[ { "id": 206485, "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-1972", "page_number": 33, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "NINETEENTH CENTURY WATER-COLOURS OF CANTON\n\n27\n\na loss to them as well as to ourselves, from shells fired by the Navy\". On the other hand, Mr. Loch, Lord Elgin's attaché with the attacking forces, reported back to Lord Elgin on 5th January 1858 that \"by the bombardment being continued till 9 o'clock instead of ceasing at 6 o'clock a.m., as was originally intended, we came under the fire of our own shells from the ships\".12\n\nOnce Canton was taken, the Artillery company formed part of the garrison. The authors of the official history of the Royal Marine Artillery make no reference to the \"Jingal pic-nic\" incident, but do mention a sortie against the Chinese on June 2nd 1858, in which Major Schomberg took part. Col. Fisher also relates this incident, in which the British forces lost several men and suffered from the extreme heat, but again does not give the names of the officers concerned.\n\nFor the rest of the summer after the voyage to the Peiho (not mentioned in The Royal Marine Artillery), Major Schomberg seems to have spent his time amusing himself as best he could in Canton. In September the garrison was enlivened by the visit of \"poor Albert Smith\" as Col. Fisher calls him. Their visitor, who seems to have been permanently suffering from stomach trouble and the heat, was taken on a round of the sights, including the Honan Temple (picture number XXXIII), and on 12th September 1858, notes that he had dinner with \"Captain\" Schomberg.\n\nFisher comments that apart from horse-racing \"cricket was one of the first sports we introduced; and the Tartar parade-ground at the foot of the heights formed really a very good ground\". Major Schomberg was not much of a cricketer, and the \"Hong Kong Register\" for the 9th March 1858, reports that in a match played in Canton between two military teams he scored a duck in both innings.\n\nThe Royal Marine Artillery gives the date of Schomberg's return to England as January 1859, which fits in well with the date on the last of the paintings: curiously, there is no mention of his name on any of the lists of passengers in Hong Kong newspapers for that month, but this may be because he returned on a troop-ship.\n\nIn later life Schomberg went on to be Deputy Adjutant General of the Royal Marines. He was made a general in 1877 and was knighted in 1896. He died at the age of eighty-six in 1907.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210165, "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-1984", "page_number": 136, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "speaking particularly of the Hong Kong villages, stated:\n\n115\n\n\"The inhabitants, from our knowledge of their character, appear to be industrious and obliging... From all accounts they seem in general to have been very peaceably disposed; nor did they exhibit any marked approbation or disapprobation, on their transfer to the British sway.\n\n+32\n\nAnother officer, Captain Loch, described a visit to one of the Hong Kong villages, possibly Tai Tam Tuk which was removed for the last of the reservoirs of that name in 1913:\n\n\"The path now wound round a tongue of land to the left into a small dell, where there were a few houses built in a line. The patriarch and ruler of this community was standing foremost, ready to receive us. This universal custom of acknowledging the superiority of age has been recognized by us throughout the island.”33\n\nMcKenzie also mentions being entertained by a village elder ‘during an excursion into the interior' of the island.34\n\nThis civility and hospitality was apparently not new, nor wholly to be ascribed to the circumspection that was surely felt at the change of rulers. A guide to navigation on the South China coast published in 1806 quotes a report on Hong Kong and its approaches dated September 1793 which says of the island.\n\n\"You will be supplied here with almost every kind of refreshment; especially fish, hogs, beef and poultry. We found the Inhabitants very civil and were daily on shore at the Villages, and fowling in the interior parts of the Island (sic).\n\n+35\n\nSentiments of a similar kind relating to some years later, are contained in Sir John Davis' account of his visit to China as part of the Amherst embassy in 1816. Describing some Hong Kong persons, \"mostly fishermen\", encountered on the way to the Pearl River he added “To such of the embassy as were accustomed to the impertinence of the Canton people their behaviour appeared very quiet and civil.”36", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210187, "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-1984", "page_number": 158, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "137\n\nRevd Justus Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1865), Vol. II, p. 55; Robert K. Douglas, China (London, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2nd Edition, 1887) pp. 280-1; Juliet Bredon and Igor Metrophanow, The Moon Year, A Record of Chinese Customs and Festivals (Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh Ltd, 1927) pp. 314-5.\n\n26\n\nJ. W. Hayes, The Hong Kong Region op. cit., p. 210 note 87. A full account of the stakenet fishing is given in my forthcoming article on the coastal and inshore fisheries of Hong Kong Island and adjacent places in the 19th century and earlier, to appear in Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium on Asian Studies, 1986, Vol. I, China, Asian Research Service, GPO Box 2232 Hong Kong.\n\n27\n\nChina Mail No. 212, 8 March 1849, Witness No. 23 at the recorded Coroner's Inquest. Possibly also nos. 19 and 22.\n\n20\n\nA large scale map of Little Hong Kong at 80' to 1, in five sheets, showing the Old and New Villages and their fields (1892) is in the PRO of Hong Kong. In 1844 it was stated that the Wong Nai Chung fields measured 75.1 acres (CSO129/9807, p. 277).\n\n1\n\nIllustrated London News, 16 January 1858.\n\n10\n\nHong Kong Government Gazette, Government Notification 41 of 1860, dated 24 March 1860.\n\nRobert Fortune, Three Years Wanderings in the Northern Provinces of China (London, John Murray, 2nd edition 1847) p.17. He qualifies his remarks slightly, but the substance is as stated. See also his general very favourable verdict on the Chinese people at p. xv.\n\n32\n\nK.S. McKenzie, Narrative of the Second Campaign in China (London, R. Bentley, 1842) p. 160.\n\n33\n\nCaptain G.G. Loch, Closing Events of the Campaign in China (London, John Murray, 1843) p. 21.\n\n14\n\n35\n\nMcKenzie, op. cit., p. 163.\n\nDalrymple's Observations on the Southern Coasts of China and the Island of Hainan (London, 1806). After p. 20 in the text. This willingness to trade with strangers continued into the period of hostilities between Britain and China when the local people appear to have been very ready to supply the British forces and the civilian population with food and other necessities. Indeed this extended to such a degree that led Captain Elliott to state in one of his despatches to Lord Ellenborough, Governor-General of India, that the retention of Hong Kong would be \"an act of justice and protection to the Native population upon which we have been so long dependent for assistance and supply. Indescribably dreadful instances of the hostility between these people and the Government are within our certain knowledge; and they cannot be abandoned without the most fatal consequences.” Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, 3 vols, reprinted by Book World Company, Taipei, Appendix I to Vol. 1, pp. 650-1. See also pp. 241-2 for local provisioning.\n\n34\n\nJohn Francis Davis. Sketches of China, Partly during an Inland Journey of Four Months between Peking, Nanking and Canton, bound in with Volume III of his A General Description of China and its Inhabitants (London, Charles Knight, New Edition, 1845), p. 12. See also Wright and Allom, op. cit., \"The Harbour of Hong Kong\" which speaks of the \"innate gentleness, and disinterested hospitality, of the farmers and the fishermen of Hong Kong\".", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214286, "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-1998", "page_number": 144, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "107\n\nWEAPONS OF THE CHINA WARS\n\nRICHARD J. GARRETT\n\nOne of the remarkable features of the nineteenth century China wars was the ability of a relatively small force of European soldiers and sailors to overcome a numerically superior Chinese force. Just as in the recent Gulf War, where Saddam Hussein's dream of a 'mother of all wars' was shattered by high tech. weaponry, so one of the factors which made the difference was, undoubtedly, the vast difference in the military technology available to each side. It was not the only factor, but it is necessary to understand it to arrive at a clear picture of the China wars.\n\nIt is worth dismissing any idea that the quality of the fighting men was inferior. There are many instances of troops fighting to the death and refusing to surrender.1 Indeed, to the European mind some of these heroics seemed foolish, just as they could not understand why people committed suicide rather than fall into the hands of the 'barbarians.'2 Captain Loch R.N. remarks that \"I feel persuaded that, if drilled under English officers, they would prove equal, if not superior, to the Sepoys; they have greater physical power, greater obstinacy, and consequently minds that retain impressions with greater tenacity, and would be slow to lose confidence after it was once built upon the foundations of their vanity.\"3 It was not that the officers were cowards, as many of the Mandarins died bravely, but rather there was no conception of the need for the troops to be trained to act together as a whole. Mackenzie, an officer present during the first war, notes: \"As yet, I imagine that no field exercise and evolutions have been compiled for the use of the Chinese Army. Neither do the troops, as far as I observed, move in concert, nor do they make any formation in bodies.\"5 Although the Manchu armies had been an efficient fighting force at the time of the conquest, two centuries later they neglected to maintain rigorous training programmes.\n\nThe European officers, on the other hand, put a lot of effort into exercising their men. An example of this is recorded by Lord Jocelyn: \"During our stay in Singapore the seamen of the flag-ship Wellesley were exercised on shore, under the supervision of the commanding...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214290, "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-1998", "page_number": 148, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "111\n\nthough they also had some on their war junks. The war junks were of much smaller size than the large men of war of the British navy. Generally they only had one gun deck although they were beginning to realise that they needed to have better ships and Mackenzie1 records that a start had been made as early as 1841. The batteries of the various forts were not short in numbers of guns, and Mackenzie records that the North Wangtung fort mounted 167 guns ranging in size from 3 to 64 pounders. What they did lack was the ability to aim them efficiently. Their accuracy was not good, and Mackenzie notes: \"The carriages are also most clumsy, and owing to this they are unable to train the piece to bear on any particular object, but fire it off point blank\"17. It is, therefore, no surprise that they were no match for the European ships, or even the gun boats such as the Nemesis which only mounted a couple of 32 pounders.\n\nOne would have expected the shore batteries to have given a better account for themselves; however, even the batteries at the Bogue Forts were not well directed. Ouchterlony said of their efforts to dislodge a battery of howitzers set up in the middle of South Wangtung, an island well within range of the fort: \"...it will convey some idea of their miserable deficiency in gunnery, to remark that during all that time, although many guns in the southern horns of the half-moon batteries on Wangtung bore upon it, not a single casualty occurred amongst Captain Knowles' party.\"\n\n# 18\n\nAs regards field guns, the Chinese did not have much use for them as they were generally on the defensive. However, they did have an interesting variety that was mounted on a form of wheelbarrow, but these were only found in an arsenal and not in service. They also used gingals (also spelt gingall or jingal, from the Hindustani jangal), which is a large musket about twenty pounds in weight and when fired is supported either on a swivel mounting or by a second man. A photograph taken around 1910 by Leone Nani20 shows a large matchlock musket being supported on an assistant's shoulder, and specimens of similar dimensions, probably dating from the early twentieth century, were seen in the New Territories of Hong Kong in the 1970s by the author. Weapons of similar size (about eight feet long) but of more modern design were also in use at the time of the Boxer uprising (1900)21. The size of its shot varied. Loch22 observed gingals that required three men to operate and which fired a ball of about 2 pounds. However,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214295, "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-1998", "page_number": 153, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "116\n\nThere was a gap of nearly twenty years between the first and second China Wars. It would have been expected that, in this period, the Chinese would have updated their arsenals and have been able to defend themselves more effectively. Whilst, as already seen, this was done to a degree, they were not able to overcome all the problems. The biggest problem was probably the attitude of those in charge, which is so often difficult to alter in any institution, particularly the armed forces. Hence, in the second war the story was much the same, although the batteries at the Pei Ho river were able to repel the European navies and delay the end of the war by a year.\n\nIn conclusion it can be seen that not only did the Chinese suffer a great disadvantage in the technology of their weaponry, but they also were behind in training and discipline, factors which turn brave men into efficient troops. Obviously there is more than fighting to any war, and political, economic and social factors all have an influence on events. However, in order to gain a full insight into the wars between China and the Western powers, it is necessary to understand the military aspects. Fortunately the military men, like so many Victorian travellers, have left records of their experiences. This paper draws on some of those records and aims to put them in context with the development of weapon technology that was taking place at the time. The range of weapons being used by the two sides spanned centuries of development and their coming together is, in itself, a fascinating story.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Keith Stewart Mackenzie, Narrative of the Second Campaign in China, London 1842, p. 92 notes \"the Tartars making a most determined resistance, standing by their guns till the sailors cut them down, hand to hand.\"\n\n2 Captain Granville G. Loch R.N., The Closing Events of the Campaign in China: The Operations in the Yang-Tze-Kiang and Treaty of Nanking, London 1843. P. 107. Loch is horrified by \"old men, women and children, cutting each other's throats, and drowning themselves by the dozen.\"\n\n3 Loch R.N., op. cit., p. 113.\n\n4 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 62 notes \"for both (Admiral) Kwan and his second in command, fell by bayonet wounds received in their breasts, whilst gallantly", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214851, "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-1999", "page_number": 266, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "233\n\nEssays and Notes (London, John Murray, 1865)\n\n[same] China, During the War and Since the Peace (London, Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 2 vols., 1852)\n\nCaptain Arthur Cunynghame, An Aide-de-Camp's Recollections of Service in China (London, 2 vols, 1844)\n\nK.S. Mackenzie, Narrative of the Second Campaign in China (London, 1842)\n\nGranville G. Loch, The Closing Events of the Campaign in China (London, 1843)\n\nAlexander Murray [Lt. In the 18th Regt. (Royal Irish)], Doings in China (London, 1843)\n\nLord Robert Jocelyn, Six Months with the Chinese Expedition (London, 1841)\n\n“A Field Officer\", The Last Year in China (London, 1843)\n\nArmine S.H. Mountain, Memoirs and Letters (London, 1857)", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 } ]