[ { "id": 207049, "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-1974", "page_number": 120, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "114\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nTwo other famous graves are listed for the Hsin-an district, one of them dating from the Sung period and the other from the Ming. The first concerns that ancestor of the Tang clan who married a princess of the Sung royal house. The second is the epitome of the local uncertainty and danger that seems to have threatened its inhabitants down the centuries. This entry dates from the 11th year of Chia Ch'ing in the middle of the Ming period, but similar instances could be quoted from any dynasty. It commemorates two patriots named Yau and Leung who bravely resisted bandits and were buried together in one grave mound.2\n\nThe old records are useful for another reason. They help to remind us that the outer areas of the prefecture, such as Hsin-an, though of little general interest to scholars for their lack of history and culture, were important for officials in the scheme of coastal defence, a subject which engrossed the attention of many writers.\n\nThe importance of the islands springs not from their size or the number of their inhabitants, fields, boats or fisheries, but from their position on the seaways, commanding communications between all parts of the Kwangtung coast and the entrance to Canton, the capital of the province and the centre of the local and foreign trade for over a thousand years. They had to be garrisoned and patrolled in the days of sail because they harboured pirates and could provide supplies of food and water for pirate fleets and those of troublesome outsiders, including 'barbarian' Japanese and Western vessels.3\n\nThe reason for establishing the commandery at Nam Tau in the first Ming emperor's reign, and for elevating it to district status in the first year of the Wan Li reign was the insecurity of which local inhabitants complained and, probably the more decisive factor, the official emphasis on coastal defence in the twin interests of trade and internal security. A point that is often overlooked is that the seaways were far busier in the last century and before than they are today. European accounts of entry into local waters often mention seeing large fleets of fishing junks in the islands, and 1 KTKKCY 15/2. See also Sung in JHKBRAS 13, 1973:121-124. 2 KTKKCY 15/2.\n\n3 KTKKCY 30/3 states 'There were two kinds of pirate on the sea in the Ming period; our own robbers and those of outside barbarians'.\n\n+ e.g. Collingwood p. 16 ('As we approached the coast, great numbers of junks, with mat sails and two masts, appeared the high poops of which gave them the strange aspect of plunging headlong into the water') and Des Voeux II:204 (at Lamma Island.... there was visible a very large number of fishing junks packed closely together\").\n\nPage 120\n\nPage 121", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207067, "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-1974", "page_number": 138, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "132\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\nIn English\n\nAlabaster, Chaloner Grenville, The Laws of Hong Kong, 3 vols., Hong Kong, Noronha and Co., Government Printers, 1913.\n\nArlington, L. C., Through the Dragon's Eyes, Fifty Years' Experiences of a Foreigner in the Chinese Government Service, London, Constable, 1931.\n\nBaker, H. D. R., 'The Five Great Clans of the New Territories', in JHKBRAS, 5, 1965: 25-47.\n\nA Chinese Lineage Village, Sheung Shui, London, Frank Cass, 1968.\n\nBalfour, S. F., 'Hong Kong before the British being a local history before the British occupation', Shanghai, T'ien Hsia Monthly, Vols. 11-12, 1940-41; 330-352, 440-464. Reprinted in JHKBRAS, 10, 1970: 134-179.\n\nBarnett, K. M. A., 'The Peoples of the New Territories' in J. M. Braga (compiler), Hong Kong Business Symposium, Hong Kong, South China Morning Post, Ltd., 1957, pp. 261-265.\n\n'Hong Kong before the Chinese', 'Technical Revolution in 900 AD' and 'The Riddle of the Hakka', Hong Kong, South China Morning Post, 24-26th April, 1967.\n\nCollingwood, Cuthbert, Rambles of a Naturalist on the Shores and Waters of the China Sea, London, John Murray, 1868.\n\nCooper, J. T., 'The Mapping of Hong Kong' in JHKBRAS 9, 1969: 131-140.\n\nDes Voeux, Sir G. William, My Colonial Service in British Guiana, St. Lucia, Trinidad, Fiji, Australia, Newfoundland and Hong Kong, London, John Murray, 1903, 2 vols.\n\nEitel, E. J., (revised and enlarged by Immanuel Gottlieb Genähr), A Dictionary of the Chinese Language, 2 vols., Hong Kong, Kelly and Walsh, 1910-1911.\n\nFox, Grace, British Admirals and Chinese Pirates 1832-1869, London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1940.\n\nFranke, Wolfgang, An Introduction to the Sources of Ming History, Kuala Lumpur, University of Malaysia Press, Singapore 1968.\n\nFu, Lo-shu (Compiler), A Documentary Chronicle of Sino-Western Relations (1644-1820), 2 vols., Tucson, University of Arizona Press, 1966.\n\nGiles, H. A., A Chinese English Dictionary, Second Edition, revised and Enlarged. Shanghai, Hong Kong, etc., Kelly and Walsh, 1912.\n\nGroves, R. G., 'Militia, Market and Lineage: Chinese Resistance to the Occupation of Hong Kong's New Territories in 1899', JHKBRAS, 9, 1969: 31-64.\n\nHay, Sir John C. Dalrymple, The Suppression of Piracy in the China Sea, 1849, London, Edward Stanford, 1889.\n\nHayes, J. W., 'Cheung Chau 1850-1898: Information from Commemorative Tablets', JHKBRAS 3, 1963: 88-99.\n\n'The San On Map of Mgr. Volontieri' in JHKBRAS 10, 1970: 193-196.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 } ]