[ { "id": 204650, "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-1963", "page_number": 131, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "NAVIGATION ON THE YANGTSE\n\nUPPER & MIDDLE YANGTSE\n\nChengtuy SZECHUAN Chungking TID\"E 100 MILES 200 HUPLE H sichang Shesi 117 Hankow Yoshow FUNGTING GLAKE HUNAN Changsha 1104/2\n\nIt was not until 1878, two years after the Chefoo Convention was signed, that the first steamers went up beyond Hankow. In that year the China Navigation Company and the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company commenced a joint service between Hankow and Ichang. For technical reasons they were unable to maintain this service during the winter months of low water, and it was not until 1884 that a regular all-year-round service was commenced by Archibald Little with his small steamer Y-Ling, the other companies following suit a short time later. By 1901 there were twenty-two steamers running regularly between Hankow and Ichang, during daylight hours only, and it was not until 1920, after intensive surveys by the Chinese Maritime Customs, that night-time sailing was possible.\n\nA further section of the Yangtse was opened to foreign trade after China's defeat by Japan in the war of 1895, namely the 400 miles from Ichang to Chungking. At the same time Chungking and Shasi, the latter between Hankow and Ichang, became treaty ports. With the addition of Chungking to the list of treaty ports,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205143, "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-1966", "page_number": 99, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "94\n\nHOLMES WELCH\n\nI have not heard of other monasteries in China that had such wide-spreading or deep-rooted connections overseas as Ku Shan. It may have been unique. But it was extremely common for monks and lay pilgrims to go back and forth between overseas Chinese communities and the \"famous mountains” at home. Even at Wu-t'ai Shan near the Inner Mongolian border, one could find pilgrims from Singapore. In 1936, when Tai Chi-t'ao was on his way back from Europe, he stopped in Manila to lay the cornerstone of a new Buddhist temple sponsored by a group of overseas Chinese who, since 1930, had been serving as Philippines distributor for a Buddhist publishing house in Soochow. Here as elsewhere in southeast Asia, Buddhism was a link with the motherland.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 James Troup, \"On the tenets of the Shinshiu or 'True Sect' of Buddhists,\" Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 16 (June 1886), 14-16.\n\n2 Takada, Giko, Chusi shukyo daido renmei nenkan (Yearbook of the Great Harmony Religious Alliance of Central China), Shanghai, 1943, p. 10. I am obliged to Dr. Ho Kuan-chung for making this book available to me.\n\n3 Yang Jen-shan, Yang Jen-shang chü-shih i-chu (Works of upasaka Yang Jen-shang), Peking, 1923, 1:5. This temple appears to have gone out of existence at some later date, since the Nanking branch of Honganji mentioned by Takada (see preceding note) was set up in 1938. A Japanese temple in Changsha was noted by Hackmann in 1911 (German Scholar in the East, London, 1914, p. 108). This is also unlisted by Takada.\n\n4. Franke, “Die Propaganda des japanischen Buddhismus in China”, Ostasiatische Neubildungen, Hamburg, 1911, p. 159. This article by Franke is the source of most of the information given in the text, pp. 2-4.\n\n5 This episode is also referred to in Yin-shun, T'ai-hsü tashih nien-p'u, Hong Kong, 1950, p. 35-36, where thirteen monasteries in Hangchow alone were said to have become affiliated with the Honganji. More investigation is needed.\n\n6 Takada, p. 14.\n\n7 There were twenty-six Chinese delegates, according to Yin-shun, T'ai-hsü, p. 203. The official head of the Chinese delegation and Chinese vice-chairman of the conference was Tao-chieh, under whom T'ai-hsü had studied twenty years before (Yin-shun, T'ai-hsü, p. 26 ff). T'ai-hsü may be pardoned, perhaps, for giving people the impression that he was himself the chief of the delegation. (See, for example, Young East 1.6 (November 8, 1925), 177; T'ai-hsü Lectures on Buddhism, Paris, 1928, p. 14,\n\n8 Young East 1.6 (November 8, 1925), 179-180.\n\n9 This and other information given here on the East Asian Buddhist Conference comes largely from Young East 1.6 (November 8, 1925), 176-177.\n\n10 Tokiwa Daijo, Shina bukkyo shiseki kinen shu (Buddhist Monuments in China, Memorial Collection), Tokyo, 1931, p. 203.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205144, "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-1966", "page_number": 100, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "FOREIGN RELATIONS OF BUDDHISM\n\n11 Yin-shun, T'ai-hsü, p. 213.\n\n12 Eastern Buddhist 3.2 (July-September, 1924), 190.\n\n95\n\n13 Chinese lay devotees went to Japan to learn Tantric Buddhism from Shingon masters. Chinese monks went for academic study (two in 1936 and two more in early 1937; see Chinese Year Book 1937, Shanghai, 1937, p. 73.\n\n14 That is, the Chung-jih fo-chiao hui. At about the same time the Sino-Japanese Tantric Association (Ching-jih mi-chiao hui) was established. See Chinese Year Book 1937, p. 73.\n\n15 Takada, p. 14.\n\n16 Takada, p. 24-36, lists a total of eleven temples established between 1876 and 1937, but on p. 14 he speaks of ten temples having been set up before 1937 and of forty-nine (not forty-six) being in operation as of December, 1942. It seems clear that he does not include temples that have gone out of operation, like those in Nanking and Changsha (see note 2), and possibly those in Fukien. The only temple outside Shanghai that survived from the era before 1937 was the Honganji temple in Hankow, established 1906, which in 1942 had 1,200 Japanese and 150 Chinese parishioners.\n\n17 For example, in 1942 at the original Honganji temple in Shanghai the number of Japanese parishioners was 4,930 and the number of Chinese was zero. This temple was obviously not engaged in missionary work, but exclusively in serving the Japanese community.\n\n18 Two officers of the Ching-an Ssu in Shanghai are said to have been arrested and in Canton the abbot of the Liu-jung Ssu, T'ieh-ch'an, was executed.\n\n19 H. G. Quaritch Wales, \"Buddhism As an Instrument of Japanese Propaganda\" Free World 5.5 (May 1943), 428.\n\n20 Takada, p. 1, states that the alliance was set up in April 1937 in accordance with the policy formulated in October 1938. Perhaps the first date is a misprint.\n\n21 Takada, pp. 1, 4, 5. The changes in the bureaucratic status of the Great Harmony Religious Alliance appear to have been as follows. After being set up under the military authorities, it was transferred to the liaison office of the Central China Liaison Office of the Office for the Resurgence of Asia (Koain), which had been set up in December 1938 directly under the Cabinet in order to formulate policy on and handle relations with China. In April 1942 the Alliance was placed under the supervision of the Foreign Ministry through its representatives in Shanghai. In November 1942 it seems to have been returned to the Office for the Resurgence of Asia, when the latter was integrated into the Ministry for Great East Asian Co-Prosperity.\n\n22 Takada, pp. 24-36.\n\n23 The most significant absentee was Yüan-ying, the national head of the Chinese Buddhist Association (Shanghai, 1929).\n\n24 H. Hackmann, A German Scholar in the East, pp. 118-119. John Blofeld, who visited Wu-t'ai Shan in 1937, describes a monastery with several hundred monks where \"the main pavilion... was arranged in the Chinese way, but many services were held in a smaller building where purely Tibetan rites were performed\" (Jewel in the Lotus, London, 1948, p. 97).\n\n25 Fa-p'u, a disciple of Ta-yung, is stated to have reached Lhasa and earned a ko-hsi degree. Yin-shun, T'ai-hsü, p. 17.\n\n26 Chinese Year Book 1937 (Shanghai, 1937), p. 73.\n\n27 Shirob Jaltso, for example, was a member of the People's Political Council (1938-1949); an alternate member of the Kuomintang Sixth Super-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205948, "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-1970", "page_number": 28, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "MORE ON THE YUNG-LO TA-TIEN\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY OF IMPORTANT WORKS CONSULTED\n\nMing shih-lu (Taiwan ed., 1962-66), Tai-tsung 0393, 0627, 1016;\n\nShih-tsung 8413; Mu-tsung 0204; Shên-tsung 5040;\n\nYung-lo ta-tien mu-lu (Peking 1960), preface;\n\nSsú-k'u ch'üan-shu tsung-mu (1930), 137/3a;\n\nKuo Po-kung, Yung-lo ta-tien k’ao (Changsha 1938, rev. ed. Taipei 1967);\n\nWu Kuang-ts'ing, Scholarship, Book Production, and Libraries in China (618-1644), manuscript (Chicago, Dec. 1944);\n\nPaul Pelliot, T'oung Pao 20 (1921), 175-77.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207764, "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-1976", "page_number": 152, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "Tehgchuan \n\n甘肅 \n\nGANSU \n\nPaschi \n\nSHANSI \n\nSlau \n\n= \n\n成都 \n\nSZECHMAN \n\nCheng tu \n\nHUBEI \n\n重度 \n\n演练 \n\nChungKinE \n\nLushien \n\n贵州 \n\nKHEICHOW \n\nPichieh Kweiyang \n\nTali \n\nAnshun \n\nKutsing, \n\nTu yun \n\n下面 \n\n南庄 \n\nUstakuan \n\nPaoshan \n\n昆明 \n\nNactan \n\nKunming \n\n河池 \n\nHochih \n\nTUNNAN \n\n源涟 Yuinling, \n\n長沙 \n\nChangsha \n\n兴遠 Xingyuan \n\n○ 柳州 \n\nLiuchow \n\nKWANGSI \n\n湖南 \n\nHUNAN \n\nFig. 1. Map of China showing FAU Transport Main Routes \n\nA ROAD TRANSPORT SYSTEM IN WEST CHINA 1942-46 \n\n137", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207799, "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-1976", "page_number": 187, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "172 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\nshe was retained as the headquarters ship of the Royal Navy's Upper Yangtze squadron. \n\nThe Royal Navy had always maintained a strong presence on the river, since British ships commenced to trade on the Yangtze in the early 1860s. So far as the Yangtze was concerned, ‘trade followed the flag\". Naval ships were the first British ships to navigate the lower Yangtze, and continued to lead the way as British shipping extended its operations further up the river. As we have seen, H.M.S. Woodcock reached Chungking and beyond to Suifu a few months before the Pioneer made the first successful commercial passage of the Upper Yangtze. By the mid 1920s, when British shipping had reached its peak there, the Royal Navy's Yangtze Squadron consisted primarily of six general purpose gunboats of the \"Insect\" class based on Hankow. These had been built originally for service against the Turks on the Tigris and Euphrates in World War 1. Each carried fifty-four officers and men, and had two six-inch guns, and they were powerful little ships in flat country. For the Upper River there were several smaller ships of the \"Bird class\", which carried twenty-six or thirty-one men. Two operated on the Tungting Lake and on the Siang River to Changsha, and another two on the Upper Yangtze to Chungking, with occasional trips to Suifu. In the high water season the \"Insect\" class ships could also operate on the Upper River. \n\nThis force was commanded by the Rear-Admiral, Yangtze, at Hankow, who came under the overall command of the Commander-in-Chief of the British naval forces in the Far East at Hong Kong. The Yangtze Squadron, therefore, consisted of about 500 officers and could be quickly reinforced from Shanghai and Hong Kong if necessary. It was also possible for a 10,000 ton cruiser to reach Hankow in the high water season. The Royal Navy was frequently called on to protect British ships and British interests on the Yangtze, sometimes against rebels, pirates, war lords, or threats from other foreign powers. The term 'gunboat diplomacy' probably originated from the operations of the Royal Navy on the China coast and on the Yangtze. \n\nThe most notable naval occasion on the Yangtze, since the First China War of 1839-42, was the Wanhsien Incident of 1926. This originated in the refusal of the captain of the China Navigation Company's Wanliu to carry soldiers of Yung Lin, one of the war", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207934, "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-1976", "page_number": 322, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "In Tibet \n\nKidling \n\nChength \n\nZE – CHUAN \n\nMin \n\nSulfu \n\n1 \n\nNAUTICAL MILES \n\n50 \n\nWANHSIEN \n\n100 \n\n150 \n\n\"wanting \n\nWind box Gorge B.B \n\nDasually. \n\nFam \n\n(Rapid) \n\n \n |chaug sh \n \n\nCHUNG KING \n\nTOP RIVER. \n\n105* \n\n \n t \n K WEI \n \n \n CHAU \n F \n 1 \n \n\nNote: \n\n \n CHANG \n 1 \n \n \n T \n 1 \n \n\nHU - P \n\nICHANG $7 \n\nShast gl \n\nHANKOW 18t2 \n\nYoshow 1896! \n\nTungling LAKE \n\nANHUI \n\n-Maturg Bluff. \n\nTRIANG \n\nPOYANG LAKE \n\n \n I \n Hu- \n \n \n NAN \n F \n \n \n CHANGSHA 17H \n KIA \n \n \n Siantan \n \n\nWPPER \n\nRIVER \n\n \n 1 \n Кал \n \n\nNanchang \n\n \n SI \n \n\nMIDDLE RIVER. \n\nYANGTZE RIVER \n\nLOWER RIVER \n\nKiangsu \n\nCANAL \n\n \n 122 \n 35 \n \n\nYELLOW \n\nSEA \n\n1899/NANKING \n\n•Chanklang isiz \n\nWUHU 1877 \n\nTAI \n\n \n Hu \n \n\nSoochun \n\n \n | SHANGHA \n \n\nHangchun 1897 \n\n \n 181 \n 30 \n \n\nNINGPO \n\nCHEH XIANG \n\n \n 120* \n 115* \n \n\nThis and the other sketch-map/chart overleaf supplied by Mr. A. D. Blue and original sources are gratefully acknowledged \n\nEASTERN \n\nSEA", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208326, "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": 50, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "34\n\nRICHARD J. SMITH\n\n1 Throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century, informed Western observers repeatedly pointed to the lack of a modern, Western-trained officer corps as the key deficiency of the Chinese army. See, for example, Mary Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism (New York, 1967), 201; Major A. E. J. Cavendish, \"The Armed Strength of China,” Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, 42.244 (June, 1898), 720-722; NCH, July 6, 1880; Chinese Times, December 3, 1887; etc. For an interesting and informative discussion of officer education in the West, consult Correlli Barnett, \"The Education of Military Elites,\" Journal of Contemporary History, 2.3 (July, 1967).\n\n2 Cited in Chang Chung-li, The Chinese Gentry (Seattle, 1955), 174.\n\n3 Helmutt Wilhelm, \"Chinese Confucianism on the Eve of the Great Encounter,\" in Marius Jansen, ed., Changing Japanese Attitudes Toward Modernization (Princeton, 1965), 288-289.\n\n4 Etienne Zi, Pratique des examens militaires en Chine (Shanghai, 1896), 111-112. For other critiques of the traditional military examinations, see Chang Chung-li, 181, 187-190; William Ayers, Chang Chih-tung and Educational Reform in China (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), 178-182; Ichisada Miyazaki, China's Examination Hell (New York and Tokyo, 1976), chapter 8.\n\n5 Richard J. Smith, \"Chinese Military Institutions in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, 1850-1860,\" Journal of Asian History, 8.2 (1974), 128.\n\n6 Hsieh Pao Chao, The Government of China, 1644-1911 (Baltimore, 1925), 311-312; Chang Chung-li, 187.\n\n7 Cited in Chang Chung-li, 181.\n\n8 Miyazaki, 106. See also Robert Marsh, The Mandarins, (New York, 1961), 149-151.\n\n9 Smith, \"Chinese Military Institutions,\" 135.\n\n10 Wu Wei-p'ing, \"The Development and Decline of the Eight Banners\" (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania), 1969), 84-88.\n\n11 Lo Erh-kang, Li-ying ping-chih (Chungking, 1945), 199-200.\n\n12 Cited in ibid., 53.\n\n13 Lei Hai-tsung, Chung-kuo wen-hua yi Chung-kuo ti ping (Changsha, 1940).\n\n14 W. T. deBary, et. al., eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition (New York and London, 1960), 2: 9-10.\n\n15 IWSM, Hsien-feng, 28: 46b-47.\n\n16 Ibid., 28: 47a-b.\n\n17 Ibid., 28: 47b-49.\n\n18 Zi, 112.\n\n19 Chang Chung-li, 181 and note 69. See also Chang Pe'i-lun's reform proposals in 1889, YWYT, 3: 527-530, and Chang Chih-tung's in 1898, Ayers, 178-182.\n\n20 Ralph Powell, The Rise of Chinese Military Power 1895-1912 (Princeton, 1955), 93.\n\n21 Smith, \"Chinese Military Institutions,\" 150-156; see also Wang Erh-min, Huai-chün chik (Taipei, 1967) 191-193, 207-208.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212202, "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-1990", "page_number": 144, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "121\n\nday to Changsha. The capital of Hunan, the province with a long history of anti-foreign fanaticism, is situated on the Siang river, which flows down to the Yangtze above Hankow. In summer the middle-river steamers come up as far as Changsha, but in winter the level over the sand flats where the river passes through the Tung Ting lake, near its mouth, is so shallow that even the specially designed river gunboats cannot pass. One British gunboat generally wintered at Changsha.\n\nThere was no concession, and in the course of time the foreign community had congregated on a long sand bar, which made an island in the river, opposite the city. The few bungalows were grouped round the Club. It was a simple life with tennis and walks for relaxation. Normally Changsha connected with the outer world by ship through Shanghai, but now for over a year that channel had been closed by the war and the number of the foreign community, usually not more than a couple of dozen, was reduced. It did, however, include two British tank officers, loaned to the Chinese army, whom I had last seen in Nanking. They now depended for their supplies on the new railway to Hongkong. I left my car here and went on to Hankow by train.\n\nIt was nearly twenty years since I had last been in Hankow, years crowded with change, not only material but also intellectual. Hither junks from the far north-west of China, in Shensi Province, came down the Han river. From here they could sail a leg up the Yangtze, and proceed along the Siang river, until their mast-tops showed a view towards Kweilin. To the west, through the famous gorges, the small steamers fought the current to Chungking 700 miles distant; and 600 miles downriver, past Kiu Kiang, Wuhu, and Nanking, lay Shanghai and the sea. The railway in normal times ran north-east to Peking and south to Canton and Hongkong. On the opposite bank, a kilometre away, the provincial capital, Wuchang, showed; larger than Hankow and, across the Han, where that river made an angle with the Yangtze, the industrial town of Hanyang belched its smoke. Of the Concessions along the water front, only the French retained its status. The British Concession had been returned at the time of the Chen-O'Malley negotiations ten years previously; the German and Russian Concessions had reverted to China after the Great War, and the Japanese Concession had been evacuated soon after the Lukouchiao (Marco Polo Bridge) incident.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212620, "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-1991", "page_number": 174, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "154\n\nwas that of two Americans and an Englishman in April 1942. In the summer of 1942 a young American, who spoke fluent Chinese, hearing that he would soon be ordered into one of the concentration camps, walked up to the wire one night, crawled under it, and got through to the guerillas without previous preparation. Later still a small party of Russians came out. Then there was a gap until the summer of 1944, when five British civilians made a daring and successful escape from one of the camps, followed soon after by an equally daring escape by a mixed American and British party of military personnel, from another camp. The guerillas always gave the utmost assistance to those who succeeded in getting as far as their lines, sometimes at considerable risk to themselves. At least two parties, of whose attempted escape I received information, came to grief. The one loitered in the vicinity of Shanghai too long, while one of their number returned to recover some arms they had left behind. Through an informer the Japanese got onto their track; and, when the foreigners opened fire with their weapons, the Japanese are reported to have taken and murdered them all, including one woman. The other party was just unlucky and ran into a Japanese patrol; they were held for trial, and sentenced to long periods of solitary confinement.\n\nIt was quite impossible for the Japanese to prevent information from Shanghai leaking out to the guerillas. They were maintaining the fiction that the Wang Ching Wei government was in alliance with the Axis powers; under those circumstances the control of movement in and out of Shanghai, a control anyhow of great difficulty owing to its size, was left largely to the puppets, who were neither efficient nor loyal to their overlords.\n\nHongkong had fallen in December, much sooner than expected, and the sinking of the American fleet at Pearl Harbour, the full significance of which was not yet understood, had certainly not facilitated the defence of Singapore. Things were going badly for Britain; but the Chinese generals by whom I was surrounded never once made any remark which could be construed as a reflection on the British, or as evidence of any lack of confidence in the final outcome of the war. Such amiability was noteworthy.\n\nAt about this time I was joined by Mac. He had been one of a party of foreign journalists and military officers sent to Changsha to witness the results of the victory recently won there by the Chinese when they", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212778, "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-1992", "page_number": 87, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "72\n\nbasic elements of the social network and were such obvious facts of life that Chinese took them for granted and did not think of them as in any way unusual.\n\nThe Army of the Hsiang was an important Field Force raised in Hunan, especially in the area of the Hsiang River, a sort of counter-balance to the Huai River Army, raised about the same time for the suppression of the Taiping rebellion in the valley of the Yangtze and elsewhere. The Marquis Tseng Kuo-fan was the C-in-C of the Hsiang-chün consisting of Hunan troops which had at first been designated as the Ch'u-chün or Army of Ch'u, a name derived from the ancient state of Ch'u, which comprised the provinces of Hunan and Hupei, as well as other provinces including the whole or part of Anhui and Honan. The Ch'u-chün was commanded by Tso Tsung-t'ang. The Hsiang Army was divided into several army corps or divisions, each numbering from ten to twenty, or even thirty battalions each of five hundred men. Each corps had a distinct designation or appellation, derived from the locality where it was actually organised or from the name or part of the name of the commander of the particular corps. One corps however, the principal one, was styled the Hsiang-ying from its having been organised in the prefecture of Changsha Fu on the banks of the Hsiang River. When more corps were required, however, the name Hsiang-chün was brought into use as with the Huai-chün, to represent all the corps of each army.”\n\nAlthough Mesny obliquely mentioned a higher command, the Ministry of War in Peking, regrettably he did not offer any information which would explain the subordination and chain of command other than telling us that the commander of the Szechuan Force, General T'ang, took his orders from the Viceroy of Szechuan and obtained supplies and funding, when they were forthcoming, from the Szechuanese provincial authorities in Ch'eng-tu.\n\nThe plan now was for the main body of the Ko-i Brigade to advance and occupy the city of Chung-an [Szu] on the Chung-an River by way of Ta-ngai and Chung-pai (later renamed Chung-sheng), whilst another element of the brigade would advance and occupy Huang-p'ing Hsin-chou [New Town].\n\nThe advance began on 18 March 1869. Several days later Chung-an had been occupied and fortified, as had Huang-p'ing New Town. Chung-an was overlooked by hills and mountains occupied by", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213775, "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-1996", "page_number": 127, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "98\n\nreceived.\" There were unsuccessful attempts by a county magistrate to eliminate these and other customs relating to belief in sorcerers and shamans. The practice is also mentioned, as prechang dushui, in the Third Gazetteer of Yongan County, compiled about 1822, which gives very slightly more but very useful information. It mentions that \"those ordained\", again, \"were given white [ordination] certificates and yellow [celestial] mandate”, and, in addition, “slaughtered animal for sacrifice for the rite of Fengchao\". Similarly the Changle County Gazetteer of about 1845 mentioned very briefly the practice, as, again, jrechang dushui,22\n\nWe cannot preclude the possibility that the Hakka ordination actually amount to initiation to the practice of magic as in the Yao case, as the Xueshan Gazetteer mentioned that men in Kaijian “like to study to be a sorcerer.21\n\nThe Tradition of Lü Shan and Mao Shan\n\nThe Hakka and the Yao were ordained under a religious tradition distinct from Daoism and Buddhism which may be called the Lu Shan tradition. Popular traditions of “Daoist\" ritual experts of Fujian, Guangdong Cantonese and Hakka, and the Yao had in common the Lu Shan Jiu Lang, his disciples and a Wang Tai Mu which is often confused with the Daoist goddess Wang Mu. The canonical Daoist gods appear to have been incorporated at a time later than Southern Song dynasty, while the characteristic group of gods still occupies a central position.\n\nProbably the earliest mention of the Lu Shan Jiu Lang's tradition is a passage about the wuze's (\"sorcerers\") magic / method of exorcism from the Southern Song dynasty which gave the names of Lu Shan Jiu Lang, his successors and predecessors. The passage is in the Sayings of Bai Yuchan,25 the famous Daoist who was active in Guangdong, Jiangxi, Jiejiang and Fujian around 1220. Bai is obviously talking about something that had begun before his time, as he mentioned several names of these \"sorcerer's magic” that existed \"in the past\". The account began, curiously, with The King of Sha Tan, which can be interpreted by a sinicization of Satan. The magic originated with the King of Satan, who passed it to the King of Pan Gu, who in turn passed it to the King of Asura, who in turn passed it to a Wei Tou Shi Wang,26 King of Changsha, Tou To Wang, Lu Shan Jiu Lang, Meng Shan Ji", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213776, "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-1996", "page_number": 128, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "99\n\nLang, Heng Shan Shi Lang, Zhao Hou San Lang, Zhang Zhao Er Lang, and \"countless others\"\n\n17\n\nOnly the Lü Shan Jiu Lang, Zhao Hou San Lang and Zhang Zhao Er Lang are found in the Cantonese and Hakka ritual specialists' manuals, and Yao ritual manual from Qujiang County, Guangdong and Guangxi Province. But their predecessors, however unlikely, were not invented by Bai Yuchan or his disciples. We do see mention of the King of Asura, Tou To Wang, and Changsha Wang in a Yao manual from Liannan. The King of Asura as a major god is not one would expect in a Chinese context as the Buddhist (as well as the Hindu) consider Asura \"powerful demons\", although the same gods represents good in Persian mythology. Interestingly, there were some gods whose native place was what could be sinicization of Persia in the Liannan document.\n\nThe gods Zhao Hou San (3) Lang and Zhang Zhao Er (2) Lang appeared in the Yao ritual manuals from Qujiang county and in a slightly altered form in excerpts from Guangxi Province. They were featured together with Lu Shan Jiu Lang in the local Cantonese priestly tradition. The latter has a manual entitled Daojiao Yuanliu (“The Origin of Daoism”) (NJYL) which is a handbook on both the style of rituals with the Lü Shan Jiu Lang and the Wang Tai Mu in a central position, and another style more closely related to the Canonical tradition. In the Taiwan and Fujian case, the connection with Lu Shan Jiu Lang was mentioned in the hagiography of Chen Jinggu, a goddess central to one school of the Taiwanese ritual experts as well as the local Cantonese and Hakka ritual specialists. Although there are many versions of her story, they agree that she lived during the Five Dynasties period, in Fujian. According to the Ming work San Jiao Yuanliu Shou Shen Da Chuan, believed to be the work of popular authors of Fujian, She was a disciple of Lu Shan Jiu Lang. The book illustrates the entry with a man in Daoist garment holding a cow's horn, the latter being one of the objects common to the local Hakka and Cantonese and the Taiwanese \"popular\" magicians. More recent versions of Chen's story named the famous Xu Xun who was accepted as the patriarch of a respectable school of Daoism, identifying Xu with Lu Shan Fa Zu, the patriarch of Lu Shan. Although this may seem a change in the genealogy reflecting change of alliance between different schools of magic, some Yao material suggests that the two\n\n14", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213797, "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-1996", "page_number": 149, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "120\n\n24\n\nН\n\nTou To Wang, Changsha Wang and various Muowang \"demons\" I have not consulted Shuton Yoshio eds. Yao Documents (Tokyo Kodansha 1975)\n\nFor example the Buddhist concept of Liu Dao, and the Asura was summoned by the Devil King to fight the Buddha in the Dunhuang narrative literature Buo Muo Branwen, in Dunhuang Brannen, in Tarper Shipe Shuju reprint, 1980, p 347 But in a passage of the Hua Yan Jin quoted by Hong MA,, op cut P. 1680, the King of Asura was among those summoned by the Bodhisattva to come to the rescue of those in turmoil\n\nBut Muowang \"Demon Kings' also featured in canonical Daoism in which They have been conquered by the Daoist gods and can be summoned by Daoist for protection\n\nEven then the Jade Emperor's native place, according to the same document, was \"Puo Xi\" which could have been Persia too\n\nSee Jiang op eit for Qujiang, and Hu Qiwang et al Bancun Yang, Minzu Chubanshe, 1983, for Guangxi Province\n\n\"See Lagerwey for the present situation\n\n\"The SJYLSSDC as we see now, a Qing reprint of the Ming book, has a passage that says Chen went to Lu Shan to study magic. But the next four characters do not make sense The crucial characters will give the master's name as Jiu Lang and can be found in reprints in a more recent series A Ming version reprint of the same book, under the title of Sanpao Yuanliu Shengdi Faozu Shoushen Dachuan, in the series Zhongguo Mijian Xinvang Zijido Hunbuan, Taiwan, 1989, gets most of the characters right. Compare also Shi Shen, a Qing manuscript also reprinted in the same series that quotes a Zheng Shou Shen ji, the passage is otherwise identical with SJYLSSDC\n\n\"See for example Lagerwey, perhaps Liu Zhiwan also. Note the latter being account of practice of the Zhang Fazu sect, which seemed not to involve the Lu Shan Jiu Lang at all\n\nTh\n\nInteresting information is found in John Lagerwey was not mentioned, instead \"John Keupers\", \"A Description of the Fa-ch'ang Ritual as Practiced by the Lu Shan Taoists of Northern Taiwan\", in Saso and Chappell eds Buddhist and Taoist Studies 1. Hawaii University of Hawaii, 1977, p 83 This article on the Lu Shan San Nai sect shows, without saying so, that the confusion has multiplied as the priest has mistaken the pair Lu Shan Jiu Lang and Wang Tu Mu for Dong Wang Gong and Xi Wang Mu, two prominent gods in canonical Daoism, and by two steps of substitution (Xu Xun = Lu Shan Jiu Lang, Dong Wang Gong = Lu Shan Jiu Lang) identified Dong Wang Gong with Xu Xun\n\n-\n\nSee for example the San Jiao Shou Shen Da Chuan\n\nMin Du Wai Ji by den He Qiu, reprinted 1987 by Fujian Renmin Chubanshe\n\nYuan Hao-wen, Yi Jian Zhi, Reprint Beijing Zhonghua Shuju, 1988\n\n14\n\nALL\n\nOp eit pp 1181, 1429\n\n+", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213933, "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-1997", "page_number": 3, "title": "RAS-1997", "content_text": "From the Hon. Editor\n\nVol. 36, 1996\n\nAddendum\n\nConcerning the Note on page 239 of Vol. 36, SUPPLICATING THE DEITIES IN MAINLAND CHINA'S TEMPLES, by Keith Stevens, the author has asked that the following paragraph be added at the end:\n\nDespite what I had observed in Shanghai and elsewhere in Mainland China, in March 1998 I came across devotees using oracle sticks in two temples in Hunan province to seek advice from deities. One was in the main temple at the base of the Taoist Holy Mountain, Heng Shan; the other was in a large popular religion temple some ten miles south of Changsha on the banks of the Xiang Jiang, the major river flowing through the area. In both places temple staff sat behind a counter, with the devotees collecting the bamboo tubes from them and then rattling the sticks before the image of the main deity until one of the sticks rose up, thereby providing the 'lucky' number for the devotee who then collected the usual small printed slip bearing the same number and the relevant destiny or fortune.\n\nii", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1997.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/wp98g7579", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214318, "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": 176, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "140\n\nborne to Earth by the Celestial Immortal Tian Fei, to his apotheosis when he was about to be borne off to Heaven; he is portrayed in one scene preparing medicinal drinks and in another overcoming the flood dragon.\n\nA popular legend related in Jiangxi about Xu describes how he destroyed a monstrous snake which had been terrorising the areas of western Jiangxi. Another describes how in Changsha in neighbouring Hunan province he killed a dragon which had transformed itself into a woman and had married a local mandarin.\n\nXu Sun, according to Fitkin, had been a good and sympathetic magistrate and as such was regarded as a protective deity throughout Jiangxi province as well as among Jiangxi people wherever they went. According to folk memory he never took 'squeeze' nor would he tolerate corruption. He also threw the flood dragon down a well telling him as he did so that he might come forth when the iron tree blossomed. This well was in the huge Wan Shou Gong, a temple in the centre of Nanchang and though the temple was burned down in about 1916, it was [in 1922] being rebuilt at a huge cost and, as far as can be ascertained, no longer exists. Folklore claims that plague and flood, as well as brigandage would come to Jiangxi if there were no Wan Shou Gong in which to offer up worship and reverence.\n\nAccording to Bai Youchan [the Daoist Thunder Ritual master of the Mao Shan cult - ca. 1200 AD] Xu was venerated initially because, using water-charms, he had cured multitudes who were suffering from a virulent epidemic. Imperial patronage of the cult ensued in the 12th century AD. All his temples used to be called Wan Shou Gong as indeed his cult centre temple at Xi Shan still is.\n\nAnother legend, possibly a variant on the water-charms story, and related in neighbouring Anhui, claimed that Xu had been an important tea merchant. Tea brewed from his leaves not only quenched the thirst but also cured sickness and even prevented people from becoming sick. He was widely renowned for his generosity giving away his tea to the poor in the Spring for people to infuse and drink to ward off sickness. He was deified for such benevolence by order of the emperor.\n\nIn 1920 Nanchang was claimed to be unique in that it had never", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215305, "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": 82, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "30\n\nspring within the wider New Year duration.\" At Li Chun ritual acts signalled various agricultural tasks. The She festival was more timely in relation to actual agrarian operations starting up at this season, but rituals did not directly depict the cultivation of the earth.\n\nShamanistic activities were common at several ritual celebrations in the area under scrutiny here. A chronicler from Hanzhou Magistracy in Hanyang Prefecture says that the people along the Jiang and the Han18 love wu sorcerers and regard demons as important.19 Singing, dancing and drumming wu and xi contributed to the efficacy of the rituals in that they summoned the shen spirits. The mention here of both wu and xi is best understood as indicating that the shamanistic acts were performed by officiants recruited from both genders—but we cannot be sure. What kind of shen spirits were invited by their activities is, again, not clear. If in the singular, the word might refer to the She, if in the plural, it might have been spirits in general, or, perhaps, the spirits of the dead. We have seen above that sometimes the She was connoted with death and the dead. Invoking and inviting the dead—should that be the correct understanding—would then, no doubt, have had further agricultural connotations.20\n\nWhat speaks in favour of the former interpretation is a note deriving from Yiyang Magistracy (in Changsha Prefecture), but which actually refers to a practice of the third day of the third moon, a day called Shang Si E or 'Upper Si'. On this day there were splendid processions in the country villages by the She altars where people sacrificed to the du shen 'the earth spirit(s)'. Droning drums were prominent instruments in these processions. This was called qi nian—'to pray for the year'.21 A similar report, already mentioned and referring to the same day, is found in the records of Yingshan where it is said that people worshipped the She by jiao libations.\n\n17\n\nWe may note that there was another occasion for celebrating the\n\nAijmer 2002, Chapter. 15.\n\n18 Hanzhou is situated by the confluence of the River Yangzi (the Jiang) and the River Han.\n\n19 古今圖書集成. 1888. VI, 1130: 風俗考 1b\n\n20 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1142: 風俗考 2a\n\n21 益陽縣志. 1874. 卷 24b.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215306, "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": 83, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "31\n\nShe further on in the year, by the summer solstice, when people in Changsha Prefecture sacrificed to the She and provided the earth god with wine.”\n\nIn some places the She Day was also associated with visits to the graves of the dead. This was so already in the early Liang dynasty in the sixth century when the chronicler notes that there were sheng-meat-offerings to the dead on the She Day.23 A much later account describing Yuanjiang Magistracy in Changde Prefecture tells us that on the She Day and earlier, people suspended paper—possibly ritual paper stripes or paper money—on the graves and swept them. There was a maxim saying: 'For new graves, one should not pass the She; for old graves one suspends [paper] when thirty nights have passed'.24 In Wuchang Magistracy people sacrificed fresh things on the graves on the She Day of the second moon.25 In Suiyang the graves were decorated with twigs and banners on the She Day and there were ji offerings.26\n\nIn an earlier essay27 I have discussed the visit to graves at springtime in the lake area of southern Hubei and northern Hunan. Grave rituals were most prominent in the solar period of Qing Ming and seem to have been one of the cardinal activities in a grand exchange of visits and counter-visits between the dead and their living descendants. This ritual scheme of reciprocity over time was parallel with the agricultural year and integrated into the major structure of the annual progression of festivals. The graves were swept and cleaned, which paralleled the weeding and preparation of the soil in the rice nurseries. There were offerings to the dead of food, generally in some sort of commensality. There was a gift-giving combined with the insertion of bamboo branches with hanging paper money on top of the graves. These bamboos can be seen in the area even today. Gifts corresponded to sowing—the dead and the soil were closely related in iconic symbolism. These visits to the graves and the dead were later rewarded by counter-visits of the ancestors to their living progeny, which occurred on the\n\n22 古今圖書集成. 1888. II, 1142: 山川考 8b.\n\n23 沅江縣志: 1807-19, 卷18, 風俗 2b.\n\n24 古今圖書集成. 1888. VI, 1120: 風俗考 2b.\n\n25 古今圖書集成. 1888. VI, 1120: 風俗考 4b.\n\n26 Aijmer 1979.\n\n27 Aijmer 1964.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216058, "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": 357, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "291\n\n+\n\nIn early December 1881 Hudson Taylor convened an informal missionary conference at Zhenjiang to discuss the crucial and imperative need to increase their numbers in order to accelerate the pace of converting China. This was an on-going problem raised and discussed by Protestant missionaries across China down the years. The staff and language students from the Missionary Language School at Anqing, another city on the Yangzi, were invited to attend the Zhenjiang conference as were missionaries of the American Episcopal Church.\n\nIn 1900 Mr Absolom Sydenstricker and his wife were both Presbyterian missionaries living in Zhenjiang, together with their daughter Pearl who was eight. During the first months of the Boxer troubles they refused to flee, then in July of that year when conditions had worsened they were compelled to escape to Shanghai, to return a year later. Life for a growing young woman was fairly circumscribed with the white population limited to the few in the consulates, other missionaries and a dozen or so men working with British and American companies. Pearl left in 1917 to marry Mr Buck, an American missionary and academic interested in China's rural economy, at Nan Suzhou in Anhui. Pearl's mother died in Zhenjiang several years later and was buried in what was then known as Zhenjiang's foreign cemetery. In 1920 Pearl's father sold their house and moved to Nanjing. Pearl Buck spent in all some forty-three years in China, and her writings brought Chinese social inter-relationships, especially those of the peasants, to western readers, possibly the first to achieve a world-wide circulation leading to many a westerner's first fascination about China. She wrote many a book and chaired many a public meeting telling people, mainly in the US, of the enduring spirit and resilience as well as the wretched lives lived by Chinese peasants and of the threat from Japanese Imperialism. Her best known works include The Good Earth, and a translation of the Shuihu Ji, 'All Men are Brothers', one of China's most popular pieces of literature. Her parents' family house in Zhenjiang, at the present day address of 6 Runzhou Shan Lu, is now one of the leading tourist attractions, for Americans in particular, despite being part of a semiconductor factory.\n\nIn May 1905 Hudson Taylor, freshly back from recuperation in Europe, stopped by Zhenjiang on his way to Changsha, where he visited the graves of Maria [his first wife who had died there in July 1870] and his children in the little cemetery among the hills. He, himself,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216059, "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": 358, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "292\n\nwas buried there beside his first wife in the Zhenjiang cemetery when he died in Changsha a mere two months later. By the late forties, the cemetery had disappeared beneath industrial buildings.\n\nThere was quite a scandal about the Methodist chapel in about 1907 when, during an evening service, the whole congregation started to wriggle and scratch themselves. Many left hurriedly, and the preacher was almost alone when the service ended. It was then discovered that the Chinese caretaker had turned the place into a paying doss-house for coolies and beggars, and every pew was crawling with bedbugs and lice.\n\nMesny's Involvement with Zhenjiang 1863/5\n\nNow to an entirely different slant on activities within Zhenjiang. William Mesny was a Jerseyman who ran away from home in 1854 at the age of 12 and arrived in China in 1860. His autobiographical writings describe scenes from his diverse and exciting career in China from his earliest days as a lowly gaoler in Hong Kong, through his sailing days as a master on a small Yangzi trader, his time as an Imperial Customs Tide-waiter in Hankou, to the peak of his career serving with the Chinese Sichuan Provincial Green Standard army, ending up as a brevet Lieutenant-General. From there on, he was a self-appointed adviser to senior Chinese officials, travelling far and wide throughout China, and ending his days as an impoverished 'poor white' first in Shanghai and towards the end in Hankou, where he died in 1919. Although he had little to do with Zhenjiang itself during his time on the Yangzi, he was involved with others who had.29\n\nMesny, writing about his time on the Yangzi, first as a youth commanding a lorcha and then as a Customs Officer with the Chinese Imperial Customs, explained that on his first trip up the River, the comparatively short journey on from Zhenjiang to Nanjing took five hours with a call at Shi'er Wei, an important salt town on the northern bank of the river. An hour and a half before reaching Nanjing, ships would pass the Third Fort guarding the narrow defile under Guanyin Shan. It was there that in April 1862, Mesny was wounded and captured by a fleet of Imperial gunboats whose role it was to stop supplies of all kinds reaching the Taiping rebels. Mesny was sailing for Hankou from Shanghai with a full legal cargo, but to the Imperial gunboats, the 'Imps' as they were referred to by westerners, all vessels were fair game. Mesny", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]