[
    {
        "id": 215944,
        "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": 243,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "177\n\n3 xii\n\nThe whole plan was discussed with RAC North, Secretary for Chinese Affairs and JA Fraser, Defence Secretary who agreed. When Harrop went to Chongqing the first person she contacted was her old friend from pre-war, Madame Soong Ching Ling.\n\nMadame Soong was the widow of Dr Sun Yat Sen, founder of the Chinese Republic and a former Hong Kong resident himself, and graduate of the Hong Kong Medical School which predated Hong Kong University. When Chiang Kai Shek and his extreme rightist faction won the power struggle for control of the National Government, Madame Soong moved to Hong Kong where she and other supporters of the left wing principles Sun had espoused were able to operate with more latitude. She headed an organisation known as the China Defence League which raised funds in support of the anti-Japanese war effort in China, and had connections with many left wing liberal groups, both within China and among the western intelligentsia in Hong Kong and China. This organisation was effectively a form of interface between the KMT Old Guard and more progressive groups. Agnes Smedley, Rewi Alley, Anna Louise Strong and other westerners with strong contacts with the Communist Party under Mao Ze Dong mixed in the same circles as Madame Soong and her supporters, which included Sun Fo, Dr Sun's son by a previous marriage. Sun Fo himself, though he lived in Hong Kong, frequently travelled to Moscow, ostensibly for 'medical treatment,' often staying for long periods. The league did humanitarian work, organising aid for the millions of refugees in Guangdong and in Hong Kong. Percy Chen, son of Dr Eugene Chen, Dr Sun's Foreign minister and close friend worked closely with this aspect of the League's activities. Chen was a socialist and would later declare for the Communist Party. Significantly, FW Kendall had worked with the league in organising programmes to cope with refugees. He himself was something of a refugee, having lost his livelihood in the same Japanese push in Guangdong. Contacts between this left faction of the Guomindang and British people in Hong Kong of a progressive frame of mind were also significant. Hilda Selwyn-Clarke, known as 'Red Hilda' not only for the colour of her hair, but for her politics, was part of this group, rather than a member of the conventional, highly stratified world of colonial society. Her husband may have been a member of the government administration but she did not subscribe to colonial or establishment values. Kendall also worked with Selwyn-Clarke, as did his Chinese wife, who was to be one of the Selwyn",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216430,
        "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": 189,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "139\n\nunits were in league with the Hong Huzi, whose activity was always a factor to be reckoned with in the Russian occupation of Manchuria. The Russian Minister in Peking made forcible representations and threats of what would happen should China break her neutrality. The Chinese were frightened into withdrawing General Ma and his army to a safe distance from the point of danger, and the General received the most explicit instructions not to make any move which might be used as an excuse by the Russians for an armed invasion west of the Liao River. The removal of his army from what was the main centre of bandit (Hong Huzi) activity in Manchuria left lawlessness there with a free rein against their bitterest enemies, the Russian occupying forces.\n\nAs the Russian army found itself diverted to sending more and more of its garrison troops to stem the Japanese advance so the bandits grew ever bolder. Every night villages were attacked and robbed by marauders, who eventually even commenced to carry out petty depredations in a number of the native quarters of several of the major towns and cities along the south west of Manchuria. The Western residents of the foreign settlements became seriously alarmed at the prospect of what would in all probability happen when the Russian evacuation occurred and an interregnum ensued before the arrival of the Japanese. They formed committees under a major foreign dignitary, usually a Consul-General, to arrange for the defence of foreign life and property. During the interregnum the Russian settlement of Newchwang was in flames with swarms of Chinese looting the deserted houses, parading in the streets and waving little Japanese flags which had appeared as if by magic.\n\nBrindle reported that after the fall of Port Arthur bands of Hong Huzi deserted their guerrilla units and joined the regular forces of Japanese. They were sent north towards Mongolia and the market towns from which the Russian army secured its supplies, in order to harry the Russian supply lines.\n\nBandits serving with Russian forces\n\nFollowing their occupation of Manchuria in 1900 the Russians had mounted a major campaign to suppress the Hong Huzi and found themselves to their surprise at war with well-armed parties of brave Chinese and Manchu bandits whose knowledge of the terrain provided",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    }
]