, Juan Yüan thought. \"The western channel of the Pearl estuary from Macau [where the barbarians live] to Canton is too shallow for foreign vessels because they have a deep draft. They, therefore, must use the Lantao Channel into the estuary, then proceed northward between Lintin Island and the Nan-t'ou Peninsula, straight up to the Boca Tigris and into the Pearl River.\"8\n\nJuan Yuan had found the military installations outside the Boca Tigris generally satisfactory. Fortifications inside the Boca Tigris, on the other hand, were found by Juan Yüan to be less than tolerable. Immediately upon his return to Canton, he sent a memorial requesting the Emperor's approval for construction of several forts. Apparently he was so impressed with the forts at Macau, especially Fortaleza da Santiago, built in 1629, that he copied its design for a fort on Tiger Island, situated at the entrance to the Bogue.\"Juan Yuan was proud of this fort, financed by the merchants of the co-hong to the tune of 60,000 taels, both for its strategic location and for its equipment.\"\n\nThe Co-hong (kung-hang) was a guild organized in 1720 by the hong merchants of Kwangtung and Fukien. It adopted a code of thirteen articles to regulate trade at Canton. After 1782, its members controlled the foreign trade at Canton altogether. Business firms engaged in foreign trade, the hong (yang-hang), as well as individual hong merchants (yang-shang), rose and fell during the era when Chinese foreign trade was confined to Canton.\n\nThe unique functions served by the hong merchants gave them certain privileges. These privileges carried with them certain obligations without necessarily exempting them from government prosecutions should they fall afoul of the law. Several hong merchants had been awarded honorary official ranks with all the attendant status symbols. In addition to subscribing to programmes usually expected of members of the gentry, these hong merchants had to assume financial responsibilities for other public projects during this period as well, such as coastal defense. Even more than the officials, they were subject to imperial pleasure and ire. The second merchant by the name of Howqua, also known as Puiqua, Wu Tun-yüan, for instance, enjoyed the honoraria of a third-rank official in happier days, including the status symbol of wearing the sapphire (clear, blue stone) button of the third rank on his hat.1 He had worked closely with Juan Yuan on several controversial cases involving jurisdiction over foreigners from 1820 to 1823. Even then,\n\n12",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m",
        "rank": 0
    }
]