[ { "id": 207359, "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": 127, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN MILITARY TALENT\n\n119\n\ninto the family of the famous minister and military commander Ho Kuang.29\n\nBut the Han experience in employing outsiders had negative as well as positive effects. While Hsiung-nu might defeat their fellow barbarians in battle, they might also revolt against the Chinese—witness the uprising of the \"Dutiful Barbarians of Huang-chang\" (Huang-chung i-ts'ung hu) in 184 A.D. Financial inducements, honors—and even the Han practice of requiring barbarian soldiers to give up members of their families as hostages—did not always prove sufficient in controlling barbarians with conflicting interests or wavering fidelity.30 Yet on balance, China benefitted from the use of foreigners during the Han, and Chin Mi-ti, like Yu Yü, received the praise of later generations for his faithfulness and devotion to the Middle Kingdom. As a tribute to Chin's loyalty (and in acknowledgement that disloyalty was not a peculiar barbarian trait), the T'ang scholar, Ch'en Yen wrote: \"In the case of the revolt and failure of Lu Wan and Shao-ch'ing [Li Ling] were they not barbarians? In the case of the loyalty of Chin Mi-ti, was he not a Chinese?”32\n\nAfter the fall of Han, subsequent dynasties—both Chinese and foreign—used barbarians in numbers and positions appropriate to circumstance.33 The T'ang is especially noteworthy for its widespread use of aliens in various military and administrative capacities. Turkish tribes, particularly the Uighurs, became indispensable allies of the dynasty, fighting barbarians beyond China's frontiers as well as supplying troops for use against internal enemies. In 757, for example, the Uighur heir apparent (Yeh-hu) led some 4,000 Uighur cavalry forces successfully against the rebel An Lu-shan, for which he was honored with a long edict of praise, gifts, and substantial awards of title and rank.34\n\nOther foreigners, employed permanently in the T'ang service, were such famous generals as Ch'i-pi Ho-li, Kao Hsien-chih, and Li K'o-yung. Ch'i-pi, the grandson of a Turkish (T'u-chüeh) khan, gained high rank and eventual enfeoffment as a duke for his military efforts against various barbarian tribes during the reign of Kao-tsung.35 Kao, a Korean whose father had been an officer in the Chinese army before him obtained numerous high military positions before he fell victim to intrigue following his defeat in the fateful Battle of Talas (751).36 Li was an opportunistic fourth-generation commander of Sha-t'o aristocratic background, whose father had", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211652, "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": 67, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "42\n\nBoats. Pestilence Wang Yeh are also quite common on the altars of Fukienese community temples in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia having been carried there by emigrants.\n\nAlthough there are no Pestilence Wang Yeh on the altars of temples in Hong Kong and Macau, there are two deities bearing the same honorific, and also there is the concept of pestilence demons being exiled during a major festival. One of the two deities is the comparatively rare Cantonese cult deity, Chang Wang Yeh (E), consulted before building a house or fixing the date for a wedding. His image is to be seen on a side altar in a secondary hall in the Hung Hsing Temple in Wanchai, and again in another Cantonese temple in Waterloo Street in Singapore where his title is Chang Wang Lao Yeh. The other deity is K'ang Wang Yeh (E). He is one of the four life-size images at floor level before the main altar of the Northern Emperor [Chen Wu] in Mong Tseng Wei near Deep Bay in the New Territories. These four are known simply as the Four Generals and whilst the other three are relatively common deities from Chinese mythology, Hua Kuang, Chao Yuanshuai and Yin Yuanshuai, nothing is known in this temple about K'ang Wang Yeh.8\n\nThe Five Ubiquitous Ones, the Wu T'ung (F), formerly worshipped in North China as pestilence deities have been seen in Ch'aochou (Teochew) illegal squatter temples in Hong Kong but not in Taiwan. According to several temple keepers the Five are potentially harmful unorthodox (H) spirits and not beneficial spirits (#). One keeper added that the Five had been worshipped in Kiangsu and Chekiang provinces as well as by Ch'aochou people and that they were in some way connected with the roaming spirits of the tens of thousands soldiers killed during the wars which ended the Mongol (Yuan) dynasty and led to the founding of the Ming. The Five have no individual identities whereas the Pestilence Wang Yeh do have surnames.\n\nUnlike other deified Chinese, images of the Pestilence Wang Yeh are floated out to sea or burnt to carry away the pestilence demons associated with them. The nearest in comparison here would be the paper images of deities burned after major festivals such as the image of Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy in her form as Ta Shih (±) the very ugly demonic form which she assumes to prevent lustful demons from assaulting her when visiting the Afterworld during her missions of mercy. Her image as Ta Shih in paper and bamboo is burnt to carry her over", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211658, "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": 73, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "48\n\nOne of the more interesting Wang Ch'uan is in the Hai Ling Temple on the Pescadores. In Tainan there are some boats as big as small buses, and at the Ma Tsu temple at Lu Erh near Tainan, there is a multi-storey boat. The captains and crew of the large wooden models are portrayed by small images, the largest being the captain dressed in Ch'ing mandarin robes, seated in an open cabin on the aftercastle overlooking the whole junk. The crew consists of sailors manning the ropes and tiller, and marines with weapons including cannon. The captain (or comptroller) of the Pestilence Wang Yeh junk is sometimes portrayed holding a writing brush and scroll. One such image in Tung Kang is seated on a throne on a small altar table before his large and magnificent boat, smoking a real cigarette which smoulders down to a stub before being replaced by one of the temple staff.\n\nSimilar images make up miniature military units representing the armies of the Pestilence Wang Yeh; some dozen or so soldiers in V formation with a senior officer at the apex (see Plate 12). Such armies of the Pestilence Wang Yeh, to be seen only in Taiwan and not in South-East Asia, consist of tamed and therefore 'good' demons and are portrayed on side altars on a few temples only. One temple keeper explained that the Pestilence Wang Yeh soldiers were all difficult spirits of dead humans who had been beyond reform during purgatory, but who had been invited to join the army of the Wang Yeh on condition that they would obey orders implicitly, and in return they had been promised rehabilitation and even the possibility of rebirth to the human world should they toe the line. They are referred to as depraved or evil spirits (Hsieh shen 邪神).\n\nThe armies are led by generals and marshals under the overall command of the Wang Yeh. The armies referred to as 'The Office of Military Affairs' (Chung Chun Fu), the main defensive forces for the prefecture in the fight against the demonic forces, are represented in some Pestilence Wang Yeh temples by a single seated image of an anonymous general surrounded by a varying number of soldiers in varying robes and uniforms, each small group of six or eight representing subordinate formations and units. In the Wang Yeh temple at Nan K'un Shen the Wang Yeh army is called “The Grand Defender of the Office of Military Affairs (Chung Chun Fu Chen Shou)\".\n\nThe Pestilence Wang Yeh army in the temple at Hsi Yu on the Pescadores consists of a general in charge, (Assistant Regional", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211665, "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": 80, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "55\n\nare all standard images but, without the temple keeper's clarification it would not have been possible to identify the three as Koxinga in the centre, flanked by two of his generals.\n\nKoxinga was however, an important figure known nationwide, whereas most of the non-pestilence Wang Yeh are petty individuals whose story and influence rarely ranges beyond the boundaries of their native area. The following three examples are from the Tainan area of southern Taiwan.\n\nThe first of the three non-pestilence Wang Yeh is Ch'ih Kan-lin (**), the youngest of three children. His father, Ch'ih Chung-ming brought his family to the small fishing village of Hsiangyang some 350 years ago, at the beginning of the Ch'ing era, from Tainan, the then capital of the island. He had fled from Tainan where he had been an official as he had been falsely accused. His wife was eight months pregnant and when they reached the wretched and poverty-stricken village of Hsiangyang she just could not face going any further. They found a small shack and moved in. The village was in the throes of a very serious drought and the villagers were slowly losing all hope. Their crops were failing and fish ponds, lakes, and rivers had all dried up; the future looked bleak indeed. The father, Chung-ming and his wife joined the villagers in prayers for rain and no sooner had they done so than the mother gave birth to Kan-lin and the rains fell. The rivers and lake filled and the villagers were able to fish again and their crops thrived. The father started a school in the village.\n\nKan-lin was a highly intelligent child and pleased his father with his diligence. When he was twelve he saved the entire village by bringing timely warning of an impending flash flood which destroyed the village but, due to the boy's warning, without loss of life. In the years that followed he did many good deeds which benefited the village as a whole and on several occasions drove off bandits single-handed. He died at the age of 60 and was carried off straight to Heaven from whence he was posted back to the village as the protective deity and has been known as Ch'ih Wang Yeh ever since.\n\nThe second example of a non-pestilence Wang Yeh is Hsu Wang Yeh who lived some five hundred years ago. His mother and father lived in Hsuchou in Kiangsu province where they had put everything they had into a partnership in a silk and textile shop. The father was cheated, badly", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211685, "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": 100, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "75\n\nhad developed to a point where Borodin and the other Russian advisers found it expedient to depart hurriedly overland for Russia.\n\nIn Kiu Kiang, though situated in between these centres of disturbance, the local tension eased and we returned to the shore in April; it was not, however, until the end of the year that the British authorities considered conditions sufficiently stable to justify the return of the women and children who had been evacuated.\n\nKiu Kiang is a small, relatively unimportant place: the interest in the change of the status of the Concession lay rather in the new precedents set than in the local readjustments. A Chinese Commissioner was appointed to supervise the various municipal services, and if the change resulted in the removal of a long-felt grievance in the alleged loss of sovereignty, the advantage outbalanced such small inconveniences as the fact that the drains smelt a bit more, the police force was a little less efficient, and the number of clerks in the municipal office increased five-fold.\n\nThe political disputes in the ranks of the Kuo Min Tang party before the end of the year brought about no less than three changes of the official appointed to administer the Kiu Kiang Concession; and each change also involved a complete displacement of the municipal staff and police, as the new man always had his own henchmen to provide for. In one instance the departing official went in such fear of his life that he applied for a safe-conduct on a British gunboat and hurriedly left for Shanghai.\n\nIn August revolt broke out in the Revolutionary Army in Nanchang, a hundred miles south of Kiu Kiang. Two divisions under Generals Yeh Ting and Ho Lung mutinied and marched south to establish a communist state on the borders of Kiangsi and Hunan provinces. These communist forces, while guilty of the grossest cruelty to any rich Chinese \"capitalists\" they might catch, were able to attract the support of the poor, and more particularly of the landless peasantry to whom the communist policy of agrarian reform greatly appealed.\n\nConsequences of importance to the future of China flowed from these events. In the first place Chiang Kai Shek looked more and more for his support to the wealthy Chinese merchants and bankers of Shanghai.\n\nIn the second place, the seeds were then planted of the irreconcilable", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212162, "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": 104, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "81\n\nAlso in Taiwan lone images occupy the altar of a number of small temples in the Hsinchu area. In each case the image is a portrait rather than a standard image, of elderly men, obviously ancestral images, revered and prayed to as local benefactors by local residents who rarely know their personal names or life stories. They are all from Hakka communities, and are referred to as Ta-jen A. They include Yang Ta-jen, Huang Ta-jen, Hsieh Ta-jen, Heng Ta-jen and Chao Ta-jen. Presumably each had some social position and status and their present day minor cults have been stimulated by the construction of a decorous and specific shrine or temple housing its charismatic image.\n\nThe following are examples of the legends and cults connected with four deceased locals whose charisma led to them being honoured and later revered as local deities. Two were local secret society gang leaders, the third a scholar who was a renowned healer and the fourth was a local philanthropist.\n\nYeh Te-lai, a Hakka immigrant to Kuala Lumpur where he is better known as Yap Ah-loy, was appointed Kapitan China by the Sultan of Selangor in 1868 with the right to tax tin and opium and to judge lawsuits between Malays and Chinese. During inter-racial troubles his private army of some 2500 Chinese fought many battles against his rivals. He was a go-getter who succeeded in establishing a firm business base for the community in Kuala Lumpur, a 'frontier town' where he maintained law and order by means of his secret society 'soldiers' under their generals, one of whom was Sheng Ming-li and another Ch'en Chung-lai. Ming-li and Chung-lai were both murdered in Negri Sembilan in about 1860, and on the orders of Yeh Te-lai, were deified and their images placed on the main altars in some four temples, in Rasah, Semenyih and Kuala Lumpur. Ming-li was referred to as Shih-yeh (Adviser) or Ssu Shih-yeh Kung-li (the Fourth Secretary [in an official yamen]). His image and that of Chung-li used to be borne around Kuala Lumpur during their annual festival on the 1st of the ninth lunar month. Legend has it that when Sheng Ming-li was decapitated his blood was white, not red, a miracle in the eyes of his followers, who buried him near Malacca.\n\nThe second case is Hsin Ting. Hsin Ting is the main deity in his temple in Taipei where he is portrayed as a scholar holding a scroll. Although his cult was carried to Taipei by a scholar who had passed his examinations after praying to the deity, Hsin Ting has reverted to his original skill of medicine and is now prayed to by the sick for", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213064, "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": 132, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "113\n\nThe mage in bus cult centre in the village of Pai-chiao ft, between Amoy and Changchou, is swathed in silken robes making it impossible to note any iconographical detail. Images of his parents and his elder brother, but none of his only sister, stand on a secondary altar in the cult centre together with a large metal bowl in which it is claimed that Wu Pen had concocted his herbal remedies. Caretakers in the cult centre point out the site in the village of the house in which Wu Pen had been born and lived out much of his life, and also the place at the end of the village where the sea once lapped the shore long before a series of land reclamations left Pai-chiao ft from the open sea.\n\nIn legend Pao-sheng Ta-ti has thirty-six warriors who carry out his orders under two senior soldiers, General Tieh [or Chao] # [#]19¤ and Marshal Kang. Such retinues have been observed in a number of temples dedicated to Pao-sheng Ta-ti in Fukien, Taiwan and in SE Asia, either with him or on side altars, or in a great number of temples painted individually across one of the temple's side walls as a large mural.\n\nA large tablet dedicated to his parents stands on the rear hall altar of a large temple dedicated to him in Tainan city. One smaller image portrays him with a bowl in his hand and a dragon with a pearl in its mouth before his feet?. Two major statues, at floor level, flanking the altar on which Pao-sheng Ta-ti is the main deity, were identified as Chang Sheng-che ' * P K and Chiang Hsien-kuan Il about whom none of the temple staff could offer any information. They would appear to be Pao-sheng Ta-ti's assistants or guardians. However, in Taiwan other pairs of guardian generals have been identified. These have included Generals Chien and Chao MA and Marshals Kao and Yin á KIM.\n\nAlso in the Tainan temple two assistants on the main altar table are Ts'ai-yeh T'ung-tzu X RM and Tsuo Chih T’ung-tzu, 1⁄2 Youths who Collect the Herbs and Compound the Medicines.\n\nLegends about Pao-sheng Ta-ti's origins, powers of magic and his ability to cure the sick abound. He was regarded not only as a powerful mediumistic protective deity who provided effective prescriptions, he was also believed able to stave off floods or bring much needed rain. He is said to have saved the city of Changchou from plague, and again later from starvation during a prolonged drought. He was also summoned to Court where, either in about AD 1030 he cured the Empress Wen or in AD 1408 when the wife of the Ming emperor suffered from sore nipples.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 } ]