[ { "id": 207369, "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": 137, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN MILITARY TALENT\n\n129\n\nloyal service to the dynasty, he had shown himself to be ungrateful, greedy, power-hungry and difficult to control. Given the privileged position such Westerners enjoyed in China, transgressions by them could not easily be punished--even if they were to become Chinese subjects.77\n\nWhat could not be expected of Ward could hardly be expected of other foreigners in the Chinese military service. Emphasizing that Westerners did not delight in Chinese clothes and customs, Hsüeh and Li argued that China “need not force them to do what they find difficult.\" In their view, nothing was to be gained by foreign military employees going through the motions of either changing to Chinese clothing or registering as Chinese subjects. The throne voiced substantial agreement.78 Allowing foreigners to follow their own customs was, after all, consistent with the traditional policy of \"keeping [barbarians] under loose rein [chi-mi],” which did not exclude the idea of cultural submission, but neither did it demand it. Meanwhile, local officials were expected to devise effective means for establishing control over barbarian employees until such time as their services could be dispensed with.\n\nWhen Charles G. Gordon received command of the Ever-Victorious Army after Burgevine's dismissal, the throne did not require that he register as a Chinese subject or change to Chinese ways.79 It did, however, demand that he be effectively controlled. Unmoved by the prospect of material gain, and comparatively aloof, Gordon was a difficult barbarian to ensnare. Yet through a combination of flattery, honors, shrewd diplomacy, and administrative pressures (including the presence of Li Hung-chang's growing Anhwei Army) the Chinese succeeded in winning and maintaining Gordon's devotion.80 Throughout his career in China Gordon carried the stigma of being an \"unsubmissive\" foreign commander,81 but he received unprecedented honors from the throne. Eventually, with Li Hung-chang as his sponsor, Gordon achieved the exalted rank of provincial commander-in-chief (ti-tu) and the coveted yellow riding-jacket (huang ma-kua). By the end of his tumultuous career as head of the Ever-Victorious Army in 1864, he and Li Hung-chang had become fast friends, and they remained so for many years to come.\n\n82\n\nDuring the T'ung-chih period, a considerable number of other foreigners entered the Chinese military service. Some, such as A. E. LeBrethon de Caligny, Prosper Giquel, and Paul d'Aiguebelle, led foreign-officered contingents patterned after the Ever-Victorious", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211260, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1987", "page_number": 321, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "296\n\nIndividual treaty ports in China as well as other parts of Asia, large and small, are receiving attention from scholars. Meanwhile, British Mandarins and Chinese Reformers should be read by all who are interested in modern China or who are interested in the British in Asia. Dr. Atwell has made a significant contribution to our knowledge of how the British administered one small locality and coped with demands of modern forces. Her work can be used as a guide or springboard for comparison of British colonial policy in various East Asian places, such as Brunei and the Straits Settlements, Hankow, Tientsin, and Shanghai, say, with Hong Kong tossed in for good measure.\n\nWEI PEH T'I*\n\nSteven A. Leibo, Transferring Technology to China, Prosper Giquel and the Self-strengthening Movement, China Research Monograph 28, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, Center for Chinese Studies, 1985.\n\nProsper Giquel, edited by Steven A. Leibo, A Journal of the Chinese Civil War 1864. Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1985.\n\nThese two works, one of compilation and assessment based on a doctoral dissertation, the other of translation (with the help of Debbie Weston) and annotation with a lengthy introduction, have a considerable intrinsic interest because they deal with a rather extraordinary man. They have also a degree of relevance, over a century later, for the West's involvement with present-day China's modernizing programme.\n\nThey are to be read in conjunction with other modern works on this period of China's self-strengthening efforts, including those listed in Dr. Leibo's introduction to Transferring Technology.\n\nProsper Giquel, a French naval officer, came to China during the Second China War. After service with the Joint Commission\n\n* Wei Peh T'i is Honorary Lecturer, Department of History, and Research Associate, Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong. She is the author of Shanghai: Crucible of Modern China (1987).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211261, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1987", "page_number": 322, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "297\n\nthat guided the administration of the city of Canton during its four year occupation by the Allies, during which he laid the foundations of his knowledge of written and spoken Chinese, he joined the Chinese Maritime Customs at Ningpo. When that city was captured by the Taiping Army, he assisted the Sino-French \"Ever Triumphant Army\" to recapture it, and later commanded it in the operations that led to the recapture of Hangzhou, for which he received high rank and honours from the appreciative Ch'ing government. Contacts made during this time led to employment after the Rebellion, in and outside China, that lasted until his death in France in 1886. His principal achievement was the construction and administration of the Fuzhou Dockyard and its fleet of warships in the face of many difficulties. Ironically, they were destroyed by naval forces of his own nation during the hostilities of 1884-85 between France and China over Vietnam.\n\nGiquel was a rare bird for his times. Apart from his linguistic proficiency and administrative capacities, he was sympathetic towards China at a time when this was not common among his contemporaries. Moreover, he sought ever to combine his duties to his employers, the Chinese, with his loyalties towards his native land, a veritable tightrope which he conscientiously trod throughout his working life. As Dr. Leibo observes, \"A less committed individual might never have attempted such a balancing act”. (Transferring Technology, p. 5). He gave offence to many influential Frenchmen and to his government in 1872 by an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes in which he suggested that the French Concession at Shanghai should be merged with the International Settlement, and criticized French policy towards China in various aspects.\n\nWhy this should be so is hinted at by an English account which indicates how different Giquel must have been from most of his fellows. Even allowing for the fact that this is an English account, written at a time of strong rivalry between the two powers and by one side of an old and mutual antipathy, it speaks for itself:\n\nFrench officers are so quick to take offense (sic) — so quick to obtain satisfaction - so imperious, so impractical, and so totally uncommercial that they are viewed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211262, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1987", "page_number": 323, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "298\n\nby the Chinese with great dread and by foreigners with apprehension. . . \n\n(Transferring Technology, p. 69)\n\nIn truth, Giquel must have been greatly valued by the Chinese in particular, though the books show that this was at the expense of being thought too pro-Chinese by the French authorities, and even by trusted subordinates.\n\nThe book is full of such interesting and illuminating passages, either from Giquel's own pen, those of contemporaries, or from Dr. Leibo's hand. Another useful observation, this time coming from the Imperial Commissioner charged with overseeing the Dockyard project, has for us today an oddly familiar ring to it. Commissioner Shen Baozhen was pessimistic about the continuing success of the dockyard under solely Chinese direction, and to Giquel's recital of favorable signs for continued progress answered, \"Certainly, but what if Li [Viceroy Li Hongzhang] disappears? What will become of all this?” (Transferring Technology, p. 125). In other words, personalities were apparently as crucial then as they are today, in China's modernization programmes.\n\nShen's faith in Giquel was absolute. Dr. Leibo quotes from a Chinese language source which indicates that he informed Li Hongzhang at this time that his confidence in him was such that he would stake his entire career on Giquel's loyalty to China. If Giquel ever did anything to harm China, Shen promised to terminate his own public career. (ibid. p. 126).\n\nOf the two works, I found the first to be the more satisfying. It is detailed and well-organised, and uses French sources hitherto unutilized by historians. The man and his times emerge clearly, and his difficulties and dilemmas shine through the text. Relationships with high Chinese officials, as well as with European colleagues and would-be rivals, and with the French and other higher authorities are happily covered in sufficient detail to make them both interesting and illuminating, thanks to the varied sources used by Dr. Leibo.\n\nThe other is just as absorbing, especially the diary itself, but I found Dr. Leibo's Introduction less satisfying than the fuller account.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211263, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1987", "page_number": 324, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "299\n\ncount given in the book-length study. Personally, being interested in military matters, I would have liked to have had more information on the recruitment, organization and officering of the “Ever Triumphant Army”. If not in this account, where else? It is too shadowy a body for my liking. Nor is there enough about Giquel in the Introduction, and unlike me, many readers may not have the other book to hand for reference. This handicap sometimes applies in reverse, since there are no maps in Transferring Technology, and the useful section in the Diary giving biographical vignettes only appears in that work. Finally, in neither work are we told anything about Giquel's wife and children, and the Giquel family, although the 1864 diary and other papers came from his grand-daughter's home.\n\nNotwithstanding these observations, readers will find much of interest in these fascinating works which relate to a man who clearly had much to offer, did his best, and assuredly deserves to be better known and appreciated, especially in China itself.\n\nJAMES HAYES\n\nFrank Ching, Ancestors, 900 Years in the Life of a Chinese Family. London, Harrap, 1988, pp. 528.\n\nFrank Ching is a journalist. He has the journalist's eye for the dramatic and unusual. He knows a good story when he sees one, and how to put it across. These gifts have served him well in his first book, an account of his own family over nearly a millennium.\n\nThe book comprises a series of studies of eminent persons of the Ching lineage from whom he is directly descended. In such studies, motivated by the desire to get at one's roots, there is always the danger that we shall get hagiography rather than history, but there are few signs of this. The author has set himself high standards. Starting, as he tells us in the prologue, from scratch in as complex and difficult a field as Chinese historiography, it is remarkable that he has achieved such a tour de force. The book is of great and absorbing human interest, perhaps heightened for readers by the fact that there is a direct connection with a living person. It has been assiduously researched, in person and using the best authorities, and is well organized and beautifully written.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211338, "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-1988", "page_number": 54, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "30\n\nhad already departed. Of the original allied commissioners, only Harry Parkes was still there for the final ceremony which included a tri-national group of Chinese, French, and British dignitaries.\n\nIf the allied occupation of Canton was not as uneventful as some historical accounts record, it nevertheless had very successful elements to it and may have had an influential impact on future Sino-European relations. At least two employees of the Allied Commission, Robert Hart and Prosper Giquel, both young men at the time, went on to play major roles in future Sino-European co-operative ventures later in the century, Robert Hart as the famous director of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service and Prosper Giquel as the future European Director of the Foochow Dockyard and eventually head of several Sino-European Educational Missions of the 1870s and 1880s. That their earlier experiences had been in the somewhat more co-operative world of the Sino-European police forces and the Sino-European coolie emigration inspection teams is certainly likely to have proved significant in the careers of these two men who were later so much more able than most of their countrymen to work with the Chinese on an equal basis.\n\nNOTES\n\nAbbreviations\n\nAE Archives de la Ministère des Affaires Etrangères\n\nCCC Correspondence consulaire et commerciale\n\nCP Correspondence politique, Chine\n\nArmee Les Archives de l'Armee de Terre, Vincennes\n\nFO British Foreign Office\n\nPRO British Public Record Office\n\nSHM Service Historique de la Marine, Vincennes\n\nAN Archives Nationales\n\nRanbir Vohra, China's Path To Modernization: A Historical Review from 1800 to the Present (New Jersey, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1987) citing Christopher Hibbert, The Dragon Awakes. China and the West 1793-1911 (N.Y., Harper and Row, 1970), p. 229.\n\n2 Douglas Hurd, The Arrow War, Anglo-Chinese Confusion 1856-1860 (New York: Macmillan Company, 1967), pp. 121-125 and Immanuel C.Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 121-125.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211339, "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-1988", "page_number": 55, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "31\n\n1\n\nElgin to Clarendon, 9 Jan. 1858, Accounts and Papers, XXXIII 257) p. 140 and Bowring to Malmesbury, 15 April, 1859 Confidential Print, FO 405: 6. fol. 2, no. 1. It is often said that Martineau des Chesnez (see for example Hurd, The Arrow War, p. 125) spoke Chinese as well. This seems a confusion based on the fact that Chesnez spoke English and thus was helpful as a French-English linguist. See for example, Gros to Walewski, 13 January 1858, p.s. of the 14th, CP 23, fol. 41, AE.\n\n1\n\n5\n\nWade to Elgin, 10 March, 1858, Accounts and Papers, XXXIII 2571, (1859), p. 226.\n\nSee Steven A. Leibo, Transferring Technology to China: Prosper Giquel and the Self-strengthening Movement, (Berkeley, Institute of East Asian Studies, 1985), ch. 5.\n\nBourboulon to Walewski, 5 October, 1858, CP, vol. 22, fol. 177-178, AE plus Leibo Transferring Technology To China, ch. 1.\n\n7\n\nLaurence Oliphant, Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan in the Years 1857, 58, '59 (London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1859), vol. I, 151.\n\n10\n\nGros to Walewski, 3 January, 1858, CP, vol. 23, fol. 8, AE.\n\nGros to Walewski, 3 January, 1858, CP vol. 23, fol. 8, AE.\n\nGros to Walewski, 8 January, 1858, CP vol. 23, AE.\n\nHurd, The Arrow War, p. 125.\n\nBowring to Labouchere, 16 April 1858, FO 17 296, des. 49, fol. 117-118, PRO. and Stanley F. Wright, Hart and the Chinese Customs (Belfast: Wm. Mullan and Sons, 1950), p. 176.\n\n13\n\nGros to Walewski, 8 February 1858, vol. 25, fol. 210, AE.\n\nLaurence Oliphant, Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan,\n\nP. 155.\n\n15 Genouilly to Min. de la Marine, July 1, 1858, Dossier Individual Martineau des Chesnez, CC 7 2503, SHM.\n\nElgin to Malmesbury, 5 November, 1858, Accounts and Papers, XXXIII 2571, (1859), p. 413.\n\n17\n\nHsu, The Rise of Modern China 3 ed. p. 207.\n\n19 Trenqualye to Walewski, 28 April 1859, CCC Canton, vol. 2, fol. 112 and\n\nD'Abouville to Min. de la Marine, 2 May 1859, BB 4 763, fol. 106-7, AN.\n\n19\n\nLaurence Oliphant, Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan, P. 155.\n\n20\n\nGros to Walewski, 8 January 1858, CP vol. 23, fol. 23, AE,\n\n21 Hurd, The Arrow War, p. 125.\n\n15\n\n21\n\nD'Abouville to Min. de la Marine, 12 December 1858, BB 4 763, fol. 20, AN.\n\n11 January 1858, Accounts and Papers, XXXIII 2571 (1859), incl. 2 in no. 83 fol. 149. PRO.\n\n24 Coupvent to Min. de la Marine, 20 June 1860, BB 4 787, fol. 11, AN,\n\n25\n\nHurd, The Arrow War, pp. 124-126.\n\n26 Laurence Oliphant, Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan, P. 169", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212027, "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": 442, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "417\n\ninterested in modern China or who are interested in the British in Asia. Dr. Atwell has made a significant contribution to our knowledge of how the British administered one small locality and coped with the demands of modern forces. Her work can be used as a guide or spring board for comparison of British colonial policy in other East Asian places, such as Brunei and the Straits Settlements, Hankow, Tientsin and Shanghai, say, with Hong Kong tossed in for good measure.\n\nWEI PEH T'I, Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong\n\nSteven A. Leibo, Transferring Technology to China, Prosper Giquel and the Self-strengthening Movement, China Research Monograph 28, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, Center for Chinese Studies, 1985.\n\nProsper Giquel, edited by Steven A. Leibo, A Journal of the Chinese Civil War 1864. Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1985.\n\nThese two works, one of compilation and assessment based on a doctoral dissertation, the other of translation (with the help of Debbie Weston) and annotation with a lengthy introduction, have a considerable intrinsic interest because they deal with a rather extraordinary man. They have also a degree of relevance, over a century later, for the West's involvement with present day China's modernizing programme.\n\nThey are to be read in conjunction with other modern works on this period of China's self-strengthening efforts, including those listed in Dr. Leibo's introduction to Transferring Technology.\n\nProsper Giquel, a French naval officer, came to China during the Second China War. After service with the Joint Commission that guided the administration of the city of Canton during its four year occupation by the Allies, during which he laid the foundations of his knowledge of written and spoken Chinese, he joined the Chinese Maritime Customs at Ningpo. When that city was captured by the Taiping Army, he assisted the Sino-French \"Ever Triumphant Army” to recapture it, and later commanded it in the operations that led to the recapture of Hangzhou, for which he received high rank and honours from the appreciative Ch'ing government. Contacts made during this time led to employment after the Rebellion, in and outside China, that lasted until his death in France in 1886. His principal achievement was the construction and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212028, "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": 443, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "418\n\nadministration of the Foochow Dockyard and its fleet of warships in the face of many difficulties. Ironically, they were destroyed by naval forces of his own nation during the hostilities of 1884-85 between France and China over Vietnam.\n\nGiquel was a rare bird for his times. Apart from his linguistic proficiency and administrative capacities, he was sympathetic towards China at a time when this was not common among his contemporaries. Moreover, he sought ever to combine his duties to his employers, the Chinese, with his loyalties towards his native land, a veritable tightrope which he conscientiously trod throughout his working life. (As Dr. Leibo observes, “A less committed individual might never have attempted such a balancing act”, Transferring Technology, p. 5). He gave offence to many influential Frenchmen and to his government in 1872 by an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes in which he suggested that the French Concession at Shanghai should be merged with the International Settlement, and criticised French policy towards China in various aspects.\n\nWhy this should be so is hinted at by an English account which indicates how different Giquel must have been from most of his fellows. Even allowing for the fact that this is an English account, written at a time of strong rivalry between the two powers and by one side of an old and mutual antipathy, it speaks for itself:\n\n–\n\nFrench officers are so quick to take offense (sic) — so quick to obtain satisfaction, so imperious, so impractical, and so totally uncommercial that they are viewed by the Chinese with great dread and by foreigners with apprehension.\n\n(Transferring Technology, p. 69)\n\nIn truth, Giquel must have been greatly valued by the Chinese in particular, though the books show that this was at the expense of being thought too pro-Chinese by the French authorities, and even by trusted subordinates.\n\nThe book is full of such interesting and illuminating passages, either from Giquel's own pen, those of contemporaries, or from Dr. Leibo's hand. Another useful observation, this time coming from the Imperial Commissioner charged with overseeing the Dockyard project, has for us today an oddly familiar ring to it. Commissioner Shen Baozhen was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212029, "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": 444, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "419\n\npessimistic about the continuing success of the dockyard under solely Chinese direction, and to Giquel's recital of favorable signs for continued progress answered, “Certainly, but what if Li [Viceroy Li Hongzhang] disappears? What will become of all this?” (Transferring Technology, p. 125). In other words, personalities were apparently as crucial then as they are today in China's modernization programmes.\n\nShen's faith in Giquel was absolute. Dr. Leibo quotes from a Chinese language source which indicates that he informed Li Hongzhang at this time that his confidence in him was such that he would stake his entire career on Giquel's loyalty to China. If Giquel ever did anything to harm China, Shen promised to terminate his own public career [ibid. p. 126].\n\nOf the two works, I found the first to be the more satisfying. It is detailed and well-organized, and uses French sources hitherto not utilized by historians. The man and his times emerge clearly, and his difficulties and dilemmas shine through the text. Relationships with high Chinese officials, as well as with European colleagues and would-be rivals, and with the French and other higher authorities, are happily covered in sufficient detail to make them both interesting and illuminating, thanks to the varied sources used by Dr. Leibo.\n\nThe other is just as absorbing, especially the diary itself, but I found Dr. Leibo's Introduction less satisfying than the fuller account given in the book-length study. Personally, being interested in military matters, I would have liked to have had more information on the recruitment, organization and officering of the \"Ever Triumphant Army\". If not in this account, where else? It is too shadowy a body for my liking. Nor is there enough about Giquel in the Introduction, and unlike me, many readers may not have the other book to hand for reference. This handicap sometimes applies in reverse, since there are no maps in Transferring Technology, and the useful section in the Diary giving biographical vignettes only appears in that work. Finally, in neither work are we told anything about Giquel's wife and children, and the Giquel family, although the 1864 Diary and other papers came from his grand-daughter's home.\n\nNotwithstanding these observations, readers will find much of interest in these fascinating works which relate to a man who clearly had much to offer, did his best, and assuredly deserves to be better known and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212718, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 27, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "12\n\nother sources about whatever ensued and this reflects the virtual sole source of the material available, William Mesny himself. Several other foreigners with somewhat comparable careers to Mesny who eventually wrote their autobiographies, and therefore might be regarded as collateral, include Prosper Giquel whom Mesny refers to and who was in Hankow and established a Franco-Chinese force there in 1866, but who does not mention Mesny,\n\nOne of our problems in trying to bring Mesny, the man, into focus lies with the limited amount of material he published. It would seem from his writings that he recorded much more, a great deal of it lost during his travels which, had it been preserved, would have made all the difference to our overall picture. He appears not to have been particularly interested in dating episodes within his narratives and was only very rarely specific; and even during his detailed story of the first Kueichou campaign he ignored the temporal progression of the story, jumping from incident to anecdote and back again with scant regard for sequence. He was also cavalier in naming names. Without introduction, he includes a new name without any explanation or identification. In many instances, the individual could be identified from snippets thrown in at a much later stage, but several have remained unidentifiable. The narrative provided in his Miscellanies was published in weekly episodes years after the events, possibly from a diary, though it would appear to a certain extent to have been written up at the time. Many of the weeks' texts were divided into two separate sections, consciously or perhaps even unconsciously, one being the progression of the campaign and the other anecdotes about local fruits, silver mining, or the prescribing of drugs for the various illnesses prevalent at the time, etc. It might have been that he was stretched for material to fill the columns, and this perhaps is borne out by the number of times he repeats himself, offering greater and often unnecessary detail. Mesny also appears to have assumed that his readers, not only in Shanghai but 'world-wide', knew the general background to the Chinese political, economic, and social scene, and therefore a number of his allusions can now no longer be understood. Also, his views of the Chinese military, which we can assume should be relatively accurate at the lower echelons, would appear to be less accurate and lacking confirmatory detail, due to Mesny not being anything like as important as he would have had us believe.\n\nOne incident during the campaign in Kueichou exemplifies the confusion Mesny's account, and sometimes even his assumptions,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212796, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 105, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "90\n\nThree Bold Adventurers to fight alongside the Nien rebels. After being captured and carried to Chin-chiang in a cage, he was saved by two British artillery officers serving with the Taiping forces.\n\nThe third time was in Hankow when Mesny took Damström along with him as a heavy-weight. The incident occurred after Mesny 'arrested' the dishonest Chinese merchant who had swindled Dupuis. [These incidents are probably not in temporal order].\n\nDupuis, Jean\n\nA French merchant born ca. 1828, who arrived and lived in Hankow in about 1860. He built up a thriving trade in armaments. Fluent in Chinese, he introduced Mesny to the Szechuanese officials whose invitation to serve with the Szechuan Force changed his life. Mesny remarked that Dupuis was a distinguished explorer and 'conqueror of Tonkin.'\n\nGill, William J: born Bangalore 1843\n\nServed in India after being commissioned into the Royal Engineers. Inherited a fortune and indulged his passion for exploration. One of his travels was through north Szechuan province, where first he travelled alone and then later with Mesny to Burma. He wrote The River of Golden Sand in 1880, and after several other travels, in Tripoli and Afghanistan, he was murdered by Bedouins in 1882.\n\nGiquel, Prosper M. [1835-1886]\n\nA French naval officer who arrived in China during the Second China War. Formerly Commissioner of Imperial Maritime Customs at Ningpo and Hankow. He assisted the Sino-French 'Ever Triumphant Army' that fought alongside Tso Tsung-t'ang's force in Chekiang province to recapture Hangchow and Ningpo, and later commanded the force in operations that led to the recapture of Hangchow, for which he received high rank and honour from the Ch'ing government. His principal achievement was the construction and administration of the Foochow Arsenal in 1866, and dockyard with its fleet of warships. He was the only foreigner besides Gordon to receive the honour of the Yellow Riding Jacket.\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214465, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1998", "page_number": 323, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "290\n\nforces, and while a great argument raged between two governments as to which had jurisdiction over him, he having once claimed Chinese citizenship in order to remain in Chinese service, Burgevine was opportunely drowned by the capsizing of what the Celestials called a ferry-boat\". Franck's inclusion of the word 'opportunely' is intriguing.\n\nNOTES\n\nThe French, fearing a British plot to expand their influence in China, established its own foreign-trained Chinese forces in treaty ports, with the best known, the Ever-Triumphant Army [Ch'ang-chieh Chün] founded by Prosper Giquel in 1862.\n\nFranck, Harry A.: Roving through Southern China: Appleton-Century Company, New York: 1923\n\nAlthough the Memorial Temple dedicated to Ward I was interested in was in Sungkiang, another similar Memorial Temple had also been built in his honour in Ningpo near where he died.\n\nCarr, Caleb: The Devil Soldier; The American Soldier of Fortune who became a God in China: Random House: New York: 1991", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 } ]