[ { "id": 204412, "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": 44, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "CURRENCY PROBLEMS\n\n35\n\nI replied, \"on the contrary you ought to reward me with the highest decoration your country can bestow. The two hundred and thirty thousand dollars I put into circulation all possessed one very striking property\". What was that?\" he asked, Not one stuck to the palm of the hand, they all slid off I replied.\n\nPage 04\n\n44\n\n**\n\n+\n\nWhen I returned to Shanghai, in September 1945, at the end of the War, I found three currencies in common circulation. First the \"Fah Pi\", the legal tender of the K.M.T., secondly, the \"Wei Pi\" the currency issued by the puppet Wang Ching-wei Government, and thirdly the \"Mei Pi\", U.S.A. currency. I remember that whenever labour was asked for the currency of its preference the choice was invariably, “Mei Pi”.\n\n44\n\nTime will not permit to enlarge upon the use of gold as a medium of currency. When the quantity of silver exceeded the convenience of transportation, exchange into gold was the usual practice. This was in the form of dust, leaf and bar. To the inexperienced, such as myself, preference was usually for gold leaf as being more readily inspected for adulteration. But reputable exchange dealers, from time immemorial have issued their own certificates of purity which were always reliable provided they covered a first-hand purchase. I remember that towards the end of 1929, in company with another missionary, I was faced with bringing out the balance of relief funds, to the coast, through a bandit-infested area. In all the total weight of the gold was 63 ounces which we had worked into bangles which we wore high up on the arms and bars which we secreted in waist belts. We fell into the hands of the bandits who robbed us of our belongings but by the Grace of God did not search our persons. Thus through varying experience we finally reached Tientsin and I can still see the look of surprise on the face of the Agent of the Chartered Bank when we partially disrobed in his office and shot the total of our carryings on to his desk.\n\nIt is only fitting that I close with a reference to the introduction of the latest form of currency, the Jenminpiao. This came to Shanghai with the Liberation Army in May 1949. Prior to the arrival of the Communist forces and during the wild days of the K.M.T. evacuation to Taiwan, the Shanghai brokers had brought out their stocks of silver dollars and were doing brisk business all along the Shanghai streets, exchanging paper for...\n\nPage XX", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204873, "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-1964", "page_number": 176, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n151 \n\nevacuation (1662-1669). But it is certain that Tung Chung and Sha Lo Wan had a share in the incense trade which terminated with the evacuation. Wild incense trees can still be found but the art of making incense sticks has vanished.\n\nThe ancestors of the people living in the valley may have migrated into the area from the north in 1669 but the area has been, until recently, notorious for occurrences of malaria which claimed heavy tolls. The entire population may have been completely wiped out several times, as the oldest of the families has a family history of no more than seven generations.\n\nTung Chung came into the limelight again when Cheung Pao Tsai and his pirate band who had been using the bay as one of their bases to prey upon the coastal trade of the South China Sea, successfully repelled a Ching naval contingent after a ten-day battle in the Ping Chung Bay in the twelfth year of Chia Ching's reign (1807). The trouble was finally quelled in 1809 when Cheung Pao Tsai surrendered and his pirates were disbanded.\n\n2\n\nWith the suppression of the pirates, trade flourished. The Viceroy at Canton petitioned the Ch'ing Government in 1817 saying that \"Ta Yu Shan of San On District, an isolated island, is on the (trade) route of the ships of the \"barbarians\". Tung Chung and Tai O are the only places where these \"barbarian\" ships can anchor. A fort at Chi Yi Kok2 with a Captain(?) and soldiers from the Tai Pang Camp has been maintained but there is no garrison at Tung Chung. As the two places are very far apart, eight garrison houses should be built at the mouth of the Tung Chung Rivers and two batteries (the fort), seven garrison houses and one arsenal should be constructed on the foot of Shek Shee ShanJ. \"6 The petition was accepted and the work was completed in the same year. Whether the work was carried out as requested by the Viceroy has still to be proved. However, the fort has been relatively well preserved and seven old\n\n2 Fan Lau (), 24 miles from Tai O.\n\n3 Nan Tau (南頭), Po On District, 15 miles to the north of Lantau.\n\n4 The distance is 6 miles across the main watershed and about 9 miles along the coast.\n\n5 The idea was to prevent the \"barbarians\" from drawing fresh water for their ships.\n\n6 Kwangtung Annals (廣東通志), p. 2,530.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205829, "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-1969", "page_number": 135, "title": "RAS-1969", "content_text": "NOTES ON ETHNO-BOTANY IN THE NEW TERRITORIES\n\n129\n\nGlochidion eriocarpum (tsat tai koo ✯✯★★) is a hillside plant. The leaves are first boiled and then applied to sores to relieve irritation.\n\nHydrocotyle asiatica (pang tai woon). A tonic drink is made from this plant as a yuet hei reliever. It is considered especially good for nursing mothers. The leaves and stalks may be eaten as a vegetable with rice, and an excellent soup can be made from it.\n\nHedyotis uncinella (po chau tsai). The plants are dried in the sun and used in making a tonic drink to relieve yuet hei and to offset general debility.\n\nThese are only ten of many economic simples with reputed curative or medicinal qualities. As already suggested, some of them may have been emergency famine food at one time or another, particularly those that also serve as vegetables or as soup stock.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 In 1962-63, most of the nets in small sampans appeared to have been made from commercial natural fibres (abaca, ramie or coconut coir fibers). However, Agave fiber was still used for making twine. Fishermen then were readily accepting synthetic nets. Some fishermen I talked to believed that synthetic nets were too expensive for small craft as snagged nets meant costly losses because it is harder to salvage nets of synthetic fiber than those of natural fiber, so I was told.\n\n2 I haven't seen cochineal insects used for dye myself and the information given me was essentially \"before the use of chemical dyes, in olden days, this kind of cactus (Opuntia) harboured yin chi insects that were used for a red dye.\" Whether the cochineal insect was used or not in the lifetime of the older villagers I talked with, I do not know. Personally I suspect it was used extensively in the past and the dyeing technique diffused through the Philippines to the China coast from Acapulco, Mexico in the days of the Manila Galleon (i.e., Acapulco to Manila to Macau and thence along the South Chinese coast).\n\n3 Kong Nim and Pei Kwan Kong terms for Rhodomyrtus tomentosa berry, are used interchangeably at Fan Lau. Fan Lau as well as most of the other Lantau villages were, I suspect, pirate hideouts and it may well be that Pei Kwan Kong may have been a term derived from the time of the Great Evacuation, 1662-1669. For details of the latter see Lo Hsiang-lin, Hong Kong and its Communications before 1842. (Hong Kong 1963, Chinese version 1960) chapter VI,\n\n4 Tuk yuc tung (\"fish poison vine\"). Many cultivators buy an insecticide powder called tuk yue fun (fish poison powder). This powder is usually first mixed with sawdust before application. It is the same powder used by gardeners to rid the lawn of white grubs! This powder too is dusted on the heads of children suspected of having lice in their hair.\n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206099, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 179, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "174 \n\nS. F. BALFOUR \n\nand his friend Duarte Coelho. Alvares died at the beginning of the siege and was buried near the grave of his son. The siege lasted from July to September 1521 and before the final assault Duarte Coelho with three ships managed to evade the Chinese fleet in a thunderstorm and slip away. All the others perished. \n\nIn 1522 another expedition set sail from Malacca. They were met outside T'un Mun by a large Chinese fleet and although they did not at first return the fire and tried to open negotiations they were chased to the western side of the Canton estuary near San Wui district where another battle took place in which they were all killed or captured. The Portuguese historian places the site of this second battle at T'un Mun also, but since few survived it is more probable that the site at San Wui which is mentioned in the Ming history is the authentic one. The Chinese had by that time under the energetic leadership of Wang Hung learnt to make cannon after the Portuguese model and were not any more at a disadvantage in this respect. But after the last Portuguese defeat the region of T'un Mun was left alone. A Chinese fleet patrolled the estuary and the islands continually from 1523 to 1524 but the foreigners did not reappear for many years. \n\nWhen the Portuguese established themselves at Macao they still recognised in T'un Mun a better trading centre, and although they were not allowed to colonise it, they were interested in preventing any other foreigners from doing so. The Spaniards who arrived at the end of the 16th century created a temporary trading station at a place they called Pinal, twelve leagues from Canton, but it is not certain where this is. The Dutch arrived in China in 1607 and tried in vain to open negotiations with the Chinese government but they were chased away from the island of Lantao by a Portuguese fleet. Later they attacked the fort at Fa T'ong Mun but were defeated by the Chinese. The history of T'un Mun can be carried right into modern times, for a port in its neighbourhood was the aim of the English in the 18th century when Anson was sent to take soundings on the north side of Lantau and Hong Kong island. \n\nIX. THE EVACUATION OF THE COAST AND THE HAKKA IMMIGRATION \n\nThe advent of foreigners naturally made the China seas more turbulent than ever before and the history of our region during", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206100, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 180, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "HONG KONG BEFORE THE BRITISH \n\n175 \n\nthe Tsing dynasty (from the 17th century until modern times) continued to be bound up with coast defence. \n\nThe Tanka were still a source of disorder during the whole of this period. Their chief centres appear to have been Tai O and Tung Ch'ung on Lantao Island. One of the differences between this period and earlier ones is that in their attacks on shipping in the Canton estuary they were helped by the Hoklo boatmen whose migration to centres in the west such as Heung Shan and Hainan Island had been under way for some centuries. \n\nThe disorders, however, should not be exaggerated just because they figure large in the official history. The Tanka and Hoklo were for the most part fishermen and those who took to piracy were probably forced to do so from distress. The peasants and traders on shore were without doubt a peaceable population as they are now, whose greatest desire was to avoid trouble and to carry on their industrious occupations. \n\nBut from the very beginning of the dynasty the coastal population was looked upon by the government with extreme suspicion. They were accused of being in sympathy with the cause of the Ming dynasty which was still being kept alive in certain centres along the coast. The Manchu government was never able to muster a good enough fleet to defeat the Ming remnants. Just as at the end of the Sung dynasty the coastal shipping had been the last refuge of the defeated dynasty, the last hope of the Ming dynasty was centred in a fleet which they based at Formosa where they were entirely independent. It occurred to the Manchus that the only way to avert the danger was to move the entire population of the China coast inland and to fortify the coast more completely. This colossal undertaking was put into practice without much organisation and without a thought of the suffering it entailed. The official reason given was the danger of pirates and the necessity of protecting the population against them, but a courageous official called Wang Lai-jên pointed out in a petition that the evacuation only increased piracy: \n\n\"I have been two years in my post\", he wrote, \"and have never heard of any piracy. It has arisen only since the evacuation. If the people are allowed to return the so-called pirates will sell their swords and buy cows.\" He added “It \n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206101, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 181, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "176\n\nS. F. BALFOUR\n\nis not an effective way of fighting pirates to give up territory, such useless tactics have never been heard of before in history.”\n\nThe hypocrisy of the official excuse is also pointed out by the scholar Ch'ü Ta-chün, author of a book on Kwangtung province30 which contains many satirical comments on the Manchus. He writes:\n\n“A Manchu self-styled official arrived who proclaimed himself greatly concerned with the protection of the people from marauders. The fact of the matter was of course that Formosa remained unconquered.”\n\nThe evacuation was announced by a proclamation giving the people three days in which to remove behind a boundary which had been set up roughly 50 li from the coast. This was disregarded and soldiers had to be marched in to drive the people away. At the same time the coastal defences were organised into a line of fortifications only a few miles from each other. Many of these mounds of earth and stone must still be visible on the hills. The people evacuated had no food or lodging provided for them. The fishing boats were prevented from entering or leaving the rivers by a line of stakes set across them. There appears to have been no attempt at organising relief. Some local magistrates tried to assign places for the refugees to live but there was too little land available for such a vast number. As a result, large numbers died, others trekked inland; whilst a good many managed to avoid the boundary guards and returned to their villages.\n\nA second and more stringent evacuation then took place. The boundary was placed even further inland and everyone was made to leave their homes. Twenty-four villages whose population remained were severely punished and the people were threatened with death if they returned. A large number died from ignorance of the official decrees since they were not adequately circulated and not all could read them. The soldiers after removing the population had instructions to pull down the houses and build forts and towers with the bricks. Ch'ü Ta-chün describes the distress over the boundary as follows:\n\n30 廣東新語 - 屈大鈞著", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206102, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 182, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "HONG KONG BEFORE THE BRITISH\n\n177\n\n\"At first the people thought they would soon return and tried to stay together, but when they saw that there was no hope they began to separate. Sons were sold for a bushel of rice, daughters for a hundred cash. Speculators were able to buy people into slavery for practically nothing. Those who were young and strong were made to join the army. The authorities looked on the people as so many ants.\"\n\nThe evacuation had in fact led to more disorder on the coast than there had ever been before.\n\nIn 1663, for instance, the Tanka fishermen who were prevented from earning a living revolted all over the Canton estuary and at one time attacked Canton itself. They were defeated in this neighbourhood and retired to Mirs Bay, where they menaced the town of Tai P'ang. At the same time, a revolt was organised near Sha T'in in our region, which spread as far as Kun Fu Cheung or Kowloon City. It is obvious that these disorders must have prevented the troops from building adequate fortifications.\n\nIn spite of this, however, the evacuation lasted from 1662 to 1669. During this time, enormous numbers perished, and others were forced to go far inland to obtain food. The Topography states that only 2,172 males were allowed to remain (presumably as soldiers), and no women or children during the whole of this period. These figures include the whole of San On district, and they are perhaps exaggerated and give too ideal a picture of the effectiveness of the evacuation, such as local officials would have felt themselves bound to present, and it seems most probable that more of the population may have remained. I have heard from a source that cannot be checked that the area west of the Tai Lam Ch'ung valley was not affected. This would include most of the fertile land held by the Tang family, and it would be natural that this part of our region, which is nearer to the Canton estuary than any other, would have been less suspected than the islands and wilder parts of the mainland of helping the Ming cause. These places, except in so far as they harboured rebels, may have been entirely emptied.\n\nThis fact, if it is a true one, will explain why so many Punti villages in that area were abandoned and later colonised by Hakka. The attached map (see T'ien Hsia Vol. XI, No. 4)* shows\n\n*Plate 16 here.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206103, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 183, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "178\n\nS. F. BALFOUR\n\nthat the Hakka immigration embraces a wide area north and east of our region and several islands. In some cases old Punti villages have entirely disappeared but the land then cultivated has been taken up by Hakka who have built their own houses. In others Hakka have entirely superseded the Punti after a period during which they shared villages. It seems most probable that the evacuation gave to the Hakkas an unexpected chance of taking up land in the places where it had been abandoned.\n\nThe return from evacuation was allowed partly because it had led to greater disturbance than before and partly because of the loss in taxes, which was estimated at 300,000 taels. The first to suggest it was the Hsün Fu or Inspector-General Wang, part of whose petition has already been quoted. The result of his outspoken criticism was that he was disgraced and ordered to return to Peking. He did not do so and died, probably by suicide, in Kwangtung after writing a valedictory address to the Emperor in which he stated as a dying request that the people be allowed to return to their homes. Wang is worshipped in this region and with him the Viceroy of Kwangtung, Chou, who personally inspected the situation in the winter of 1668 and petitioned that the boundary be removed before the fortifications were completed instead of after as had been previously decided, owing to the distress of the inhabitants. Two months later this was allowed.\n\nThe fortifications alluded to have all disappeared. They should not be confused with the more modern Chinese forts which can be seen here and there in the region. The fort at Kowloon was built in 1810 and the present city walls only in 1856. The fort at Tung Ch'ung, which is one of the best preserved, dates from 1817 as does the one at Kai Yik Kok on the south western tip of Lantau*. The reason given for the building of these forts was to protect the coast against foreigners.\n\nPiracy continued to be practised by the Tanka during the intervening centuries. A few of the pirates' names are preserved in the \"Salt Water Songs\" which the Tanka sing in their anchorages. One of these is about a woman pirate, called Cheng I\n\n* But see, for the Kai Yik Kok fort, Armando da Silva's recent article \"Fan Lau and its Fort: An Historical Perspective\" in this Journal Vol. 8, (1968) pp. 82-95. Ed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207053, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 124, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "118\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nto play havoc in it. The Japanese wo-jen had been particularly active. In 1571 the small walled town of Tai Pang on Mirs Bay in the northeast of the district had sustained a siege of over forty days by Japanese pirates equipped with scaling ladders.1\n\nThe district gazetteer gives an account of the troubled times at the end of the Ming period, which brought much misery and suffering to the people of the district, since famine accompanied the disturbances.2 These disorders lasted for a considerable time. It is reported that Tai Pang was held for nine years against all comers by a band of soldiers.3 The clan record of the Tsui family of Shek Pik contains a vivid account of the disasters of the time, as it affected their relatives and friends in their old home near Tung-kuan city which was the centre of an unsuccessful revolt against the new dynasty. These disturbances extended to the present New Territories. A former officer of the Ming, Li Man-wing, held this area on his own account between 1647 and his surrender to the new dynasty in 1656, and the walls and moats of the principal villages of the Tang clan in the New Territories are said to date from this time. The land presented a pitiable sight in these years: there was much burning and pillaging and many of the inhabitants fled. During this time, it was said, \"The ground was covered with bones, in the day time nothing could be heard but the hum of flies, and at night the voice of weeping.\"\n\nThe evacuation of the coast in the early years of the K'ang Hsi reign between 1662-1669 followed soon after these prolonged miseries and had a profound effect on the lives of the population and on the pattern of future settlement.\n\nUnder instructions from Peking, the provincial authorities required the evacuation of the coastal areas of Kwangtung. The provinces of Shantung, Chekiang, Kiangsu and Fukien were also affected to varying degrees.7 This measure was in accordance with a five-point plan to deal with the pro-Ming ruler of Formosa, Cheng Ch'eng-kung, suggested by one of his former lieutenants\n\n1 IHNHC 13/7.\n\n2 HNHC 13/8-9.\n\n3 HNHC 13/9-10.\n\n4 JHKBRAS, 7 (1967), p. 154.\n\n5 Sung Hok-p'ang in HKN, VIII, No. 2:107-108.\n\n6 ibid, presumably a quotation from the Tang clan's genealogical record. The YCKC has a lengthy entry on the disorders of this troubled time, chuan 4/46-60.\n\n7 Hsieh Kuo Ching, pp. 585-593.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207054, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 125, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "THE HONG KONG REGION\n\n119\n\nwho had gone over to the Manchus.1 Its adoption was due to a conviction that Cheng's campaigning against the new dynasty could not be continued if aid and supplies were denied him in this way. As the plan has it, \"the end of the enemy comes without war\".2\n\nEnforcement of this drastic measure was extended to the Hsin-an and adjacent districts of Kwangtung in 1661. Two inspections determined the areas to be cleared. At the time of the first inspection up to a distance of 50 li from the coast, it was calculated that two-thirds of the territory of the hsien would be affected. A year later the boundary was extended further inland, and what remained of the district was to be absorbed into the adjoining Tung-kuan county. By the 5th year of K'ang Hsi, Hsin-an had ceased to be a separate administrative district.\n\nWhen the new boundaries were fixed, the inhabitants living outside them were given notice to move inland. These orders were enforced by troops. The result was that whole communities were uprooted from their native place, deprived of their means of livelihood and compelled to settle where they could. The rural people risked their lives if they ignored the government edict to move, or ventured back into the prohibited area. It is recorded that about 16,000 persons from Hsin-an were driven inland. Only 1,648 of those who left are said to have returned when the evacuation was rescinded in 1669.4 The survivors' hardships did not end when they returned to take up their interrupted lives in their old homes, for it is recorded that destructive typhoons in 1669 and 1671 destroyed the new houses in many places.5\n\nThis chapter of unprecedented hardship and suffering has had a great impact on the minds of local people and their descendants. It is recalled in the genealogies and traditions of some of the long-settled clans of the district: it is commemorated in the construction and continued repair of temples to the two officials, a Governor of Kwangtung and a Viceroy of the Liang-kuang, who strove to have\n\n1 Hsieh, pp. 565-566.\n\n2 Hsieh, pp. 566 and 580-581.\n\n3 For the local areas to be cleared see Lo, 1963, pp. 94-95. See also Sung 1939, which details some local events on land and sea.\n\n4 Barnett, 1957, p. 262. A supplementary check in 1667 gave 3,667 persons still living within the district; ibid, p. 263. We cannot be sure whether the figures relate to persons or only to males over 16; or whether they are accurate.\n\n5 HNHC 13/3.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207393, "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": 161, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "CAPTIVE SURGEON IN HONG KONG\n\n153\n\nWorld War dealing with the Campaigns. This was compiled from records and reports prepared for the editorial board by Colonel J. T. Simson, Lt. Col. C.O. Shackleton, Dr. P.S. Selwyn-Clarke and myself.\n\nPRELUDE\n\nUp to 8 December, 1941\n\nAfter twenty-four hours delay outside the harbour because of fog, my wife and I disembarked in Hong Kong one fateful day, 1 April 1939, where I took up duty as surgical specialist in the British Military Hospital, Bowen Road. The Colony was by far the most beautiful station in which I had ever served and the scenery recalled to me, as to many others, parts of the west coast of Scotland. Twelve years earlier I had spent a short time there on my way to Shanghai, Tientsin, Peking and Shan hai kwan so that the scenes were not altogether strange to me. We lived a pleasant life in a hotel and flat for the next fifteen months.\n\nBecause of fears that a Japanese attack was imminent my wife was evacuated in July 1940, first to the Philippines along with service and civilian wives and families and thence to Sydney with them. She took hardly to the regimentation inevitable in view of the numbers involved, and after living in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane she left the shelter of the official evacuation. In some fashion she contrived to make her onward journey to the west via Hong Kong and after a short interlude there she lived successively in Singapore, Colombo, up-country in Ceylon, in Calcutta, Delhi and Bombay before she reached England on 4 July 1942. At one time in India she was tempted by an offer to go to Chungking to work there with a financial expert friend of ours who was attached to the Chinese government at that time, but in the end she did not. Experiences of this kind were not uncommon among service wives and I include this short note of her travels to show what a war-time evacuation of families can mean.\n\nWith her departure my own life in Hong Kong continued to be filled agreeably enough with work, including valuable experiences with the University Department of Surgery and the Professor, K.H. Digby. There were plenty of opportunities for physical exercise, and I carried out an order to prepare lists of surgical equipment I judged necessary to fit army hospitals for the inevitable coming", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208033, "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-1977", "page_number": 72, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "56\n\nJ. T. KAMM\n\n2 Throughout these essays, mention will often be made of a truly \"watershed\" event in the history of Hsin-An: the evacuation of the South China coast, ordered by the Kang Hsi Emperor, from 1661 to 1668. The step was taken to hinder the activities of the Ming loyalist-pirate Cheng Ch'eng-Kung, best known to the West as Coxinga.\n\n3 Field work in Kam Tin took place from May to September, 1973. Other research was undertaken into the Government Archives, Colonial Secretariat Library, and the Fung Ping Shan Library of the University of Hong Kong\n\nESSAY 1: PERPETUAL TENANCY IN HSIN-AN\n\nA cursory examination of the available evidence on the Ch'ing economy of Hsin-An reveals a seeming paradox: a large tenant population farming a limited amount of cultivatable land, yet enjoying relative prosperity. We shall begin this essay by dissolving the paradox.\n\nThe amount of cultivable land in the Tung Lu section of Hsin-An has probably never amounted to more than 15% of the total surface acreage. While the percentage of arable land was higher in the Hsi Lu, Chinese accounts of the area have always stressed the hilly, barren nature of the terrain. For the period we are studying, cultivated land probably accounted for no more than 20% of the land surface of the county.\n\nIn general, ownership of productive resources (agricultural fields, fishing grounds, oyster beds, quarries, and salt pans) were concentrated in the hands of landlords who leased them to tenants. Land was seldom worked by the holder of the hung ch'i (lit: “red deed”). In short, Hsin-An during Ch'ing was essentially a tenant economy.\n\nLockhart, in his Report on the Extension of the Colony of Hong Kong, describes the population as follows:\n\n\"The inhabitants, by no means wealthy, seem to be, as a rule, comfortably well off, and able to earn an honest livelihood without difficulty. Few signs of anything approaching destitution were seen, and only a few beggars were met.\"\n\nLockhart's observations are borne out by an examination of three indices of relative prosperity: 1) low rent and tax burdens, 2) increase in market activity, and 3) population growth through immigration.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208188, "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-1977", "page_number": 227, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES \n\n211 \n\nVillage, p. 41, the K'ang Hsi evacuation \"may well have helped the Liao lineage to consolidate its position as a major power and landowner in the area.\" This undoubtedly extends to the Tangs as well, though for quite different reason. The Liaos increased their local power by means of the formation of a Hakka/Punti alliance to finance the local school built to honor the two official Chou Yu-te () and Wang Loi-jen (). The Kam Tin Tangs also participated in the \"deification campaign\" (The two officials petitioned the emperor to allow the re-population of the coastal strip), and similarly constructed the school, the ruins of which are still to be seen in Pak Wai Tsuen. However, the school was never given official recognition [i.e. it was not listed, with the other schools, in the gazetteer], perhaps because of, again, the \"special relationship” enjoyed by the Tangs and San On magistrates. The Tangs claim that these officials were eventually to suffer at the hands of the imperial government because of their loyalty to the Tang family! [I have been unable to verify this, though I expect that it is true. How else can one explain the subsequent favors bestowed on the Tangs immediately after their (at least implicit) support of the Cheung Ta-yuk and Lei Man-wing rebellions?] \n\n23. c. The To Hing Tong () was constructed in 1707 by the five branches of the Tangs residing in San On and Tung Kwun. This followed shortly after the re-location of the Tangs in San On. The large number of Tang settlements in Tung Kwun no doubt facilitated the smooth re-location into Kam Tin, Ha Tsuen, Ping Shan, Tai Po Tau and Lung Kwat Tau. Several tales concerning this relocation are still told, some of which cast doubt on the existing theory that there was a total evacuation. The ceremonies held twice yearly at the To Hing Tong (continued into the early years of the Republic) served greatly to consolidate the consciousness of Tang unity. \n\n24. By far the most popular topics of conversation among Tang elders concern the nature and extent of their land holdings prior to 1898, and how subsequent events stripped them of much of these estates. It is probably impossible for us now to reconstruct, from records available, the exact amount and number of their holdings. However, some evidence exists: \n\n* After the Evacuation of the Coast 1662-69 by the Ch'ing authorities to deny supplies and assistance to Ming loyalists on Taiwan.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208768, "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": 225, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "198\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\n* The evacuation of the South-east coast of China was carried out from the 1st year to the 7th year of the K'ang Hsi reign (1662-1668). It was because of the disturbances of pirates and the followers of Koxinga (Cheng Shing-kung) along the coasts of Kwangtung and Fukien. The disturbances were so large that the Ch'ing Army could not stop them. The government evacuated fifty li from the coast. The lands were abandoned in order that the pirates and the followers of Koxinga could not obtain supplies from them. (see my article: \"The Chow Wang Yi Kung Chi of Kam Tin\", published in the Wah Kiu Man Fa of Wah Kiu Yat Po for 13th September 1976 綿田之周王二公祠,原载1976年9月13日華僑日報文化版)\n\n+\n\n* In the O Mun Kei Leuk ME 1800 edition, it was recorded, \"During the 7th year of Yung Cheng reign, there were forts erected on the two hills. This strengthened the guards of the Tai Yue Shan Shuen”. The Tai Yue Shan Shuen was probably at the place of Tai O today. The forts on the \"two hills\" are most likely to be the Kai Yik Fort on its south-west and Tung Chung Fort on its east. This shows that the Fan Lau Fort was probably rebuilt and refortified in the 7th year of the Yung Ching reign.\n\n19 See my article: \"A Short History of the Pirates of Hong Kong before 1842\", published in Volume 8, No. 4 of the Kwong Tung Man Hin 廣東文献(1979).\n\n11 see Chapter 13 of San On Yuen Chi\n\nChapter 81 of Kwong Chow Fu Chi A\n\n**** 1819 edition and\n\n1879 edition.\n\n12 Chapter 12 of San On Yuen Chi (1819) stated, \"During the K'ang Hsi reign, it was because of robbery and piracy along the south-east coast that the Ch'ing government evacuated the coastal regions. Later, with the surrender of the pirates, the Ch'ing government extended the coastal boundary. More forts and guard-stations were set up. Those of outstanding importance were the Kai Yik Fort on Lantau Island, the Nam Tau Fort, and the Chik Wan Fort.\" The book was written in 1819, and the famous pirate Cheung Po-tsai had surrendered in 1810. This shows that the fort was again under the control of the Ch'ing government after 1810.\n\n14 1a Chapter 130 of the Kwong Tung Tung Chi 4 1822 edition recorded, \"Tai U Shan, an island which lay in the midst of the sea, was a place where foreign ships anchored. There were only two inlets for the anchoring of these ships: they were at Tai O and Tung Chung. At that time, Tai O was guarded by a garrison of thirteen men. There was already the Kai Yik Fort under a Tsin Tsung (lieutenant) of the Tai Pang Battalion.\" The book was published in 1822. This proves that before 1822, there was the Kai Yik Fort guarding the south-west tip of Lantau Island.\n\n14 see Armando M. De Silva's article, op. cit.\n\n15 also called Tung Chung Hau in the past.\n\n10 To the south-east of the valley is the Sunset Peak (Tai Tung Shan 大東山); the Lantau Peak (Fung Wang Shan 凤凰山) lies to the south-west.\n\n17 Sheung Ling Pei Village is one of the largest villages in the Tung Chung Valley. It is situated to the east of the Tung Chung Walled City.\n\n18 Ha Ling Pei Village, an adjacent village to Sheung Ling Pei Village, is situated to the west of the Tung Chung Walled City.\n\n19 See my article: \"Distribution of Forts and Guard-stations on Lantau Island during the Late Ch'ing period\", JHKBRAS vol. 18: 1978.\n\nPage 225\n\nPage 226", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208899, "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-1980", "page_number": 61, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "CHINESE MONASTERIES, TEMPLES, SHRINES, ALTARS\n\n33\n\n14 Because of the exorbitant rents for such accommodation, temples in shop houses and flats in Hong Kong are few and far between. In Singapore and Malaysia, temples in shop houses are very common indeed, though they are becoming less so as the years pass and rents in urban areas rapidly rise.\n\n15 Occasionally such a temple may be a converted private house, as in the many examples in Lo Wai village, Tsuen Wan, but more often it is a purpose-built but inexpensive hut.\n\n18 Temples containing images of the Buddhist deities Di Zang Wang, Milofu, and Guan Yin are not necessarily specifically Buddhist, as all three of these deities nowadays are also extremely popular deities in folk religion temples.\n\n17 Mahayana is Northern Buddhism and Theravada or Hinayana is Southern Buddhism.\n\n18 \"Illegal\" is a Hong Kong term for buildings which have been built on Crown Land often by squatters without Government land control or planning permission, but which have been permitted to remain standing under sufferance. In practice, they are temporary structures put up without permission, occasionally ramshackle though more often they are well-built timber, weather-board, and corrugated iron buildings, clean and well-proportioned. (Illustration 17). Some have stood for such a length of time as to have been gradually converted to concrete and brick. All are labelled on the side in rough daubs of paint with the bureaucratic abbreviations and digits prefixed by \"TEM\" (= temporary) affixed by squatter control staff of the Housing Department.\n\n19 Demons are well known to Chinese to be unable to go around corners and must travel in straight lines, hence these inner doors to prevent the demons from entering the temple. The inner doors originally were opened exclusively for influential people.\n\n20 See also James Hayes' information at JHKBRAS 6 (1966): 129-130.\n\n21 In overseas Chinese areas, this kind of large street shrine is still very common and, in Singapore alone, some four to five hundred exist in all kinds of nooks and crannies. For a Hong Kong example, see JHKBRAS 14 (1974): 203.\n\n22 Chu is one of the 28 Constellations (= xiu).\n\n** See pp. 111-113 of the Hong Kong Government's publication Rural Architecture in Hong Kong (1979) for this pagoda.\n\n24 In Imperial times, such masts were always to be seen outside the local magistrate's yamen.\n\n25 Chinese bells have no internal tongue clapper, being tolled by an external blow with a wooden mallet.\n\n26 For the Evacuation of the Coast, see Lo Hsiang-lin and others, Hong Kong and its External Communications before 1842 (Hong Kong, 1963) Chapter VI.\n\n27 For background, see Jen Yu-wen's article \"The Southern Sung stone-engraving at North Fu-t'ang\" in JHKBRAS 5 (1965): 65-68.\n\n28 Government action is through the Chinese Temples Committee, serviced by the Trust Funds Section of the Home Affairs Department.\n\n29 Temples according to this Ordinance include Miao (廟), Si (寺), Buddhist and Daoist monasteries, Guan (觀) and Dao Yuan (道院), and nunneries An (庵).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209006, "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-1980", "page_number": 168, "title": "RAS-1980", "content_text": "136\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\n3\n\nMap of the East Coast of the Kwangtung Province, in the Ch'ing Cho Hoi Keung To Shuet 清初海疆圖說之粵東海圖說篇 The book was prepared in the Reign of Yung Cheng (1723-1735).\n\n* Chapter 43 and Chapter 255 of Kwangtung Tung Chi, 1864 edition 阮元廣東通志卷四十三及卷二百五十五\n\n5 Table 37 of Ch'ing Shi Ko\n\n* In the 12th year of the K'ang Hsi Reign (1673), Ng Shaam-kwai led an uprising against the Ch'ing Government. The uprising was suppressed in the 20th year of K'ang Hsi (1681). Some of his followers turned to piracy on the south coast of China.\n\n7 Chapter 255 of Kwangtung Tung Chi, 1864 edition\n\n* As recorded in the Map of the East Coast of the Kwangtung Province, in the Ch'ing Cho Hoi Keung To Shuet, within 16 coastal counties of the Kwangtung Province, a total of 41 forts, 312 cannon places and 618 guard-houses were erected when Yeung Lin was Viceroy of the Kwangtung and Kwangsi Province. Of these, 4 forts, 32 cannon places, and 74 guard-houses were erected in the San On county.\n\n* He was appointed as Viceroy of Kwangtung Province in the 1st year of the Yung Cheng Reign (1723). The Province of Kwangsi was then under Kung Yuk-sun, as Governor.\n\n10 See my article The Fat Tong Mun Fort (or the Tung Lung Fort) in Volume 18 of the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch Royal Asiatic Society.\n\nDISTRIBUTION OF TEMPLES ON LANTAU ISLAND AS RECORDED IN 1979\n\nLantau Island lies to the west of the Island of Hong Kong. Before the Sung Dynasty, the people living there were mainly of the Yiu tribes. Then came the refugees of the Southern Sung. The population increased during the Ming Dynasty; and many of the temples on the island were first built at this time.\n\nDuring the first year of the K'ang Hsi reign of the Ch'ing Dynasty, the people living in the coastal areas had to move back to the interior, because of the policy called the \"Evacuation of the Coast\". Seven years later, in the eighth year of the K'ang Hsi reign, they were allowed to come back. However, like many houses, some of the temples decayed during their absence.\n\nFrom then on the population increased rapidly, with people flocking to the area. The local temples were rebuilt and repaired. The temples listed below are in existence in 1979. Though some", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209714, "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": 371, "title": "RAS-1982", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n349\n\nit is necessary to emphasize this point anew. Secondly, with their likely (outward) bias against it, they did not bring out the importance of the popular religion for its own sake. They also missed its importance as a factor shaping local management. The popular religion emphasized the protection of the people against disease and harmful influences of all kinds, not only as individuals but as families and communities. Hugh Baker's own series Ancestral Images (SCMP Ltd. 1979, 1980 and 1981) and Joan Law and Barbara Ward's recent book on Chinese Festivals (South China Morning Post 1982) help to fill this gap. Thirdly, the daily life of ordinary people and its strong cultural base need to be added to the record. Fortunately, detail on these areas is now being recovered through recent field research conducted mainly from the Chinese University.\n\nThe interested reader could expand his studies beyond the gazetteer, with the help both of Dr. Baker's complementary text and the notes, and the additional material research workers continue to provide for later synthesis. Dr. Baker has touched on land (pp 44-45) and has filled out the account provided in the gazetteer about settlement, especially after the \"Evacuation of the Coast 1662-69\" (pp 26-28) but more information is now becoming available. On land and land-related matters, Edgar Wickberg, David Faure and Michael Palmer have work published or in preparation. For settlement details, the collected genealogies of the long settled families of the New Territories, large and small, are producing a wealth of new material. A new listing of local genealogies, mostly held in manuscript, with an explanation of their contribution to local history, is given in Anthony K. K. Siu's recent book Genealogies and Hong Kong's Local History (in Chinese) published privately by the Hin Chiu Institute in 1983. Mr. Siu has also pointed to the use that can be made of the other and older Chinese sources for the region. This kind of documentary research would greatly assist with identifying more of the (too large) number of village names which remain unidentified on maps 7 and 8 referred to above. The gazetteer's listing of temples can also be extended. It is certain from my field research and enquiries that more existed than are stated in the 1819 edition, and many more were added after that time.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1982.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210177, "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-1984", "page_number": 148, "title": "RAS-1984", "content_text": "127\n\npractices dating back to the complainants childhood and before suggests that the Tanka were using the Tai Tam Tuk anchorage from at least the very beginning of the nineteenth century.\n\nI turn now to the important question of how far back was Hong Kong occupied? This is practically an impossible question to answer for lack of sufficient information. As in many other places, like Tsuen Wan and north-west Kowloon, the present old, local, formerly tenant families appear mainly to have come into the area after the Great Evacuation of the Coast ordered by the Kanghsi emperor, 1662-69, and many of them not until the eighteenth century or even after. Yet it is an interesting fact that the maps in a later 16th century geographical work on Kwangtung, the Yueh ta-chi(A) contain names that are familiar to us today, on Hong Kong island as well as on the other islands and mainland of the Hong Kong region. Thus we find Chek Chu (Stanley), Tai Tam, Wong Nei Chung, Tit Hang, Chun Hoi and Shau Kei Wan, as well as Hong Kong itself, implying surely, that these places were settled at that time or were at least resorted to periodically. Also, the Tang correspondence from the 1840s quoted above specifically refers to recultivation of their land in various places in the late seventeenth century — though not necessarily by the former tenant farmers after revocation of the edict of 1662 referred to above. We also learn that the Tang land on Hong Kong island was entered in the Tung Kwun district land registry, suggesting that the registration might well be earlier than 1573, at which date the San On district was carved out of Tung Kwun and established as a separate county.\n\n71\n\nThe island was certainly well-established in settled communities long before 1841. The temples alone give proof of that. To this day, two existing temples at Stanley, and two at Aberdeen (one at the former village and one on an islet now joined by reclamation to Ap Lei Chau) and the Tin Hau Temple at Tin Hau Temple Road, Causeway Bay (formerly called Hung Heung Lo or \"Crimson Incense Burner\") contain items that go back to the eighteenth or very early nineteenth century. There were others now demolished or resited that probably predated 1841. Details are given in the Table below.\n\n72", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1984.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211707, "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-1989", "page_number": 122, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "97\n\nHowever, to export the heavy and bulky incense logs must have caused a lot of trouble and lead to high transport costs. Yet, to assume that incense wood milling developed directly out of this trade seems, perhaps, premature. The incense industry received a very serious blow during the first eight years of the reign of K’ang-hsi (1662-1669), when the Manchus, under the excuse of the expulsion of the pirates and the necessity of protecting the population against them, ordered the people to evacuate the coastal areas, and move inland to places more than 50 li from the coast, so as to suppress the revolt of the Ming remnants. This not only led to the death of many, but also adversely affected the cultivation of and trade in incense trees. The most prosperous incense producing area, Sha Lo Wan on Lantau and Lik Yuen (nowadays known as Sha Tin), were within the evacuation area. Kuang-tung hsin-yü summaries the effects of this evacuation on the industry, noting that,\n\nthere were very few people left after the evacuation, and less than one-tenth of the incense tree growers were left. Most serious of all, old trees had been cut down, and those which were left were only those ten to twenty years old.*\n\nThose who survived this evacuation experienced another disaster in the reign of Yung-Chêng (1723-1735) when a magistrate, obsessed with a love for high grade incense, killed a number of incense growers.\" As a result, the remaining incense growers destroyed the rest of the trees and fled. Thus, the once prosperous incense tree cultivation industry was seriously harmed.\" However, Aquilaria sinensis is by no means rare in Hong Kong. Dunn and Tutcher stated that in 1912, in a one-acre plot of fungshui woodland on lower ground in Hong Kong, 31 out of the 125 trees examined were Aquilaria sinensis (then known as A. Grandiflora).\" Today, incense trees can still commonly be seen in natural woodland on lower hill slopes and in fungshui woods behind villages.\" It seems likely that while trade in incense logs did not survive beyond the early eighteenth century, local milling of incense and manufacture of joss sticks for the local trade did. It was certainly a significant feature of local life in the nineteenth century.\n\nIncense Wood Milling\n\nAfter 1842, the trade in incense wood expanded. Hong Kong's famous deep harbour and geographically sheltered position suited trading vessels. Having become a member of the British Empire, Hong Kong became", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211946, "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-1989", "page_number": 361, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "336\n\nJau and Wong, among the gods invited to the jiu festival.\n\nThe origin of the Jau and Wong Temple, and its central position in the jiu festival is recorded on the stone inscription at the 5th rebuilding of the Jau and Wong Temple in 1965. It says that\n\nin the Kangxi [1662-1722] period, pirates were a serious problem in the area, and the residents of the sea coast were forced to leave home and wander about. Fortunately the two officials Wong and Jau were in charge of the Guangdong Prefecture. Thanks to their petitions the old clans were allowed to return. To express their gratitude, [the Dangs of Kam Tin] built a place for the worship of the two and for education. The construction started in 1684 and finished in 1685, when the practice of performing the jiu rites and to stage opera was begun.\n\nThe oral tradition has elements that are not found in the official account. The version of a Mr. Dang, born in the 1920s, was that there was a time when the villagers fought with bandits, many of the villagers died and the central government was asked for support. Jau and Wong were sent leading an army to help. The festival was to commemorate the villagers who died fighting the bandits. Some men born in the 1940s explained that the jiu was to commemorate the officials Jau and Wong who had died in Kam Tin, it was in a way a chiu-dou service for the dead. These two versions agree with the official one in that Jau and Wong are regarded as having helped the Kam Tin villagers in a period of disorder.\n\nAlthough the Jau and Wong Temple was built to express the gratitude of the villagers for the efforts of the two officials in getting royal permission for the villagers to come back after the 17th century Coastal Evacuation, the two are now believed to have god-like powers. There is, for example, the anecdote of Jau and Wong hiring the opera troupe on behalf of the villagers. During the Japanese occupation it was difficult to get the material needed for the festival. So the villagers decided not to hold the celebration. But in the form of two old men Jau and Wong made arrangements for opera players to come. When the villagers learnt about what had happened, on the arrival of the opera players, they changed their mind and celebrated the festival as usual.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212002, "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-1989", "page_number": 417, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "392\n\nin the Tang Dynasty were found in Chung Hom Wan, Sha Wan 沙灣 and Aplichau 鴨脷洲\n\n+\n\n5\n\nHong Kong Island in the Ming Dynasty\n\nIn the Ming Dynasty, because of the production of incense wood in the area, the economic condition of the people became better. More people came to live on the island. During the Wan Li Reign, there were at least seven villages, namely: Hong Kong, Tit Hang 鐵坑, Chung Hom 春坎, Chik Chu 赤柱, Tai Tam 大潭, Shau Kei Wan, and Wong Nei Chung. The north coast was still sparsely populated.\n\nAt the end of the Ming Dynasty, the island was frequently attacked by pirates. Though naval vessels from the Nam Tau Chai to Long Pak Kau patrolled along the coast from Tai Pang 混白滘, piracy was still very active.\n\nHong Kong Island in the early Ch'ing Dynasty\n\nDuring the early Ch'ing Dynasty, the Coastal Evacuation was carried out. People on the island fled inland. The villages were abandoned.\n\nIn the 8th year of the K'ang Hsi Reign (1669), the Edict of the Coastal Evacuation was revoked. People returned from inland and rebuilt their villages. In the early years of the Yung Cheng Reign, the seven villages, i.e. Hong Kong, Tit Hang, Chung Hom, Chik Chu, Tai Tam, Shau Kei Wan and Wong Nei Chung, were rebuilt. Because of the danger of piracy, the government built forts and set up military posts along the coast. Nam Tau and Tai Pang were the two main military bases near Hong Kong Island. However, no military post was established on the island at that time.\n\nIn the years of the Chia Ching Reign, two villages, Pok Fu Lam and Soo Kon Poo, were newly established. The Hung Heung Lo Naval post, which was under the control of the Tai Pang Battalion, was established too.\n\nHong Kong at the beginning of its Colonization\n\n12\n\nIn the 20th year of the Tao Kuang Reign (1840), the Opium War between the British and the Ch'ing government broke out and the Ch'ing", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212003, "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-1989", "page_number": 418, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "393\n\nforces were defeated. In 1841, Hong Kong Island was ceded to the British. According to the Census taken on 15th May, 1841, there were sixteen villages, with 7,450 people, on the island,\n\nAt that time, pirates still caused great disturbance along the coast. Those of outstanding importance were Shap Ngai Tsai+ and Tsui Ah-po. In the 30th year of Tao Kuang (1850), piracy along the coast was suppressed by the combined force of the British and the Ch'ing navies.7 With this, the island gained its name 'Tai Ping Shan'\n\nwhich means 'the Mountain of Peace'.\n\nDuring the early years of British rule on the island, Chek Chu was considered as a suitable place for the capital city of the Colony.5 However, because it was subject to severe tropical disease, the British built the capital city between the Central and Upper Bays (Chung Wan and Sheung Wan :). It was named Victoria after the name of the British Queen at the time of the early colonization.\n\nFrom then on, development on the island continued. With political changes in mainland China,8 more people flocked to Hong Kong, and they helped to make the city famous in the world.\n\nConclusion\n\nHong Kong, an isolated island at the mouth of the Pearl River, was only sparsely populated with fishermen. During the Ming Dynasty, because of the cultivation of incense trees, which gave great profit, population increased rapidly. However, the Coastal Evacuation at the 1st year of the K'ang Hsi Reign obliged the people to retreat to the mainland. Fields were left barren, and houses were pulled down.\n\nWhen the Edict of the Coastal Evacuation was abandoned, people were encouraged to return to their old dwellings. Villages were rebuilt, people from the neighbouring counties came and settled in the Hong Kong region, too.\n\nWith political changes in mainland China, more people came to Hong Kong. They helped to develop Hong Kong into a densely populated commercial city.\n\nANTHONY SIU Kwok-Kin", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212004, "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-1989", "page_number": 419, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "394\n\nNOTES\n\nSee the map of the Kwangtung coast-line, Chapter 32 of Yuet Tai Kee, Wan Li edition 郭斐粵大記卷三十二\n\nShek Pai Wan is the old name of Aberdeen Harbour or Heung Kong Tsai Wan *** (which in Chinese means Little Hong Kong Harbour).\n\n1 Some of the incense products were sent north to the Provinces of Kiangsu and Chekiang\n\nSee Chapter 3 of Lin Tien-wai and Siu's Articles on the Early History of Hong Kong, the Commercial Press Ltd., Taiwan, R.O.C., 1985.\n\nSee 'The Lime Kilns and Hong Kong's Early Historical Archaeology', Special Session, Volume 7, Journal of the Hong Kong Archaeological Society, 1876-78.\n\n7 See note 1.\n\nIt was said that Hong Kong Tsuen had been robbed by pirates in the time of the Lung Ching Reign in the Ming Dynasty. (See Hui Tei-shan's \"A Brief Research on the History and Geography of Hong Kong and Kowloon\" Chapter 6 of Kwangtung Wen Mu X, 1940).\n\nSee Siu's \"Nam Tau Chai: the Middle Defensive Military Zone of Kwangtung in the Ming Dynasty'' in Essays of Research into Ming-Ching History, Chu Hai College, 1984.\n\n10 The Coastal Evacuation was carried out in the 1st year of the Kang Hsi Reign (1661).\n\nSee the map of the Coastal Defence of Kwangtung, Chapter 3 of the Kwangtung Tung Chi, 1731 edition.\n\nSee Chapter 2 of the San On Yuen Chi, 1819 edition\n\n12 See Chapter 178 of the Kwangtung Tung Chi, 1822 edition.\n\n13 See the Original Gazetteer and Census, May 15th, 1841.\n\n14 See p. 15 of Lai Chun Wai's Hong Kong 100 Years.\n\nThe English name given to Chik Chu is Stanley.\n\n16 Notable political events in China after 1841 were the 2nd Opium War (the Anglo-Chinese War), the Tai Ping Rebellion, the Boxer Rebellion, the Revolution of 1911 and the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45. These changes assisted the increase of population in Hong Kong. Also, another rapid increase of population occurred because of the change of government in China in 1949.\n\nTAI YU SHAN FROM CHINESE HISTORICAL RECORDS\n\n1 In the past, Tai Yu Shan, known as Tai Hai Shan was also called Tai Kai Shan, Tai Yi Shan Mun Island. It lies to the west of Hong Kong Island. It has an area of 53.55 square miles, and is the largest island in Hong Kong.\n\nThe name 'Tai Hai Shan' first appeared in Chapter 87 of Yu Ti Ji Shing, a book published in the Sung Dynasty. It records,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212006, "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-1989", "page_number": 421, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "396\n\nwas frequently invaded by the Wo Chao, i.e. the Japanese pirates. Tai Yu Shan lies on the south coast of Kwangtung Province, and was an important military base against the Wo Chao. During the Wan Li Reign, the Nam Tau Chai #9, i.e. the Nam Tau Naval Battalion, with six guard stations, was created. One of them was at Tai O ✰ on Tai Yu Shan.\" In 1521, the Ferangi, i.e. the Portuguese, invaded Tuen Mun P¶. In 1522, they were defeated by the Ming troops which lies on the north coast of Tai Yu Shan, at Sai Chao Wan\n\n15\n\nbetween Tai O and Sha Lo Wan. At that time, there were nine settlements on the island: Kai Kung Tau O, Sha Lo Wan, Tung Sai Chung, Tai Ho Shan (now known as Lantau Peak), Mui Wo, Lo Pui O 螺杯澳 (now known as Pui O) and Tong Fuk 唐復、16\n\nDynasty,\n\nIn the 1st year of the Kang Hsi Reign of the Ching, the coastal areas, especially the Kwangtung, the Fukien and the Chekiang Provinces, were frequently disturbed by pirates. Thus the government imposed the Coastal Evacuation. It was only in the 8th year of the Kang Hsi Reign (1669) that the coastal restriction was abandoned, and people were allowed to return to settle on the island. There were no fortifications then. In the early part of the Yung Cheng Reign, Yeung Lin, the governor of the Kwangtung and Kwangsi Provinces built the Fan Lau Fort on the west tip of the island. The fort was known as the Kai Yik Fork. It consisted of eight cannon places and twenty barracks.\" Later, in the Chien Lung and the Chia Ching\n\n+\n\n19\n\nperiods, owing to the increasing influence of the pirates and the foreigners, the Tung Chung Hau □ guard station was created. In 1817, eight more barracks were built at Tung Chung Hau,\" and two forts were built at the foot of the Shek She Shan. These two forts, with seven barracks and an arsenal, together were known as the Shek She Fort HWS.\" In 1831, the Tung Chung Walled City 東涌寨城 was built at the foot of the Sheung Ling Pei Shan 上嶺皮山。20 After 1841, the Tung Chung Walled City and the forts remained as important military bases. Besides, guard stations were established at Tai Ho, Sha Lo Wan and Mui Wo. These remained in position until 1898, when the New Territories and the adjacent islands were leased to the British. After that, they were redundant.2\n\nAfter the coastal restriction was abandoned, five villages were resettled, namely: Tai O, Tung Sai Chung, Lo Pui O, Shek Pik and Mui Wo.\" In the Chia Ching period, more villages were created, there were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213099, "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-1993", "page_number": 167, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "149\n\nabout the beds, and growing concern in enlightened circles about the cruelties implied by the corvée. By the end of the Ming, the north and east shores of the Bay were merely home to a few scattered, small, agricultural villages. The waning of imperial interest in the area led to an explosion of piracy. This area had, by the late Ming, become a lightly populated and dangerous part of Hsin An County, insignificant, remote, and probably declining.\n\n5\n\nThe Coastal Evacuation of 1662-1668, the forcible removal of people living near the coast, to deny anti-Ch'ing remnants support, was a traumatic event. Many of the previous inhabitants died - possibly half. It seems likely that, when the remnants of the people returned in 1668-1669, they concentrated themselves in the better lands to the west, around Yuen Long and Sham Chun (Shenzhen), and around Tai Po and Sha Tin at the head of Tolo Harbour, abandoning the declining Mirs Bay area. However, land taxes still had to be paid for this area. Lineages looked, therefore, for tenants or purchasers to take over these more marginal areas.\n\nThe newcomers they found to repopulate the area were Hakkas from the north-east. All the present inhabitants of the northern and eastern parts of the Mirs Bay area are Hakka, and their clan traditions all speak of settlement in the area after 1668. A few villages claim to have been founded in the late seventeenth century, many in the eighteenth, and some only in the nineteenth, in every case by families who had moved into the area after 1668.\n\nSome of the Hakka newcomers living in the north-west quadrant of Mirs Bay became, at least in village terms, wealthy during the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Much of this wealth was poured into large reclamation projects. These aimed at increasing the arable land available in the area by filling in the mouths of the bays in front of the villages. These reclamation projects in turn brought yet more wealth to the area. The social status of the local Hakka rose steadily during this same period. In 1805 the Hakka were granted a quota of their own within the Hsin An County imperial examinations quota. Over a quarter of all the early Hakka examination successes from Hsin An County were from the north-west quadrant of Mirs Bay, and this should be seen as evidence of the wealth and self-confidence of the Hakka of that area in the early decades of the nineteenth century.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213142, "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-1993", "page_number": 210, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "192\n\nensure that the saltfields there were in the same County as the rest of the salt commission Yin Tin (Yantian, 鹽田, \"The Salt Fields\") almost certainly got its name somewhen in this period However, areas under the control of a Salt Commissioner were often merely the salt-pans, and the adjacent village of the salt-workers, in pockets scattered along the coast, and the presence of a salt commission could co-exist with a totally undeveloped hinterland See Luo Hsiang-lin (羅香林), 香港前代史 一八四二年以前之香港及其對外交通, Xianggang Qiandaishi Yiqian Ernian Zhi Xianggang Ji Qi Duiwai Jiaotong, Hong Kong, 1959, translated as Hong Kong and its External Communications before 1841, but without the footnotes. Hong Kong, 1963], ch 1, n 5, 13, 12, ch 4, n 14 See also ch In 13 See also S Y Lin, \"Salt Manufacture in Hong Kong\", in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Vol 7, 1967, pp 138-151 (reprinted from The Hong Kong Naturalist, Vol X, No. 1, January 1940)\n\n4 See Luo Hsiang-lin, op cit, ch 3; SF Balfour, \"Hong Kong before the British Being a Local History of the Region of Hong Kong and the New Territories Before the British Occupation”, in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Vol 10. 1970, pp 134-179 (printed from Tien Hsia Monthly, Shanghai, Vols Hand 12, 1940, 1941), K M.A. Barnett, \"Hong Kong Before the Chinese, the Frame, the Puzzle, and the Missing Pieces\", Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol 4, 1964, pp. 42-67; Sung Hok-p'ang, \"Legends and Stories of the New Territories Tai Po, Part I”, in Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol 28, 1988, pp 70-76 (reprinted from The Hong Kong Naturalist, May, 1935)\n\n+\n\n6 The Gazetteer mentions pirates in the Mirs Bay area in 1571, 1590, 1641, 1647, 1648, 1664, and 1672, 1688 Gazetteer, ch 12, 1819 Gazetteer, ch 12, Chung Lap Pao edition, 1979, pp. 119-120, and see also 1819 Gazetteer ch 7, and ch 19, Chung Lap Pao edition, pp 80-81, and 154\n\n* The 1688 Gazetteer gives a list of villages in existence in the area in and before 1662 (1688 Gazetteer, ch 3) See the note at ff 13-15, which makes it clear that the villages are those of the period before the Coastal Evacuation of 1662-1668, and not those contemporary with the Gazetteer\n\nThe Provincial Governor and Magistrate urged on the returning families the need to get tenants or purchasers to take over land which could no longer be tilled by the descendants of the previous owners (see Luo Hsiang-lin, op cit pp. 145-149, n. 15, 19, 23 relating to dates on the 1710s and 1720s) Within the Mirs Bay area, at least the Lees of Wo Hang settled there in 1692 \"on the [official] order to reclaim land\", see D Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society Lineage and Village in the Eastern New Territories, Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, 1986, p 217, n 22 There is at least one case where a lineage abandoned land east of the mountains, to concentrate themselves in the more sheltered west The name of the village of Man Uk Pin, \"The Houses of the Man Family\") makes it clear that it was once lived in by the Man family That family, however, is now found only in Ta Kwu Ling, to the west, at Ping Che, Tong Fong, and Heung Yuen villages When the present inhabitants of Man Uk Pin, the Chung (鍾) lineage settled there in about 1700, it was deserted - clearly in his case a lineage had concentrated on its best lands to the west, and abandoned the marginal Mirs Bay land to newcomers\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213916, "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": 268, "title": "RAS-1996", "content_text": "4. Tai Hang \n\n5 Wong Nei Chung: 3 \n\n6. North Point [ \n\n7 Quarry Bay' I \n\n12 Stanley' 4 \n\n13 Aberdeen I \n\n14. Ap Lei Chau: 2 \n\n15. West point: 2 \n\n245 \n\n8. Shau Kei Wan. 4 \n\n16 Middle Island: 1 \n\nNOTES \n\nIndicates that commemorative tablets exist for these repairs \n\nSee the Map of the Kwangtung Coastland, Ch 32 Yue Tau Kee, Man Lik edition A*X*9 ALE 廣東沿海闢 \n\n2 In 1661 the Idiot of the Coastal Evacuation was carried out to stifle the coastal supply of \n\n+ \n\n1 \n\nKoyinga i Larwan people living along the coast had to move inland \n\nCh 3. Sam On Gazetteer – 1688 edition (Fb];}}&KLE t \n\n* Ch 2 Sam On Gazetteer 1891 edition af #M74 1⁄2 1LE \n\n5 \n\nSee P 203, Appendix II. Original Gazetteer and Census, May 15th, 1841. by G. R. Sayers. Hong Kong 1841-1862, Birth, Adolescence and Coming of Age", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214629, "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": 44, "title": "RAS-1999", "content_text": "covered over 300 years, and must have required at least 10 generations, even counting at a 30-year generation gap. Reading back from the end of the Ming, and assuming that the recorded ancestors are those living at the end of the Ming, the first recorded Ming ancestor cannot have been born earlier than about 1430-1450. Three or four generations have been omitted, it is clear, from the Tsuk Po, from the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. This is not unusual. Usually the Tsuk Po was only brought up to date at long intervals, and, when it was, the oldest unrecorded ancestors were liable to have been forgotten, the oldest remembered ancestor being entered as the son of the last recorded in the old Tsuk Po. It is, therefore, likely that the Tsuk Po was brought up to date very early in the Ming, and then again very late in that dynasty.\n\nOf the ancestors recorded from the Ming, the third is Chan Chiu-yin (UK). His date of birth is likely to have been about 1510-1530. The Tsuk Po claims that he was the first ancestor to settle in Nga Tsin Wai: the date must be somewhat close to, or shortly after, the middle of the sixteenth century.\n\nThe Chan clan Tsuk Po records four ancestors who died after 1644 before an ancestor whose dates are given as 1828-1891. Again, at least one or two generations have been dropped out of the record. Errors in Tsuk Po from the New Territories from the early years of the Ching are very common. The years 1662-1668 were the years when the residents along the coast were driven inland by Imperial troops, to deny support to Koxinga and his Ming remnants on Taiwan. Villagers were unable to take much with them. Records were lost, even if the Tsuk Po itself was saved. The first ancestor recorded after the Coastal Evacuation in the Chan clan Tsuk Po is the founder of the Tseung Kwan O branch of the clan, Chan Kwan-fu (M). This village was founded in the early eighteenth century. This Founding Ancestor cannot have been born earlier than about 1690-1700 (his oldest great-great-grandson was not born until 1828). Long generation gaps (30-33 years) are possible here because of the time needed to recover from the traumas of the Coastal Evacuation and the difficulties involved in founding the new village at Tseung Kwan O: the clan may well have married late in these years. But, if Chan Kwan-fu was born about 1690-1700, he cannot have been the son of Chan Pak-wai (1), the last Ming recorded ancestor, who died before 1644. One or two generations have been forgotten, probably men who died during the Coastal Evacuation, or the decades", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s178b887x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215675, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2001", "page_number": 452, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "404\n\nIan Morrison's Last Dispatch\n\nPOHANG IN HANDS OF\n\nNORTH KOREANS\n\nAnnex\n\nTOWN IN FLAMES\n\nFrom Our Special Correspondent\n\nBIHAR ARMY HEADQUARTERS, August 12 —\n\nA serious situation has developed at Pohang on the east coast. North Korean forces, who for several days past were known to be working their way south through mountainous country inland from the coast, and who yesterday were reported at a point seven miles north-west of Pohang, attacked the town early this morning and are now threatening the airfield five miles to the south-east. Fires are burning in the town and it may become necessary to evacuate the airfield.\n\nFor several weeks past the South Korean forces based on Pohang have been fighting in and around Yongdok, a small town 25 miles north of Pohang. Their supply line has been the road which runs along the coast. The mountains to the west are some of the steepest in Korea, but they have not deterred the North Koreans from making the obvious outflanking movement. The exact strength of the North Korean force is not known. Three days ago it was reported as two regiments. Probably it consists of a nucleus of regular troops and several hundred guerrilla troops who have long been established in these mountains.\n\nThe allied command apparently minimized their threat, because it was only yesterday that reinforcements were hurriedly rushed to this coastal sector. These consisted of South Korean infantry and a small American task force equipped with light tanks. Exactly what happened is still obscure, but the American convoy was ambushed soon after midnight on the main road 15 miles south of Pohang and pinned down until dawn. Air support was called for, which eventually drove off the North Koreans, believed to have been a number of guerrilla troops, and permitted the convoy to continue after considerable delay.\n\nMustangs were still using the airfield up to 5 o'clock this afternoon, and in some cases pilots were firing their guns only two or three minutes after taking off. The North Koreans had moved south of Yongdok, and pilots claimed to have destroyed two tanks, 10 vehicles, and two ammunition cars. Transport aircraft also were still flying into the airfield this evening and bringing out certain unessential staff such as ground engineers.\n\nAccording to these arrivals, North Korean mortar shells were landing in the general area of the airfield, but it was not under small arms fire. American gunners who have been supporting South Korean infantry in this coastal sector were shelling North Korean positions on the ridge about two miles north of the airfield between the airfield and the port. Large numbers of Korean civilians who had evacuated the town had gathered round the airfield, which is situated close to the shore of the bay, and two ships were standing by offshore in case evacuation should become necessary.\n\nLieutenant-General Walker, commander of the Eighth Army, and Major-General Partridge, commander of the Fifth Air Force, flew over the area this morning.\n\n97", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215900, "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": 199, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "indicated the establishment for the battery observation post (BOP), battery plotting room (BPR), and Eastern Fire Command. A total of 88 officers and soldiers were proposed.\n\n30 December 1936 The 12 Heavy Battery dismantled the 9.2-inch gun at Gough Battery (The two 9.2-inch guns at Pottinger were left for the moment).\n\n23 October 1937\n\n1939/1940\n\nJoint Overseas and Home Defence Committee considered re-fortification or de-militarisation of Hong Kong, assuming that it took 90 days for the fleet to relieve Hong Kong. Bokhara Battery constructed.\n\n1940\n\nThe guns at Pottinger Battery removed.\n\nA Japanese military map shows the details of defence deployment at Devil's Peak. It states that for the Devil's Peak defence works, \"underground passages have been altered and barbed wire added.\"\n\n12 December 1941 During the early hours, the 5/7 Rajputs and 1 Mountain Battery took up positions at Devil's Peak. The six 3.7-inch howitzers of the 1st Mtn Bty fired 400 rounds at the advancing Japanese, who were at Black Hill.\n\nThe 5th Anti Aircraft Regiment also moved to Devil's Peak with 6 Lewis Guns\n\nAt 1800 hours, the garrison received orders to withdraw to Hong Kong Island. The evacuation took place the next morning.\n\nRollo, 1992, p.119\n\n2\n\nRollo, 1992, p.113\n\nRollo, 1992, p.120, p.201\n\nEmpson, 1992, p.146 (Plate 2-12)\n\nThe arcs of fire of Devil's Peak's batteries can be found in Rollo, 1992, at p.123\n\nRollo, 1992, p.130, p.171, 173\n\nPRO 16947\n\nPRO 17849\n\n15 December 1941\n\n13 December 1941 Coast defence batteries on Hong Kong Island shelled Devil's Peak, now in Japanese hands.\n\nPak Sha Wan Battery hit by Japanese light artillery fire from Devil's Peak.\n\nRollo, 1992, p.131\n\n18 December 1941\n\nPak Sha Wan Battery fired at Devil's Peak Village.\n\n1944\n\nA USAAF aerial photograph shows Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, including the Devil's\n\nRollo, 1992, p.133\n\nRollo, 1992, p.135\n\n132", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]