[
    {
        "id": 216023,
        "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": 322,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "256\n\nMountain, a former small island now joined to the mainland by alluvium, referred to by Victorian travellers as a 'pyramidal rock'. This used to stand out in the Yangzi a mile or so upstream from the city of Zhenjiang, hence their use of its name generically for the city. There is a further island, Jiao Shan Scorched Island, an islet some mile or so downstream from the city with its own ancient temple, Dinghui Si concealed within its tree-covered slopes. It too has its own memorials from the era of the Six Dynasties - two or three ancient cypress trees, whose storm-riven and almost barkless trunks were in the 1920s still held together by iron bands. According to Allom, Silver Island [Mountain], the name formerly given by foreigners to Jiao Shan, is to the westward of Zhenjiang, within sight of the Gold Island [Mountain] [see illustration]. Legend has it that Jin Shan, Gold Mountain takes its name from the time during the Tang dynasty when a certain Bei Totuo was digging into the hill and found a pot of gold; this has long been denied by Buddhists who believe that the name of the hill has a Buddhist symbolic meaning. Although the British Concession was originally laid out with intervening ground between it and the old walled city it did not take many years for the new native city to encroach and reach the Concession boundary. This meant that foreigners wishing to leave the Concession had to battle their way through the main street of the new native city, facing filthy and disease-ridden beggars, open drains and past open spaces which were used as public conveniences, constantly patronised by squatting men.\n\nCaptain Cunynghame, serving with the British force sailing up the Yangzi and about to mount an assault on Zhenjiang, arrived off the city on the 18th of July 1842. The force had been proceeding with great care as it was the first opportunity that western warships had had to penetrate as far inland up the Great River. He described his first sighting of Golden Island as 'the most beautiful little fairy isle imaginable, covered with temples, whose gilt-topped pagodas shone brilliantly in the evening sun'. A week or so later, once the city had been stormed and he was able to walk through it and wrote that \"the walled portion of the town was reckoned about four miles in circumference. The suburbs, extending a long distance to the west, probably occupied an equal extent of ground. The former space was chiefly occupied by streets containing shops, with an occasional blank space of wall within which were the houses of the most wealthy inhabitants. A very large portion, however, was occupied by gardens",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216037,
        "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": 336,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "270\n\nwriting home in October 1861, four years after the Taiping evacuation of Zhenjiang wrote 'it gives me the blue devils to walk in the neighbourhood of this wretched city. Thousands of acres of rich land lie uncultivated and overgrown with rank grass. The cottages are all destroyed and a very few old men and women represent a tottering population. Not a junk moored off the city wall and only one very dirty street remains of what was once a large and haughty town. I don't think the rebels will be back this year. They have lost a very important post up the river and their head den [Nanjing] will soon be threatened by the Imperialists'.\n\nIn 1854 a new American Commissioner arrived en poste in Shanghai and decided to visit the Taiping headquarters in Nanjing as a US diplomatic representative. He sailed up the Yangzi in the USS Susquehanna but as they passed the Taiping fort at Zhenjiang a shot across their bows caused him to send a small party ashore to demand a reason for the 'insult' and an apology. The Zhenjiang Taiping commander explained that they were keeping a vigilant eye on traffic on the Yangzi and required all vessels to hove to until permission to proceed was received from Nanjing. The US representative repeated his demand for an apology and threatened to sail on on the morrow come what may. He also provided a sketch of the US flag so that such an insult may never be repeated. They sailed on as planned and having had many meetings with Taiping commanders at various levels, including one with the Eastern King, the US Commissioner realised that in view of the tone of the Eastern King's written response, amongst other things requiring Tribute from the Americans, any continued attempt to institute diplomatic relations with the Taiping was a waste of time. Whereupon they returned to Shanghai, wiser but no further forward. However, they did take the opportunity before returning of sailing a hundred or so miles further up stream to areas not before visited by US or British expeditions. The Americans, sad to say, appear to have obtained little new about the Taipings to add to what was already known,\n\n13\n\nZhenjiang temples\n\nThe four major temples were the Jin Shan Temple with its pagoda, the Ganlu Si [Sweet Dew Temple] on the Beigu Shan, the Dinghui Si on Jiao Shan and the City God temple. There were also a number of",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    }
]