[
    {
        "id": 212176,
        "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": 118,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "95\n\nsuccessful in winning scholarships to England under the terms of the British Boxer Indemnity Fund. The tea party was held in the grounds of a lovely little Elizabethan-style house recently opened as the headquarters of the Sino-British Cultural Association.\n\nIt was hard to believe that all the work of reconstruction, the town planning, the laying out of parks, the building of government offices, which had continued uninterrupted since Nanking had become the capital, those material expressions of the national effort to drag administration out of the centuries-old morass of incompetence and venality, were so soon to be wrecked.\n\nThe fighting in the north went badly for the Chinese, who were repeatedly compelled to withdraw. They accordingly decided to divert the Japanese effort to a terrain more favourable to themselves, and nearer to the main bases of their army. Two divisions were concentrated on the outskirts of Shanghai, and it was their attempt in August to drive the small Japanese garrison into the Whangpoo, the tributary of the Yangtze on which Shanghai stands, that unleashed the aerial war in central China. The Chinese light bombers tried to sink the Japanese flagship, H.I.J.M.S. \"Idzumo\", where she lay anchored off the Shanghai waterfront, and the Japanese retaliated by attacking Chinese airfields in the vicinity of Shanghai, Hangchow, and Nanking.\n\nRealising the danger of air raids, but without experience, the authorities in Nanking in an excess of zeal issued instructions that all light-coloured buildings were to be painted black, and so through the advancing days the view from our windows turned from the bright red and green of brick and tile to a blurred dirty grey. Even the white and blue omnibuses were changed to match the mud of the roadway. For our part we got hold of some bituminous paint and caused it to be spread on our red-tiled roof; but in the course of time rain streaked it and spoiled the effect.\n\nThe first air raid caught us by surprise at lunch on August 15th. A warning system had been established, but when the 'phone rang to advise us that the alarm had gone we did not know what to do. Someone remembered we had a large Union Jack in the attic, which after some discussion, feeling rather foolish, we decided to spread on the lawn. Tim, the pup, thought it was a new toy to be pulled at and",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 212179,
        "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": 121,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "98\n\nThese figures compare with the total American investment in China of £32,000,000).\n\nFeeling had been further embittered recently by the damage and heavy casualties caused when Chinese pilots, attempting to bomb the **\"Idzumo\"**, had dropped 1000-pound bombs in the most crowded street of the city, while evading Japanese pursuit planes. These incidents were attributed to carelessness and, though the victims were mainly Chinese, the Chinese population of Shanghai at that time was around five million; many foreigners, moved also largely by sympathy for the victims, felt the Chinese government had given insufficient consideration to the international investments at stake in Shanghai. They resented the fact that the Chinese had deliberately brought the war to Shanghai. They argued that the Chinese intention was to provoke the foreign powers to intervene on their behalf.\n\nIn such an atmosphere, whispering campaigns detrimental to Chinese morale flourished. One of the most ridiculous, which to this day is still firmly believed by many, was that had the Chinese troops succeeded in driving the Japanese into the Whangpoo, they would then have turned to looting the International Settlement. If there was one thing that was clear at that time to the unprejudiced, it was that Chinese advantage lay in courting the goodwill of the powers, not in estranging it by allowing Chinese troops to commit anti-foreign excesses. It is true that in the past Chinese troops had acquired an unenviable notoriety for rapine and looting, but unfortunately, the seclusion from China in which the majority of foreigners resident in Shanghai lived had not allowed them to discover the great improvements the Central government had brought about in the administration and discipline of the Chinese army. The discipline in the 86th and 87th divisions, who were inspired at Shanghai to fight to the death, was equal to that of any Western troops.\n\nIt was not realised that the Chinese were fighting for the democracies against fascist aggression. What the Chinese needed most at that time was sympathy and the expression of some confidence in their ability to weather the storm; and that is just what they did not get. No confidence was shown in the ability of the Chinese government to withstand Japan. The prolonged resistance at Shanghai came as a surprise, although Chinese troops had already proved to...",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299",
        "rank": 0
    }
]