[ { "id": 204379, "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-1962", "page_number": 11, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "Nevertheless the monthly meetings of the Society have been consistently well attended with audiences which often have more than filled this room and have averaged well over one hundred at each meeting. This regularity of attendance proves that there is in the Colony a reliable cross section of the community who appreciate what Professor Drake referred to in his inaugural lecture as the Study of Asia and our heritage.\n\nIn the earlier days of the Society up to 1859 when the Government of the Colony provided a home for the Society and its library it was honoured with the presence on its Council of the Governor, the Commander of the British Forces, the Chief Justice, the Bishop of Victoria, the Colonial Secretary, the Colonial Treasurer and the Attorney General, and it had the active support of the heads of the great merchant houses like Jardine, Matheson and Co. and Dent and Co. Although in these busier days we miss the successors of some of these eminent personages we are still honoured today by the patronage of His Excellency the Governor and the support of leading members of a more cosmopolitan community than in the earlier days. We particularly appreciate the keenness of the Hon. W. C. G. Knowles, who has recently joined the Council, and of the Honourable the Chief Justice whose athletic figure some of us recall striding along the slithery slopes of Lantao on the occasion of our archaeological excursion last year. We hope that this year we may provide a further opportunity for members who do not perhaps know one another as well as it might be desired, to join in a combined social and study expedition either to Lantao or elsewhere in the New Territories.\n\nDuring the year 1961 nine public meetings were held at which unusually interesting lectures were given, most of them illustrated with colour slides-\n\nJanuary 23rd\n\nJames Liu\n\n\"The Knight Errant in Chinese Literature\"\n\n\"Tibet As It Was (1936-1950)”\n\nFebruary 10th\n\nHugh Richardson\n\nApril 10th\n\nMay 13th\n\nMiss Mary Tregear\n\n\"Chinese Paintings in Formosa and America\"\n\nExpedition to Lantao to visit archaeological sites", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204978, "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-1965", "page_number": 86, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "PIRACY ON THE CHINA COAST\n\n77\n\nWest River, and which were stationed permanently on those rivers. These were divided into two squadrons, one for the Yangtze, and one for the West River, with a senior naval officer in charge of each squadron under the overall command of the Commander-in-Chief of British naval forces at Hong Kong. The officer in charge of the Yangtze squadron was called Rear Admiral, Yangtze. The assumption of this title seems to have aroused little comment from the Chinese, unlike the British public's reaction when the Kaiser called himself Admiral of the Atlantic a few decades later.\n\nAs old-fashioned piracy died out with the coming of steamships, a new kind designed to cope with the new conditions appeared. While some of the new pirates may have been recruited from the old, the new piracy required a knowledge of modern shipping practices unlikely to have been common among the old fishermen cum pirates. As before, however, the new-style piracy was most prevalent around Hong Kong, embarrassingly close to the headquarters of the anti-piracy forces. It was adding insult to injury when the steam launch Wo Fat Shing was pirated in Hong Kong Harbour in 1927, and $30,000 in gold bars stolen. The newspapers made great play out of such facts. Highly coloured accounts of pirate companies being established in Hong Kong along sound business lines, replete with boards of directors and so on, were common in the British and American press in the 1920's and early 30's. The rumour that some of these companies had attractive Chinese women in command added some spice to these stories.\n\nOne of the earliest cases of this new kind of piracy took place in 1874, when the Hong Kong, Canton, and Macao Steamship Company's small river steamer Spark was pirated between Canton and Macao.2 The Spark's captain, mate, purser, one fireman, and four passengers were murdered. The pirates went ashore in the ship's boats, and the engineers took refuge in the bunkers then took the ship to Macao. The Spark was only 133 tons burden, but she had over 150 passengers who had prudently taken...\n\n2 The Spark was one of the oldest steamers on the river. She had been built in New York in 1849 for Russell and Company, sent out in sections and assembled at Whampoa. She was sold to the Hong Kong, Canton, and Macao Steamship Company in 1870.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205397, "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-1967", "page_number": 159, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "152\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\nA CANNON FROM THE END OF THE MING PERIOD\n\nYour Honorary Editor has suggested that I write a short piece about the cannon recently found near the Sino-British frontier about twenty miles from Kowloon. I do so with some hesitation, as I have not seen the piece and it has probably already received some attention, including a translation of the inscription. Nonetheless here is my rendering of the latter:\n\n\"Weight: 300 catties.\n\nConstructed on the 26th September 1650 by the following: Wu, Superintendent of Inland Seas, Chief Military Commissioner, installed (?) as Ting-hai General,\n\nTu, Governor General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, by imperial order.\n\nFan, Regional Commander of Kwangtung and guardian of the imperial heir (?),\n\nHsiao Li-jen, Local Commander of military operations, Su, Chief of bureau (?), Chief of military commission.”2\n\nIt is of some interest to note that the names of Tu, Fan, and Hsiao Li-jen appear also on the inscription of the cannon dated June/July 1650, found in Kowloon Bay in 1956.3 So far I have not been able to identify any of these individuals, especially since four of the five are listed by their hsing only. Doubtless they would all have owed their appointments to one or other of the Ming princes who were trying to uphold the authority of the tottering dynasty. One of these was Chu I-hai (Prince of Lu), then with headquarters at Chusan, captured by the Manchus on October 15, 1651. Another and more likely one was Chu Yu-lang (Prince of Kuei) who at this date held his court on boats at Wu-chou. Canton, after a siege of eight months, was taken by the Ch'ing forces on November 20, 1650.\n\nThese, as may be imagined, were parlous days for the house of Ming. Not alone for the surviving members of the imperial family, but also for the local population and the foreigners in their midst.4 One may surmise that the casting of cannon in the summer and early autumn of 1650 was a singularly difficult and hazardous one. But cannon and their casting were well known to the Chinese in this and earlier times.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205614, "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": 156, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n151\n\nEnough has been said to demonstrate that East Point was not the Firm's first building site. This leads on to a further contention that it was not the original intention to site the main part of the new city of Victoria in the Happy Valley - though it is undeniable that that idea was mooted within a year or so and building did commence there after a very small number of individuals, most of them connected with Jardine, Matheson & Co., very quickly obtained grants of much of the best land in the area.\n\nHowever, one further circumstance suggests that the firm originally intended to have their Headquarters much nearer the centre of town than was later the case. Sometime in 1841, perhaps very soon after the sale of 14 June 1841, they obtained a transfer from a Captain Ramsay of what was then Town Lot 42, and there erected a large house of which the Canton Press caustically commented that \"on entering the harbour, you perceive the most commanding site, disfigured by a hybrid erection, half New South Wales and half native production, which is a foretaste of the architectural absurdities to be perpetrated on this island.\"\n\nBut Jardine, Matheson & Co. were unfortunate in their choice of this site for their headquarters on two counts. It was early decided that the hill to the west of the present Albany nullah (Garden Road) should be reserved for Government buildings only. Government correspondence was as early as November 1841 datelined ‘Government Hill’.\n\nThereby restricting the development of the town in that direction into the fairly wide and gently sloping valley behind the present Murray House. But even worse was the Military's insistence that the ridge and hillside to the east of the Albany nullah should be reserved for their use; this area covered the sites of both the firm's godowns and house. The house later became the residence of Lord Saltoun, Commander of British Forces in China during the war which ended with the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. The present Flagstaff or Headquarters House, built by 1846, now stands on this site.\"1\n\nThey were able to occupy neither building for long: early in 1842, Colonel Malcolm, Pottinger's secretary, wrote to them, extending an offer to compensate them for moving away to allow the area to be used by the Military. They would be allowed to choose marine lots in any part of the island not appropriated for any other purpose and would, in addition, be given $25,000 in cash for the buildings they had erected. They had, of course, no option, and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206652, "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": 200, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "194\n\nKEITH STEVENS\n\nin Thailand and at Nakorn Sri Thammarat. The few observed examples of his statue have all been in temples run by Fukienese emigrants, and probably the most famous statue is to be seen in Malacca in a temple run by Fukienese emigrants from An Chi county. (Plate 28)\n\nThere does not appear to be a standard identification characteristic for images of Cheng Ho. The Malacca statue is of sandal wood, carved some 8\" high, in Amoy style, depicting a Mandarin seated on a throne with his right hand clutching his girdle, his left palm cradling a flat elongated plaque of office or sceptre, which rests in the crook of his left arm. He is beardless and has the raised eyebrows so often seen on Chinese opera generals; he is wearing a military hat with one pompom on top, and a tassel hanging from each side of it over his shoulders. He is accompanied by two standing attendants; the one on his left a military attendant is carrying his sheathed sword, and the one on the right a civil attendant is carrying his seal of office wrapped in a red cloth. Alongside, on the same altar, is Kuan Kung, the Chinese god of loyalty and patron of soldiers, who is also the patron of Chinese businessmen. In the temples listed above, Cheng Ho has several birthdays and feast days, the most common of which is the 30th day of the sixth lunar month.\n\nOne of the many images on sale in a Singapore godshop, was another Amoy style carving of Cheng Ho, some 10″ high in wood, now in the possession of an English news correspondent. This image of the Admiral depicts him as an elderly benign man without a beard, dressed in gilt dragon robes, and standing with a fly whisk in his right hand and a scroll in his left. (Plate 29)\n\nCheng Ho in Java and the Philippines\n\nThe Admiral is held in the highest esteem in Semarang in Java as the Chinese patron deity of the town. It is said that he left behind in Java some ten men under his sick navigator, Ong King-hong, who founded the town of Semarang. Before 1724 a statue of Cheng Ho together with four carved wooden attendants was brought from China, and these stand in a cave near the town. During the British occupation of Java in 1945 the commander of the British forces recommended the Chinese of Semarang to evacuate the town for their own safety. After consultation with Cheng Ho, they decided\n\n11 Willmott, D. E., The Chinese of Semarang, (Cornell U. P., 1960).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206850, "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-1973", "page_number": 127, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "LEGENDS & STORIES OF THE NEW TERRITORIES: KAM TIN 121\n\nis called Lo Foo Ts'z T'ong (老虎祠堂), Tiger Hall. The floor of the cave is quite smooth with a lot of small stones almost like a mosaic. Though the actual site of the school is not known, old tiles have been found from time to time on the hillside, and one of these can be seen in a house called Cheung Ch'un Yuen (祥泉園) of Shui Tau (水頭) village. In the same house is a flower vase of interest that was dug up on Hong Kong island about 30 years before the British settled there.\n\nAs mentioned before, four of the \"five Yuens\" eventually left Kam Tin and founded branches of the Tang family elsewhere, and it has even been said that Yuen Leung, the ancestor of the Kam Tin branch, moved to Mok Ka Tung (莫家洞) near Shek Lung, but this removal is generally attributed to Yuen Leung's daughter-in-law, a princess of Sung dynasty whose story reads almost like a romance. She was a daughter of the Emperor Ko Tsung (高宗) of Sung Dynasty, who before becoming emperor of China was Prince Hong Wong (康王). The Tartars at that time were attacking the North of China, and in the 2nd year of Tsing Hong (靖康) A.D. 1127 they entered the Sung capital, captured the two emperors Fai Tsung (徽宗) and Yam Tsung (欽宗) together with both the mother and wife of Hong Wong, who was himself away in another part of the kingdom fighting the Tartars as he held the appointment of Tin Ha Ping Ma Tai Yuen Sui (天下兵馬大元帥), the commander-in-chief of all the emperor's forces. Hong Wong's little daughter was only ten years old and she was protected by her women servants who fled with her to the South. In the 3rd year of Kin Yim (建炎) A.D. 1129 they arrived in the Kiangsi province where Yuen Leung was district officer of Kung Yuen (贛縣) district. He was very zealous to help the Emperor and had collected together an army of soldiers, with the intention of marching North. Kiangsi was full of the Tartar forces, and the princess found herself surrounded by enemies. One day she saw the Sung flag over the encampment of Yuen Leung's army and she went to him for protection. She stayed with Yuen Leung, moving about with his soldiers, and eventually when he returned to Kam Tin he brought her back with him. He did not know who she was, as the servants had told him only that she was the daughter of a high official in the North. The princess found happiness and security in Kam Tin. She was like a daughter in Yuen Leung's house, helped with the household duties and was quite content. Eventually she revealed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207397, "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-1975", "page_number": 165, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n157\n\nIn the Colony trade went on and there was much talk of the value of Hong Kong to Great Britain as a provider of foreign currency through its commerce. The fine young men in civil life in Hong Kong, prevented from travelling to join the forces at home, like many others, found it hard to reconcile the argument in favour of acquiring foreign currency with their knowledge that a large proportion of the goods exported found its way to Japan. They were all keen members of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps. It may be claimed that our trading policy delayed Japan's entry into the war, but to many it seemed that economic and strategic considerations were at cross purposes.\n\nI came in contact with Indian troops in the Colony mainly in an individual professional capacity when my surgical services were needed, but I imagine they were subject to the same effects of garrison duty as were the British troops. Garrison duty has never in any army provided a satisfactory training for active service, and Hong Kong provided yet another example of the truth of this. Once the arrangements for manning the defences were mastered the Island and the New Territories gave little scope for the most ingenious commander or space in which he could exercise and retain the interest of his troops. This left sports to absorb, by no means completely, the youthful energies of strong young men. Many of these had been received as friends in families in Hong Kong, some had contracted stable relationships with women but many had little to occupy themselves when off duty. I well remember seeing men flushed from their games trying to get into the China Fleet Club on the Victoria waterfront. They were obliged to shoulder their way physically through the crowd of Chinese and Eurasian women seeking them as companions. Not all of these were attractive, but girls of these races are among the most beautifully shaped that, in a wide experience, I have ever met. Co-habitation with a high proportion of these girls led to venereal infection and some men sought satisfaction in their own sex. Alas, this did not safeguard them from infection. Another hazard was malaria. About October 1941 the army manned the defences in an exercise and following this a substantial number of soldiers contracted malaria and needed treatment in hospital. Before many had regained strength after the fever, the army was deployed during the phase which led to open war. I pay high tribute to the spirit and the readiness with which these men met the call. Everyone who was\n\nPage 165\n\nPage 166", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207514, "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-1975", "page_number": 282, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "274\n\nDONALD C. BOWIE\n\nand I doubted very seriously whether any prisoners would get out of Hong Kong. Having reached this conclusion it seems strange that one just carried on. I do not recall discussing the situation as I saw it with any other person in the hospital, for it was my job to try to keep people cheerful rather than inspire feelings of gloom. I suppose the truth of the matter is that with the blessing of work to be done it became possible to shut one's mind to the dark thoughts that crowded in.\n\nIn 1944 the effects of the blockade on the Japanese began to become evident to us, though after April 1945 when the hospital reopened in Kowloon our conditions were improved and my own depression and I believe that of others lifted very considerably.\n\nThe military situation was such that in April 1945 the Japanese expeditionary force in China which had recently been reinforced numbered about one million men, though by this time neither the training of the troops nor their equipment were good and their efficiency was not high. Responsibility for the Canton area was laid upon the Japanese 23rd Army which consisted of six divisions, two independent mixed brigades, two independent infantry brigades and the defence force allocated to Hong Kong. In May 1945 the 23rd Army was reduced from six to three divisions, but its task was still to hold Liuchow Peninsula, the Hong Kong-Canton area and Swatow in order to repel an American invasion.\n\nWhatever plans may have been made or even considered, our Official History contain no suggestion that an American or British attack on Hong Kong was contemplated in 1945. Lieutenant General Wedemeyer, the American Chief of Staff to Generalissimo Chang Kai-shek and commander of the American forces in China, hoped to have a force of 13 Chinese armies, each of three divisions for operations in the Hong Kong-Canton area. Wedemeyer's plan was to attack the Hong Kong-Canton area in the last quarter of 1945, and the assault on Canton was to be made on 1 November. Sixteen out of Wedemeyer's 39 divisions had American training and were fully equipped. None of the other 23 was either fully equipped or trained. At the time of the Japanese surrender 20,000 troops and civilians laid down their arms in Hong Kong. It would seem therefore that the battle for the relief of Hong Kong would have been fought between Japanese and Chinese troops. All operations of course were halted after the atom bombs were dropped.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207553, "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-1975", "page_number": 321, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n313 \n\nCheung could say nothing against the decision, but as far as the demarcation line was concerned, it is said that he had secretly petitioned the Imperial Government to be very careful in dealing with its (English) counterpart in fixing the Sino-British boundary. It is also believed that the boundary was finalised upon his personal recommendation.* As a matter of fact, the boundary ranged from the eastern part of the Kowloon Walled City (now the eastern side of Kai Tak Airport) to the western waterfront of Shamshuipo. From the physical point of view, the terrain to the south of the boundary is all flat and to the north all mountainous, so in terms of national defence it is absolutely a strategic advantage to hold the mountainous area. The demarcation then follows the present Boundary Street. It was completely beyond the General's anticipation that in later days the whole region of Kowloon was leased to Britain at the 24th year of Kuang Hsü (***) (1898) and the boundary extended from the Boundary Street to Shum Chun (M). [Actually to the Sham Chun river, south of the town]. \n\nGen Cheung once acted as the Commander-in-chief of naval forces in Kwangtung Province, and it was under his care that the Bocco Tigris forts (1) were repaired. Among the relics in connection with General Cheung's administration which still remain nowadays, there is a plaque inside the Hau Wong Temple (1£ §) at Kowloon City. On the plaque there is an inscription of four large Chinese characters which literally mean \"a good administration under your Highness' Protection”.† As quoted from the accompanying inscription, the general said, “As time elapses it has already been 13 years since I was appointed as the Commander at Kowloon in the 4th year of Hsien Feng reign () (1853).\" He also said: \"It is all due to your Highness' grace and instructions that security and peace prevail in the whole domain for which I feel greatly obliged. Now I have already reached the age of 70 so the time is ripe for me to retire from a long term of service.\" Judging from the two quotations above, we realize how humble and modest he was because he attributed all his achievements and merits to His Highness the Marquis Yeung. Apart from \n\n*This may well be so. His name appears as one of the members of the Joint Land Commission of 1862 for settling land titles in Kowloon: see PRO London, CO129/85, annex to Sir H. Robinson's despatch of 30th April 1862. \n\n† The reference is to the god of this famous temple the Marquis Yeung (#1) a loyal minister of Sung", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207555, "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-1975", "page_number": 323, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n315 \n\nWhen Yuk-tong was a boy, he sat the local preliminary examinations. For seven times he failed in these examinations, so decided to give up and joined military service, where he enjoyed a very good reputation on account of his accumulated merits. In the 20th year of the Tao Kuang reign (*) he led his troops to fight a battle in Kwun Chung ('È'). Later, in the spring of the 4th year of Hsien Feng (A), i.e. 1853 he was transferred from being a staff officer stationed in Chin Shan Checkpoint to Taipang City and was promoted to be Deputy Garrison Commander, with his headquarters in what we call nowadays the Kowloon Walled City.* \n\nHe held this post for 13 years, once acting as Commander-in-chief of naval forces in Kwangtung province. It was under his care and supervision that Fort Bocca Tigris (✯✯) was repaired. When the Kowloon peninsula was first leased to Britain in 1860 and Sino-British diplomatic relations were established, negotiations between the two governments took place frequently. In spite of the fact that Gen. Cheung, the chief officer in the locality, was unavoidably involved in external affairs, he insisted that he was only responsible for local defence and the garrison and thus had no authority for making any decisions on foreign affairs. What he could do was to submit himself to instructions from higher authorities. \n\nIt happened on one occasion that the general crossed the harbour to Hong Kong island, where he stayed overnight, and on the next day all the inhabitants of the Walled City set off fire crackers in order to welcome him back. It is, of course, beyond our imagination nowadays to realize just how excited were those inhabitants at that time, but we do have strong reasons to believe that the general must have been greatly admired by them.† Although the general himself was not known for his academic achievement, yet there was one thing of which he was proud in his later days; that is, that his grandson Cheung Ching-san ( ) passed with distinction in the local examinations. \n\nIn the 5th year of the Tung Chi reign (♬✯) (1866) the general retired from military service at the age of 72, and died four years later, at the age of 76. \n\n* His rank was which may be translated as brigade-general. \n\n† At this time Hong Kong was under foreign i.e. British rule, and (though the article does not say so) the visit probably took place when a state of war existed between the two nations. Hence the great excitement.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "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": 208320, "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": 44, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "28\n\nRICHARD J. SMITH\n\nagainst a more aggressive enemy.82 Furthermore, in the absence of strict discipline and competent middle-grade officers, the elaborate military evolutions of the parade ground could not be preserved on the battlefield, Chinese tactics were often absurdly simple, or outlandishly naive. One general reportedly planned to arm his men with bags of pepper to be thrown in the faces of the advancing Japanese, whereupon they would be attacked by spearmen.84 Chinese commanders were continually baffled by Japanese tactics, indicating a general lack of acquaintance with even the rudiments of modern warfare. A pincer attack by the Japanese, which threatened the rear of Chinese troops, was almost invariably successful. Even when solidly entrenched and well-armed, Ch'ing forces seldom held their ground for as long as they should have.85 Demoralization and lack of leadership were the root causes.\n\nAnother serious problem was the almost incredibly poor marksmanship of the Chinese in rifle and artillery fire.86 This problem was unquestionably related to inadequate training and discipline, and false economy in drill. During the war there were numerous reports of naval officers being thrown off the bridge by the concussion from their own guns, indicating either the lack of regular practice, the failure of superior officers to supervise gun drill, or both.87 The military commander-in-chief at Shan-hai-kuan undoubtedly spoke for many commanders in informing the British military attaché that he did not believe in musketry instruction for all his troops, since \"it was quite sufficient to have ten good shots in each ying [battalion] to pick off the Japanese officers.\"88 In the early defense of Wei-hai-wei, Liu Ch'ao-p'ei of the Anhwei Army resorted to newly-mounted quick-firing cannon only after two of his older, less effective pieces had jammed.89 In the absence of adequate leadership and training, the Chinese found, contrary to normal experience in war, that although they were on the defensive most of the time, and usually had numerical superiority, they almost invariably suffered much heavier casualties than the Japanese. According to one estimate, China lost over 56,000 men in the fighting to Japan's paltry 4,117.90\n\nAt sea the situation was little better. Although Admiral Ting, a former Anhwei Army cavalry officer, won the praise of virtually all foreign observers, the Peiyang navy proved totally incapable of contending with the Japanese fleet. At the battle off the mouth of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208547, "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-1979", "page_number": 4, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "THE U.S. AND THE QUESTION OF HONG KONG 1941-45\n\n15\n\nurgent consent of the United States Chiefs of Staff to detach a British naval force from the British Pacific Fleet to accept Japan's surrender and assume full powers of military administration in the colony.63 The Japanese accepted defeat on 14 August. However, the British Pacific Fleet assigned for service at Hong Kong, under the command of Rear-Admiral Sir Cecil Harcourt, did not arrive until 30 August. During this interval of a fortnight, the question of Hong Kong sorely tried the British government and placed the United States government in an uncomfortable position.\n\nHong Kong again became a serious point of contention between Britain and China. This time the argument was not whose sovereignty was to be set up but who was to receive Japan's surrender there. Despite the assurances given by Chiang Kai-shek on 16 August, and repeated on 24 August, that China had \"no territorial ambitions\" in Hong Kong and regarded it \"as a matter which would require eventual settlement through diplomatic channel\", the British Foreign and Colonial Offices insisted that Sir Cecil Harcourt receive Japan's surrender on behalf of Britain by virtue of her sovereignty over Hong Kong.64\n\nThe prime minister, now C.R. Attlee, appealed to the American president for assistance. Fortunately for Britain, Truman, who had assumed the presidency on Roosevelt's death in April, was in favour of a cautious policy. While being conscious of his predecessor's views regarding the future status of Hong Kong, he, however, decided to adhere to the \"recognition of the established rights\", although he told both Britain and China that such recognition \"did not in any way represent U.S. views regarding the future status of Hong Kong.\" General Douglas MacArthur was therefore instructed to arrange for the surrender of Hong Kong to the British commander.65 Again fortunately for Britain, MacArthur was known for \"his support for the cause of the British Empire in the Far East.\" In fact in October 1944 he had specifically expressed that he \"fully appreciated the need for British forces to recapture Hong Kong.\"66\n\nChiang Kai-shek, on the other hand, insisted on his right to accept Japan's surrender at Hong Kong as commander-in-chief of the China theatre. He was therefore most distressed by Truman's agreement with the British. To avoid embarrassing Truman, Chiang now suggested that the Japanese forces in Hong Kong should surrender to his representative in a ceremony in which both", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208586, "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-1979", "page_number": 43, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "16\n\nCHAN KIT-CHENG\n\nAmerican and British representatives would be invited to participate. After the surrender he would authorize the British to land troops for the reoccupation of Hong Kong.37 In a private letter in reply to Chiang, Truman reiterated that his decision was in no way related to the question of British sovereignty in Hong Kong.68\n\nChiang Kai-shek remained reluctant to concede the main point. However, he realized that he needed American aid in getting his forces to Hong Kong. Consequently, he communicated a further compromise to Truman on 23 August: he had notified the British that, as supreme commander of the China theatre, he agreed to delegate his authority to a British commander to accept the surrender of Japanese forces in Hong Kong.69 Although Truman regarded Chiang's concession as \"quite reasonable\" and hoped that it would settle the matter,70 it was not acceptable to Britain. While he deplored the Sino-British friction, Truman clearly did not contemplate taking further action.71 It was therefore a relief both to Britain and the United States that Chiang eventually accepted Britain's revised offer that Harcourt accept Japan's surrender on behalf of both Britain and Chiang as supreme commander of the China theatre.72\n\nHong Kong was thus reverted to British rule, much as the Americans, both in official and unofficial circles, had clamoured against during the Pacific War. Such clamouring, especially during the first half of the war, no doubt troubled the British and encouraged the Chinese. But, in the main, American wartime policy, if one can at all speak of a conscious and consistent policy, regarding the postwar status of Hong Kong had been characterized by much talk and little action. \"Hopes\", \"wishes\", \"opinions\", \"views\" were abundantly expressed to Britain, but little can be said of direct and persistent American pressure on the subject.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Author's article, \"The Question of Hong Kong during the Pacific War, (1941-45)”, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, II, no. 1 (October 1973), pp. 56-78.\n\n2 C. Thorne, Allies of a Kind (London, 1978), p. 156.\n\n3 Thorne, ibid., pp. 172-3, referring to opinions cited in the New York Times, the Chicago Daily News, and the Christian Science Monitor.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209584, "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-1982", "page_number": 241, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "219\n\nby their spotless virtues\". A claim that must have raised a few eyebrows.\n\nWhile the actresses were available, there seemed some doubt about the actors. Lord Saltoun, Commander of the Forces, noted on the 25 November 1842 that the Theatre was to open on Wednesday, \"But who are to be the actors, I have no idea. I believe some amateurs from the navy”.\n\nOnce opened, the life of the Theatre was short. Mr. Dutronquoy departed from Hong Kong quite suddenly on the 17th of December. It was alleged that he had to close his Hotel and Theatre under orders from the authorities and pay a fine of $500. This was denied by his agent who stated that the reason for the closure was because Mr. Dutronquoy had “received personal violence added to insult and abuse the preceding evening\". One wonders if the \"spotless virtues\" of the actresses may have been the cause of his troubles.\n\nThe next notice of dramatics is in December 1844 when a proposal to form a company of amateurs under the patronage of the Governor was announced. It was expressly stated that the authorities regarded the project as a \"protection against vice”. Little action took place, however, until the winter of 1845-46 when a group had been organized, a venue secured, and five bills put on between December and June at Aqui's Theatre in the Lower Bazaar.\n\nThis theatre had been erected some few months previous to the amateurs' first performance there. It was intended for Chinese entertainment, but, being available, it was used by the Hong Kong Amateurs even though it was in the heart of the Chinese section of the city, an area which was usually avoided by the European population of the day.\n\nLoo Aqui, the owner of the Theatre, was a leader of the Chinese community. It was alleged that he was allied with pirates but during the recent British-Chinese hostilities he had been very useful in securing provisions for the British forces. As a reward for these services he had been permitted to take up a number of lots in the Lower Bazaar, the area which was allotted to Chinese who had aided the British. On his property, Loo Aqui", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211244, "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-1987", "page_number": 305, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "280\n\ntwo of those that were placed in this region for defence purposes, and installed at Kowloon Walled City when that was built in 1847.\n\nANTHONY K.K. SIU\n\n1 Wu T'u-li #, White Banner Manchu, Acting Governor of Kwangtung from the 5th year to the 7th year of Chia Ch'ing (1800-1802).\n\n1 Chüeh-lo-chi Ch'ing, White Banner Manchu, Viceroy of Kwangtung and Kwangsi from the 1st year to the 7th year of Chia-ch'ing (1796-1802).\n\n} Sun Ch'uan-mou, native of Fukien Province, Commander-in-chief of the Kwangtung (Marine) Forces from the 1st year to the 9th year of Chia-ch'ing (1796-1804).\n\n4\n\nFrom the inscription, the name of the Commissioner of Salt Transport of Kwangtung and Kwangsi is illegible. However, from historical record, the one who was in that post was Zhang Ch'uan, native of Chekiang Province.\n\nHONG KONG'S OWN BOAT PEOPLE\n\nIn April 1970, I went with one of my friends to visit his mother who lived on a boat in the Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter. The friend was a boatman who crewed and looked after a pleasure boat for a European firm. He lived in a squatter hut in Chai Wan Cottage Resettlement Area.\n\nThe old lady belonged to the indigenous boat population of Hong Kong Island. She had been born on a boat moored off the old Dairy Farm pier inside the present typhoon shelter. This was in 1890. Her father had also been born there in a boat, and she thought this had been so for several generations: at least, this was the family's received information. Her husband had also been born on a boat in the area, and his father before him, and with the same family tradition of local identity.\n\nThis evidence is not conclusive, being based only on word of mouth within these two families of boat people. The grandparents might have come into the area upon the opening of the port in the 1840s. On the other hand, a pre-British origin would accord with many other cases known to me, in which Tanka boat people had attached themselves to small bays and local anchorages: by all accounts and certainly by their own traditions for generations, and perhaps even for centuries.\n\nT", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212253, "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": 195, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "172\n\nritual in her paper mentioned above. Her description is as follows.\n\n+\n\n*Indeed, actors may well be especially requested to carry out similar acts of exorcism on behalf of their clients, just like priests. In 1975 at Sai Kung, in Hong Kong's New Territories, a development comprising several modern blocks of shops and high-rise flats was declared open in an official ceremony, which included the (also symbolic but hardly magical) act of cutting a red, white and blue ribbon performed by a high-ranking member of the British administration. On the preceding evening the actors already engaged to perform operas in the town in connexion with a temple festival were asked to perform The White Tiger, and they did so in exactly the same manner as in the performance of the same ritual scene two weeks before. The sole difference was that the second performance was for the purpose of exorcising evil forces from the new buildings, which stood on recently reclaimed land where people had never lived before. In other words, the players were acting here as exorcists for the community, not at all for themselves: like priests.\" (Ward 1979:32)\n\nActors and Characters in the Offering Ritual\n\nIn Cantonese opera, the White Tiger ritual requires only two actors who play the Deity of Fortune and the White Tiger respectively. In Cantonese folk religion, there are five deities which are believed to bring fortune to people. The one portrayed in the White Tiger ritual is known as Jyn Tan (literally \"abstruse altar\") whose real name is Ziu Gung-ming and who is thus often called Ziu gung jyn sey27Ah (supreme commander Ziu). To distinguish him from the other deities of fortune, Jyn Tan is often referred to as the \"military\" Deity of Fortune.\n\nAccording to legends, Jyn Tan has a black face and black beard. He wears an iron helmet, rides on a black tiger and carries an iron staff and a number of other magic weapons. Besides bringing people fortune, Jyn Tan is believed to uphold justice and eliminate disasters.\n\nThe origin of the White Tiger ritual is still unclear though the\n\nPage 195\n\nPage 196", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212666, "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": 220, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "201\n\n# THE RE-OCCUPATION OF HONG KONG\n\n## IN AUGUST 1945\n\n### DAN WATERS\n\nIn May 1992, on a Royal British Legion pilgrimage to Italy to visit graves of comrades killed when my company fought there in World War II, I became friends with ex-company sergeant major John McLaren. We later exchanged letters and he enclosed comments by his stepbrother, a Fleet Air Arm naval rating, about the return of the Allied Forces to Hong Kong in August 1945. From Mr Roland Davidson's comments I have compiled the following. It should be remembered, of course, that recollections can become distorted over half a century.\n\nWhen the atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki both the American 7th Fleet and the British 5th Fleet attached to it were at sea ready for strikes at the Japanese mainland. Everyone was delighted that Japan had surrendered. As Singapore and Hong Kong were both holding out the 7th Fleet was dispatched to Singapore and the 5th Fleet to Hong Kong. We arrived quite quickly and American Admiral Bill Halsey lost no time in demanding the presence of the Hong Kong garrison Japanese commander aboard the flagship “Indomitable” on which I was a crew member. One of our aircraft, a Fairy Fulmar if my memory serves me right, was sent to pick this worthy gentleman up. After a short time the plane returned. I might add that our ship was still at sea in a state of readiness.\n\nOut of the aircraft stepped this very well dressed, debonair Japanese army officer who treated the armed marine guard as if it was his guard of honour. Admiral Halsey was none too pleased and called down to the flight deck: 'Bring that man to the \"island\" (the bridge) at the double!' Documents of surrender were placed ready for signature on a small table.\n\nWhen the poor fellow arrived he was asked if he was indeed the Japanese commanding officer. He replied in perfect English that he was in fact the second-in-command. He said his commanding officer had absconded the previous day. The second-in-command was rather arrogant and swanky, and smartly dressed in uniform with high boots which had high heels. Halsey ordered a marine to break off the heel of his right boot who then had to hobble around the bridge and across the decks to the amusement of the ship's crew. I never saw a man's arrogance", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212734, "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": 43, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "28\n\n[yun-yen].\n\nIn October 1874, at the age of 32, Mesny returned to Hankow from Kueichou with the rank of Major-General and, he claimed, an excellent letter of recommendation from the Governor of Kueichou, addressed to Prince Kung and the Ministers of the Tsung-li Yamen in Peking. In 1886 he was promoted to the brevet rank of Lieutenant-General.\n\nIn his autobiographical ‘obituary' in the North China Herald, Mesny wrote \"The confirmation of my rank as a Major-General in the Chinese Army with the decoration of the Kualing [hua-ling] Plume, the order of the Pa-t'u-lu and promotion to be Brevet Lieutenant-General, with ancestors ennobled for three generations, was published in the Peking gazette, and the documents handed to me by the British Legation officials at Peking, and by the British Consul at Canton\": His decoration, the San-tai Erh-pin Kao-feng, an honorary title and patent of retrospective rank conferred upon meritorious officials, their wives and their immediate ancestors for three generations, was recommended to the Throne by the Governor of Kueichou, Ts’en Yü-ying, in 1879. [Grandfather Guillaume Mesny, who had died many, many years earlier and who was now presumably in the Afterworld, must have been most surprised, to say the least!]\n\nMesny also handed out awards and decorations: During his first campaign in Kueichou, Mesny had a supply of Meritorious Warrants (kung-p'ai [which confers the right of the recipient to wear a button on his hat, normally the fifth or sixth degree with blue feathers]). His supply was already sealed with the commander-in-chief's seal, and Mesny bestowed them on meritorious men after each battle, adding the name of the recipient, the date, etc., and Mesny's own seal. He also had hundreds of the Military Silver Medal [Chung-kung Yin-pai] made during the war in Kueichou from 1867-1874, at his own expense, and bestowed them as rewards to deserving soldiers. It consisted of a thin piece of silver about three and a half inches at its longest diameter, with a slit in it for a ribbon, and the character Shang \"Bestowed\" in repoussé work stamped upon it.\n\nHis ranks and grades during his service with the Chinese Imperial forces are a more complex subject and one that is far from clear from Mesny's own writings. He portrayed himself as having 'senior' mandarin rank, and this has been reflected in one of the postage stamps produced by the Jersey Post Office in 1992, on which he is depicted as a 'Mandarin'.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212772, "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": 81, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "66\n\nof An-shun Fu until, by 1867, the Imperial troops, who had first fought to suppress the major threat from the Taipings, were able to raise sufficient forces to recover the 'lost' lands. The two Kueichou campaigns dragged on for five or more years with, so some claimed, possibly only one tenth of the Miao population surviving. Mesny only describes the first campaign.\n\nThe story of the first campaign which took place in the northern part of the remote and mountainous province of Kueichou during the four years from 1868 as described by Mesny consists of episodes, incidents and background in a day by day or month by month description of one or two of the major skirmishes and assaults, victories and defeats of the one particular Chinese Imperial force, raised and funded by the province of Szechuan. Two other forces were involved, the armies of Hunan province and the internal force of Kueichou province whose army was combined with a force from Yunnan province [northern Kueichou being flanked by the provinces of Szechuan, Hunan and Yunnan]. Mesny's descriptions of the problems of military re-supply, funding, rewarding merit, the punishment of criminals both military and civilian, the treatment of prisoners and medical problems, as well as his descriptions of camp life and inter-officer relations, make the narrative a most interesting story.\n\nThe campaign has been hardly mentioned in histories of China and was probably of little interest in Peking at the time. However, here we had three Chinese Imperial forces operating far from supply bases, some with little incentive to do much more than draw their pay and keep their heads down, and a foreigner with a glorified opinion of his own importance, based in the heart of the Szechuan Force alongside the general in charge of the Central Army and not too far from the Commander-in-Chief [C-in-C]. Mesny's role, so he told us, was to advise his C-in-C and his general on modern foreign arms and their maintenance. We should however bear in mind that Mesny was but 26 at the start of the campaign, and had had no official military training other than having been a seaman and having learned something about the handling of artillery from British ex-servicemen whilst he had been a Customs Officer with the Chinese Imperial Customs on the Yangtze. Amongst his numerous claims to military fame one of the lesser ones was his successful organisation and training of a company of artificers for use at headquarters during the first Kueichou campaign.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213321, "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-1994", "page_number": 143, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "124\n\nup a rocket projector failed to breach them. For the first time in the three hours since the Tatars had taken refuge in the temple did their discipline begin to slip, a few tried to escape in ones and twos down the valley towards the harbour, only to be picked off on the way. It was now decided by the British to set fire to the building, and a second breach having been blown in the opposite side a fire was kindled which soon spread to the roof and in a short time the whole was reduced to ruins. When finally the Tatar resistance ceased and they were forced to abandon the temple only fifty-three were still alive to be taken prisoner. They were found crouching on the ground, with their arms folded and their matchlocks and swords laid aside, in evident expectation of a violent death. They were secured by having their queues tied together, whilst those with wounds were bandaged by British doctors which created considerable goodwill. In the midst of the smoke and death sat an old Tatar colonel who, when the red coats began to appear through the smoke, laid down his pipe, snatched up a sword and cut his own throat. He failed to kill himself and was bandaged up by the British doctors and then, along with all the other prisoners, was released. Ilipu, the Manchu, wrote thanking the British for their kindness in caring for the wounded.\n\nThe Manchu force in the temple was commanded by a company commander Lung Fu of the Bordered Red Banner * and he, like many of the 270 men within the temple, killed himself rather than be taken prisoner.\n\nMeanwhile, as this was the first time that the Manchu Tatars had encountered the British on the field of battle, and fearing that the British would slaughter and rape indiscriminately or probably more so because the Tatars were unable to bear the shame, they destroyed themselves in large numbers, first killing their wives and children. Whole families seem to have done away with themselves hanging from beams in their own homes, and the wells and every place where they could find water enough were full of bodies. Chinese gangs plundered the abandoned Tatar part of the town, and when the British entered the town the only noise was screams of those being killed or killing their own families.\n\nIn a Chinese account of the battle the British bombarded Chapu on the 18th May and landed a force to attack the east gate of the city. Here they were met by troops from Shensi and Kansu provinces armed with gingalls, and received such rough treatment that they went round to the south gate. As the Manchu Tatar garrison had been in the habit of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213322, "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-1994", "page_number": 144, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "125\n\ncalling the Chinese \"disloyalists\", the Fukien braves sided with the enemy and set fire to the town. The foreigners then got over the wall and burnt the Manchu quarter, the Assistant Tatar-General and the acting Sub-Prefect losing their lives, and the taotai escaping to Kashing. The Magistrate Wei Feng-chia led a body of militia to oppose the British advance on the town and was killed, and whilst Heng Hsing, the Chinese Force commander at Hangchou was cashiered, the Chinese commander at Chapu, Chang Hsi, escaped death and capture but was later, posthumously, accused of having run away. The official toll of Chinese casualties including civilian casualties was said to exceed 1300. This figure includes more than 400 officers and men from the Green Standard force and 280 Manchu Bannermen.\n\nWhen I-li-pu \"arrived at Chapu, the English demands, so the Chinese version continues, were so extravagant that nothing definite could be arrived at; and, when the Governor requested the Emperor's sanction to the restoration of the score or two of white and black barbarian prisoners, the foreign ships had left Chapu. The prisoners were then sent to Chen-hai, and it was suggested that bygones should be bygones; but the English would not listen any more.\n\nThe idea of an attack on Hangchou itself by the British forces was now abandoned and attention was directed to the important trade centre of Shanghai. The British, having destroyed the Chinese arsenal, guns and all Chinese government stores in Chapu, released all their prisoners of war cash with a small present, and then on the 28th May embarked for the Yangtze and Woosung, the town at the mouth of the river leading to Shanghai. The transports took fifteen days to cover the hundred miles to Woosung which was bombarded and captured by naval forces. The war ended two months later before the walls of Nanking,\n\nThe 18th Royal Irish was disbanded in 1922 and amongst its many battle honours was 'China 1840-42'. The men of the regiment who took part in the campaign were eligible for the medal awarded for the 'China War' though, regrettably, there was no bar for Chapu.\n\nIn March 1994 my daughter and I tried to find the site of the joss house. Enquiries in the town of Chapu itself were received with polite replies that no such place existed and that there were no temples now near Chapu, this despite the fact that standing less than thirty yards from the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213635, "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-1995", "page_number": 231, "title": "RAS-1995", "content_text": "206\n\ntrials, International Military Tribunals were established, and Russia took part in the Tokyo trial although it had been in the war against Japan for only one week before the surrender. In all the other trials, Tribunals of Officers were set up to hear the cases. The range of offences to be tried as war-crimes was never precisely defined, but broadly concerned “offences against humanity” including events causing cruelty, indeed often death, to prisoners and civilians in occupied territories. The notorious Kempetai (military police) had tortured, and indeed, killed, many thousands usually in an effort to extract confessions. Were these trials a \"Victor's Justice\"? It is true that the Japanese surrender had made the trials possible, but the catalogue of criminality left no doubt that those appearing in the dock deserved the punishment they received. There were acquittals mostly as a result of problems of identification, and some because the required standard of proof had not been satisfied. Tribunals did not attach much weight to affidavit evidence since cross-examination was not feasible. Documents which were contemporaneous on the other hand usually told their own story, although bonfires of such documents had been destroying such evidence in the interval between the Emperor's surrender broadcast and the arrival of the Allied forces.\n\nThe first trial was of General Yamashita, the \"Tiger of Malaya\", who became Supreme Commander of Japanese Forces in the Philippines, and this began in Manila on October 29th, 1945. He was sentenced to death. Other trials were conducted by U.S. Tribunals: 90 were sentenced to death. During 1945 and 1946, Nationalist Chinese Tribunals convicted 504 as war criminals. The French convicted 198, the Dutch 969, Australia 644, and in Singapore and Hong Kong, the United Kingdom Tribunals convicted 811.\n\nAccused were permitted legal representation, and given interpreters and the assistance of an Allied officer, and this was strictly adhered to in the British trials. We had the assistance of Army Investigation Units which collected evidence. One problem was that mistreated P.O.W.s wanted to get home to England or Canada as soon as practicable for rehabilitation, and tribute should be paid to the public-spirited few who agreed to return as witnesses.\n\nMy first case in Hong Kong concerned atrocities in Kinkaseki Camp, Formosa, and its \"Hell Mine\", and one of my star witnesses was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1995.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/95941j25g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213886, "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": 238, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "212\n\nthe return of Chen Jiongming from the neighbouring province of Fujian. Chen was the Governor-General of Guangdong in 1912 and 1913. After the failed \"Second Revolution\" in 1913 against Yuan, he escaped to Malaysia (while Sun to Japan) and developed his own anti-Yuan organization independent of Sun's party in Japan. When the Canton Government was established in 1917, nominally under Sun Yat-sen, he returned to Canton only to find that the guest armies had real control over the province. As a result, he gathered a small troop of soldiers made up of native Cantonese and moved to Fujian in early 1918, where he strengthened its fighting potential. Chen Jiongming's return was financially supported by a group of Chinese bankers, who were affiliated with Liu Zhubo, in Hong Kong. They advanced to Chen Jiongming an amount of $200,000 and promised to pay the Guangxi troops a “give-way fee”, if the armies retreated to their home provinces. The fighting could not wait for bargains, as in late October Chen Jiongming's army had forced its way into Canton. The Guangxi guest armies obtained the \"overdue army expenditure\" through a different means. The guest armies retreated westward to Guangxi, looting all the way home.\n\nThe return of the Cantonese troops under Chen Jiongming was welcomed by the Cantonese. The atmosphere in Canton, as reviewed in the newspapers, was that Chen Jiongming should be the Provincial Governor. Funds for a new government were promised by the merchants.\n\nAt this juncture, on November 25, Sun Yat-sen and his key supporters left Shanghai and triumphantly returned to Canton. He prepared to assume power again. After all, Chen was Sun's subordinate in 1913 and 1917. The situation Sun found on his return to Canton was not to his liking. Sun was made Director and Minister of the Interior in the restored government. Wu Tingfang was made Minister of Foreign Affairs. But Chen Jiongming had been planning for the future in Canton, and his list of titles was impressive. Chen was the Minister of War, Governor of Guangdong, Commander in Chief of the Guangdong Army, and High Inspecting Commissioner of Guangdong and Guangxi. In January of 1921, Sun summoned all available parliamentarians to a meeting in Canton. There was no quorum, but they voted anyway. At the end, the Parliament elected Dr. Sun Provisional President of China. Chen Jiongming was in no hurry to act, nor was he ready to listen to Sun. In an interview with the British Consul, Sun described his", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214296, "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": 154, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "117\n\nleading their men to an attack.\n\n5 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 138.\n\n6 Lord Jocelyn. Six Months with the Chinese Expedition. London, 1841, p. 41.\n\n7\n\nAlthough the benefits of rifling to give more consistent trajectories were known, no one had yet been able to come up with a practical means of taking advantage of it in a cannon.\n\n8 Lieutenant John Ouchterlony, The Chinese War: An Account of all the Operations of the British Forces from the Commencement to the Treaty of Nanking, London 1844, p. 98 notes that at Tycocktow the Gunboat Nemesis \"threw shells into the upper fort.\"\n\nD. Bonner-Smith & E.W.R.Lumby. The Second China War 1856-1860. London, 1965, p.53 records that Rear Admiral Seymour reports that \"The Barracuta at the same time also shelled the troops in the hills at the back of the city, from a position at the head of Sulphur Creek.\"\n\n19 D. Bonner-Smith, op. cit., p. 173 records that Commander Forsyth of the Hornet reports \"..commenced firing grape and shrapnel, with ricochet shot,into the whole mass of junks, which must have done dreadful execution, as they were crowded with men to excess.\"\n\nOuchterlony, op. cit., p. 239.\n\n12 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 23 reports \"a Congreve rocket, which was fired at the Admiral's junk, went through the deck into the magazine, upon which she immediately blew up.\"\n\n13 Loch, op. cit., p. 40.\n\n14 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 149 notes \"In artillery they are very backward, their guns being of enormous weight in proportion to their calibre; some of the pieces of ordinance which we captured weighing seven ton, although only 42 pdrs; yet notwithstanding the immense thickness of metal in many cases the guns burst.\"\n\n15 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 157 notes \"in the great arsenal at Amoy, a large two-decked junk was found nearly ready for sea with guns, as well as something bearing a resemblance to gun-carriages.\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214461, "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": 319, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "286\n\narms Force, and at about this time Ward was strongly praised by Hope,1 the British Admiral who appealed for a large expansion to Ward's force. The eventual force of about 8,000, under a number of foreign officers and several Chinese was, after several very successful battles, named by imperial decree the \"Ever Victorious Army [Ch'ang-sheng Chün].” It was under the overall command of the Governor of Kiangsu province. He was awarded the fourth rank button with peacock feather, though he has also been said to have received the higher imperial award of the Yellow Riding Jacket. At about this time Ward married the daughter of his Shanghai Chinese merchant-patron, Yang Fang. Referred to as Major Ward or General Ward, his rank was immaterial. He was the commander and, in Chinese terminology, commanders in action of forces larger than company level, that is over about one hundred men, were referred to as Chiang-chün, a term translated into English as General.\n\nHe died in Ningpo in September 1862 having been mortally wounded in action at nearby Tz'u-ch'i while reconnoitring by himself and having asked to be buried in the court of the Confucian Temple at Sungkiang, his unthinkable request was granted. He was succeeded for a short time first by another American, Burgevine [of whom more later], and then temporarily by Captain Holland before being finally replaced by Charles Gordon, a British officer in the Royal Engineers. The latter was generally credited by foreigners with the eventual defeat of the Taiping forces. In reality, by the time of Ward's death the corner had already been turned by the much larger Imperial forces under Li Hung-chang, supported by the Ever Victorious Army and other similar small units of foreign led Chinese, and within a short time they, together with British [a brigade of some two and a half thousand men under Brigadier-General Charles Staveley] and French forces, had the Taiping in retreat. Harry Franck, the American traveller of the 1920s, explained probably quite accurately that \"Gordon did the least of the work and won most of the credit for the 'Ever Victorious Army'.\"\n\nFranck retold a legend that \"Ward had planned, in case the Trent affair [during the US civil war] resulted in war with England, to seize British warships and merchantmen in Chinese waters. He had converted his large possessions into cash and negotiable securities, which disappeared when he was killed. An English officer last seen with him was accused of the theft, and there were long proceedings in the U.S. Consular Court in Shanghai.”", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214481, "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": 339, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "308\n\nof his time, during the War, he served as an interrogator of the Japanese having earlier undergone army language courses.\n\nAlso included in Arnold Graham's material is a photocopy of the Extra to the Kobe Herald, in English, for Saturday January 3, 1914. This was seven months before the outbreak of World War I. The subscription rate for the newspaper at the time, incidentally, was two yen per month. There are also photocopies of various accounts of the Lisbon Maru, a Japanese ship which was sunk by a torpedo from an American submarine. This resulted in considerable loss of life among the Allied prisoners of war aboard.\n\nAlso included among the items sent by Arnold Graham's daughter are two identification cards issued by the British Consulate in 1938 and 1939, during the Sino-Japanese War.\n\nOther interesting papers are the Surrender of Japanese and Japanese Controlled Armed Forces in Borneo and the Netherlands East Indies East and Exclusive Lombok to the Commander in Chief Australian Military Forces (September 1945). There is also a Chinese translation (interspersed with some Japanese characters) of this surrender document as well as a speech by Lieutenant-General Teshima, Commander Second Japanese Army which he delivered on that occasion. There is also a newspaper cutting about a letter written by a Japanese who, as a wounded soldier captured in 1943, was nursed back to health by a British nurse.\n\nAmong the many items sent by Arnold Graham's daughter is a souvenir programme of the centenary dinner of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps, held in April 1954, at the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club. On the back of the programme is printed the song \"Maloo Memories\". Arnold Graham composed the words; the first verse of which goes as follows:\n\nLet us sing of that old city in the North we knew so well\n\nWhere to sing to love and laugh we used to dwell,\n\nFrom the Seven Seas foregathered to the Bund and Bubbling well", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214756, "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": 171, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "135\n\nSupplement, 29 January 1948; A Record of the Actions of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps in the Battle of Hong Kong December, 1941 (1953). For the official Hong Kong account of the surrender, see Hong Kong Government (1948).\n\n3 The literature referred to in this section is not exhaustive and focuses on books and reports only. English and Chinese newspapers and periodicals from time to time carry articles on the Battle. Post-war annals of universities, university halls and secondary schools in Hong Kong are also a good source of materials about the Battle. There are also a number of novels on war events,\n\n+ The emphasis is placed on attacking the enemies' \"line of least resistance\" or \"line of least expectation\".\n\n5 As quoted in Ko and Wordie (1996), p.18.\n\n\"They were influenced by the views of Air Chief Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, the British Commander-in-Chief in the Far East.\n\n7 During the initial stage of the Battle, BBC broadcasts (Orwell, 1987) placed high hopes on the availability of Chinese forces in the vicinity of Hong Kong. Such forces were never to come.\n\nLiddell Hart (1999): footnote at 219.\n\n\"Colonel Hewitt is the author of a number of books on the Battle and Japanese occupation of the Colony.\n\n10 The title of the book is a misnomer as the police force obtained the royal title only in the late 1960s.\n\nBlackburn gave an account of the anarchic situation of Hong Kong shortly before the surrender (Blackburn 1989).\n\n12 On 23 October 1937, the Joint Overseas and Home Defence Committee considered re-fortification or demilitarisation of Hong Kong, assuming that it took 90 days for the British fleet to relieve Hong Kong. Rollo (1992): 113. According to Aldrich, the British Chiefs of Staff considered the abandonment of Shanghai and demilitarisation of Hong Kong to avoid confrontation with Japan. Aldrich (1993): 261.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214845, "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": 260, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "227\n\nChinese, except as regards the use of Opium, are exceedingly temperate in their habits and we cannot account for the immense distilleries which have been discovered here.\"\n\n19 Captain Sir Edward Belcher, Narrative of a Voyage Round the World, performed in Her Majesty's Ship Sulphur, During the Years 1836-1842. Including details of the Naval Operations in China, From Dec. 1840, to Nov. 1841 (London 1843, Dawsons of Pall Mall reprint, 1970, Vol.II, p.152.\n\nWyndham Baker, p.156. Commenting, he had added, \"The British common soldier in fact is a strange compound, for they are very kind to their prisoners when once the excitement ceases.\"\n\n21 Beeching, p.136.\n\n22\n\n24 Beeching, p.152. Another British placard recorded by Chu warned that there was to be no more commandeering of goods without payment: ibid. However, despite good intentions, according to another Chinese diary, this time from Shanghai in 1842, rape and looting did occur there, and impressment of civilians for forced labour for such heavy work as shifting gun emplacements and gunpowder [ibid., p.149]. Wyndham Baker, when landing his guns before Chin Kiang Foo, refers to \"about 100 helpless natives to assist in carrying the shot boxes.\" Baker, in Blackwood's 1964, pp.161-2.\n\nBeeching, p.139.\n\nThe British Foreign Secretary, Lord Aberdeen, had agreed, minuting: “The worst proposal I have seen from Mr. Pottinger....It ought not to pass unnoticed\": Beeching, pp.139-140. But Pottinger deserves credit for preserving the famed Porcelain Pagoda at Nanking from British soldiers and sailors who, armed with chisels and hatchets, were intent on obtaining souvenirs by stripping tiles from the tower. \"Sir Henry Pottinger was very indignant at this gratuitous vandalism; a guard was stationed to keep off intruders, and no one was thenceforth allowed to visit the tower without a permit from the Admiral or Commander-in-Chief.\" Parkes wrote, \"Such an act as this is shameful and a disgrace to the British name.\" From Stanley Lane-Poole, Sir Harry Parkes in China (London, Methuen & Co., 1901), p.32. Alas, the Porcelain Pagoda was destroyed by the Taipings not long after, in 1856.\n\n25 Edgar Holt, The Opium Wars in China (London, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1964), p.139.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215136, "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-2000", "page_number": 232, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "189\n\nspeed test over a set distance. This is done, for example, for ships built on the Firth of Clyde, in Scotland (Sinclair, 2000). The late James A W Deacon, Superintendent of Lights in the Hong Kong Government Marine Department, told me they tried unsuccessfully to find a place for timing ships over a measured sea mile on the south side of Hong Kong Island. Eventually such a \"course\" was, it is understood, set up at Tseung Kwan O (Junk Bay), in the eastern New Territories. It seems unlikely that the two Obelisks at Tai Tam were ever used for timing ships because of their rather 'tucked away' positions. There is also no evidence of there ever having been a second pair of beacons in the vicinity.\n\nAre there other possible uses for the two Tai Tam Obelisks? I was informed firstly in the late 1970s by a master mariner and senior civil servant in the Government Marine Department, that a Royal Navy Officer, who had served in Hong Kong before World War Two, had told him that the two Obelisks had been used when submarines submerged during tests. This practice came into being (so it was said) because of the loss of HM Submarine Thetis, on 1 June 1939, on its maiden dive with the loss of 99 sailors and civilians. A diver who went down to try to effect a rescue was also lost. Only four occupants managed to escape from the submarine using the Davis Escape Apparatus. The Royal Navy Officer told the senior Marine Department Officer that submarines were sent to Tai Tam Bay, after repairs or refits in the old Royal Naval Dockyard. At Tai Tam they could dive to periscope depth, in line between the two Obelisks. Then, if anything were to go wrong, the submarine could be traced and the crew rescued hopefully relatively quickly. The now retired Marine Department member of staff acknowledges that he never had material in writing to support this statement but he believes the information was given to him in good faith.\n\nWhen this information was put to Guy Clarabutt, who served in Royal Navy submarines in Hong Kong before World War Two, he said he had never heard of such a practice (Sinclair, 2000). Neither could he remember the two Obelisks at Tai Tam (Waters, 2000). I spoke to a young British naval officer stationed at HMS Tamar, on Hong Kong Island, in 1995. He felt that such a practice was highly unlikely. In 1997, however, I raised the same question with Commodore PJ Melson CBE, Chief of Staff and Deputy to Commander British Forces. He, as", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215930, "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": 229, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "163\n\na new breed of intelligence officer. Grimsdale recalled his admiration with the ease with which Boxer could gain the trust of the Japanese.\n\nWhen the Japanese conquered Guangdong in 1938, Boxer arranged an invitation for himself and Grimsdale to visit the Commander of Japanese Forces, General Ando, whom he had known socially in London. To Grimsdale's amazement, Ando showed them round Japanese installations in his own staff car. They were able to inspect troop positions, aerodromes and see the power of the Japanese army at first hand. Perhaps that was Ando's subtle point, but it benefited both parties. At one stage, the general joked to Boxer that the British should stop supporting the Chinese 'then we could finish off this bloody war and all go home.' In the same jesting vein, Boxer answered that the Japanese should stop supporting the Germans.\n\nBoxer and his colleagues made a point of travelling and meeting people. Through personal contacts they were able to extract more information, and get an understanding of context. Boxer and his colleagues were articulate and fluent in Chinese or Japanese, and above all sensitive to the cultures, aware of the place of Hong Kong in the overall Chinese scheme of things. They illustrated the concept that \"well informed is well armed.\" Nor were they the only ones. In 1937/8, the Japanese Army in central China had agreed to take a young Japanese speaking British officer \"on attachment\" for nine months. Although his detailed report was misinterpreted (the atrocities in China were deemed a 'temporary lapse') is the then Military Attache and Foreign Office agreed that a non confrontational approach was more effective in getting information and defusing potential incidents.\n\niv\n\nAlert to the nuances of Japanese politics, Boxer sensed in July 1939, a sharp deterioration in Japanese attitudes towards the British. He interpreted this as a move by the Japanese Army to find a scapegoat for their lack of progress in the China campaign. He reported 'at present there can be no greater error than to assume as is so often done that Japan's military machine is too bogged down in China to prevent it being turned towards us...the only thing likely to restrain the Japanese Army....is the fear of possible complications with the United States of America.\" His warnings however went unheeded: Europe was itself just about to plunge into war, and to the Foreign Office, Hong Kong seemed very far away. Indeed, the note covering Boxer's letter", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215948, "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": 247, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "181\n\nSignificantly, this party was the only escape group without a regular military officer in their midst, and to have a Chinese to organise their escape and travel with them. All three Europeans were academics, without experience of up-to-date, modern military thinking. Moreover, given the nature of colonial society, they were used to being treated with deference. It would not have occurred to them to question why the Chinese along their escape route had been so helpful, or why they were met by Europeans in this very remote area, still bandit country, where few ventured, who were not only expecting them, but 'who were quite conversant with the route back to Kowloon and were assistants to FW Kendall, another member of the same organisation whose address... was c/o Col Chauvin, British Embassy, Chung King.'\n\nLt DF Davies, formerly a Lecturer in Physics, solemnly advised that he understood 'Col LT Ride of our party was to attempt some sort of underground railroad back to the Camp...(and) if they could be persuaded and/or allowed to carry out this work, I would suggest that the Cloak and Dagger Group be approached.' Since the Cloak and Dagger Boys they met were Z Force, this was in fact one of the jobs they had long been trained for.\n\nThe trip from Hong Kong had been stressful, not least because a commanding officer had told Ride in no uncertain terms before departure that he should be court-martialled on arrival in Chongqing for deserting his troops. From Lt Davies' report, we know that the group had talked with Z Force members about their organisation. Grimsdale was later to refer to Ride blaming Kendall as a 'complete failure' for delaying his departure from Kukong, then a safe town with Chinese Army presence. Ride himself makes no mention, describing the men later as mere escapees with the Chan Chak group.\n\nWhile still in Kukong, after meeting MacEwan and Talan, the group met Col Chauvin and Dr Wan Wan Yik Shin, a doctor who had served both in the Chinese Army and in the British RAMC. It was at this stage that Ride appears to have outlined his proposals to set up an elaborate escape and evasion organisation. By the time he arrived in Chongqing a few days later, he had formulated an elaborate proposal. Operational details were sketchy, to be left to others to sort out, naming Dr Wan and General Yu Mo Han, commander of Chinese forces in the area. On one point he was unequivocally adamant: that 'the section should be under the command of Lt Col Ride.' It was an absolutely essential prerequisite that the British authorities provide him with a letter confirming his", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216434, "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": 193, "title": "RAS-2003", "content_text": "143\n\nof the natives and made a very favourable impression was in the prohibition of religious propaganda on the part of [foreign] priests.\n\nForeign bias towards the Japanese\n\nThe great majority of western correspondents in the field would appear from their reporting to have had Japanese sympathies. British illustrated histories regularly contained favourable reports on individual scenes and acts by Japanese forces. They were frequently praised for humanitarian acts and regularly reported as having paid particular care in their treatment of and friendly relations with the Chinese population.\n\nA western observer reported that 'in May 1904 prior to the Japanese assault on Dalny (Dalian) a Japanese sergeant made his way into the Chinese quarter, and by spreading news of a great Japanese victory and a quickly arriving Japanese army, induced the residents to fly the Japanese flag, and so stampeded the Russians.'\n\nThe Japanese fought their way for three months, up the Korean Peninsula, stormed across the Yalu in April 1904 and set up their Headquarters in Andong, a Chinese town of some size. Here, stores of all sorts were purchased from the Chinese, though at an exorbitant cost. Chinese coolies, laden with military stores, competed with bullock carts, similarly laden, crowding the road now filled with marching troops and empty carts returning from the front. Coolies and carts were plentiful as they had no problem working for the Japanese who paid promptly, unlike the Russians.\n\nIn general, the lives of Chinese coolies were wretched and the Japanese Army commander issued an order reminding his troops that they were fighting the Russians and not the Chinese, and that they should remember they were fighting an enemy in the country of their friends. A Japanese report claimed that in Manchuria, as in Korea, they had made full use of Chinese coolie labour but had worked their coolies as transport carriers in the same scientifically humane way they worked their horses. After three months of unremitting labour the carrier coolies, well fed, well treated, at a daily wage five times as high as they had been accustomed to earn, and so well looked after that there had been only 2% of sickness among them, were in better condition than when the campaign began.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390", "rank": 0 } ]