[ { "id": 204596, "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-1963", "page_number": 77, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "66\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG\n\nBruce's arrival the Union Jack was hoisted over the entrance to the Leang-koong-foo.\" In his diary for April 1st Rennie gives a detailed description of the Legation as it then appeared.\n\nThe Leang-koong-foo may be described as consisting of two sets of quadrangular courts, running parallel to each other north and south, with a covered passage between them. These courts contain blocks of buildings, built in the ordinary Chinese style of architecture. The set of squares on the eastern side form the palatial portion, and contain the state apartments. The roofs on this side are covered with green glazed tiles, and supported by heavy columns of wood. The interior, though out of repair, is still very handsome; the ceilings of the state apartments being beautifully decorated with gold dragons, within circles on a blue ground, which again are in the centres of small squares of green, separated by intersecting bars in relief of green and gold. The western division of the Foo is composed of buildings of a less showy kind, but nevertheless fitted up with great elegance and taste. The roofs are covered with ordinary grey tiling. It is in a fair state of repair, and is at present occupied by the Legation. Moral sentiments, painted in gilt letters on ornamental boards, are placed over the entrances of the various buildings in the different courts. Some of them Mr. Wade translated to me this morning. That over the door of the apartments occupied by Colonel Neale and myself means, 'Hall for the nourishment of virtue', and that over the house reserved for Mrs. Reynolds, the Legation house-keeper, shortly expected from Shanghai, is 'Hall for the study and development of politeness'. Arrangements have been made with a Chinese builder, named Choon, for putting the whole in thorough repair; and it has been determined to convert the palatial portion into the Legation residence, retaining as much as possible its Chinese character. The other division of the Foo is to be fitted up partly for the Chinese secretary's department, partly as residences for the student-interpreters, who are in future to learn the language at Peking under the supervision of Mr. Wade.\n\nDr. Rennie was soon out sightseeing, going everywhere on horseback through the dust or the mud of the Peking streets and lanes. At this time, and for long afterwards, the Imperial Canal", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204602, "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-1963", "page_number": 83, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "72 \n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG \n\nChina hand' of great experience, and a man of forceful character, Sir Harry Parkes. His daughter, Marion, had accompanied him to Peking and in a letter to a friend wrote of the Minister's house:\n\nHow can I describe the house to you? It is so utterly unlike anything we have seen or lived in before. It really was originally a series of Chinese temples, and has been adapted for the use of Europeans by having odd little rooms built on, at odd and inconvenient corners. The entrance is very fine: first come two courts, with handsome red pillars; the carving and painting of the roofs is very picturesque and the colouring really beautiful. From the court you mount a flight of steps, and enter the hall, or Queen's room as it is called - her picture being there.\n\n車\n\nThe grounds here are small but very nice; each person has his little home, and it reminds me much of a cathedral close; it is very peaceful and quiet.\n\n+\n\n16\n\nIn the following year Parkes had to part with his daughter Marion when she was married in the Legation Chapel to James Keswick, a partner in the firm of Jardine, Matheson and Company, and at that time Chairman of the Municipal Council of Shanghai. In the Spring of 1885 Parkes was unwell and he died after a short illness, the only British Minister to die in harness in Peking. He drove himself too hard and died of overwork.\n\nThe life of a student-interpreter at this time has been well described in a book called Where Chineses Drive,16 which was published in 1885, the title being taken from Paradise Lost, Book III.\n\nThe author, W. H. Wilkinson, described the Legation as having a frontage along the Imperial canal of about three hundred yards, and continued:\n\nThe compound forms an oblong of which the shorter side is about one hundred and thirty yards long. On the north it is shut in by the Han-lin College; on the west for the greater part of its length by the Lüan-i K'u, or as we call it, the \"Imperial Carriage Park”. South of this, still on\n\n15 Quoted in Lane-Poole, op. cit., II, 368-9.\n\n16 \"Where Chineses Drive\". English Student-Life at Peking. By a Student Interpreter. (London, 1885). The name of the author does not appear on the book but Henri Cordier, Bibliotheca Sinica, I, 217, attributes it to W. H. Wilkinson.\n\nI", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204603, "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-1963", "page_number": 84, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "BRITISH LEGATION AT PEKING\n\n73\n\nthe western side, is a bare space occupied in winter by Mongol traders, and known in consequence as the \"Mongol Market\". On the south side, a congeries of little Chinese shops. The whole is surrounded by a massive wall, which on the west, as being the wall of the Carriage Park and enclosing Imperial ground, is topped with yellow tiles. The principal gate of the Legation is in the centre of the eastern side, facing the canal. The gate-house has an upper storey surmounted by a flag-staff, and carrying the royal arms. ...\n\nNorth of the doctor's house is the Fives Court. From this, under the wall of the Carriage Park, runs the Bowling Alley. Opposite the Fives Court, again, is a converted Chinese building, now divided into a billiard-room, a reading-room, and a small stage. North of this are the garden and buildings of the Students' Quarters.\n\nThe Quarters consist of a long row facing south, having an upper storey, and containing ten sets of rooms, five above and five below. The whole block is in the common style of foreign architecture out here, with verandah and balcony. Each set consists of a sitting-room about fourteen feet by ten, with a small store-closet, a bed-room, say ten feet square, and a bathroom. In the upper rooms the store-closet becomes a cupboard, the bathroom being lengthened to allow the door to open on the stair-head. There is a stern disregard of ornament in the interiors at any rate, but they were comfortable enough on the whole.\"7\n\n+\n\nThe only furniture supplied to the incoming student was a bed, a chest of drawers with a looking-glass, a wash-stand, and three cane-bottomed office chairs for his sitting-room. Wilkinson mentions mess fees. \"On first joining the mess the student pays an entrance fee of $25. We contracted with the cook to supply us with breakfast, tiffin, and dinner at 50 cents 1s. 10d. a day. All stores, such as condiments, jellies, tea, coffee, we provided ourselves in regard to wine, each man had a separate account with the cellar.\" From time to time they gave a mess dinner, the largest one being for forty men, students and guests included.\n\n17 Ibid., 24-5; 27-8. For a plan of the buildings see over.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204604, "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-1963", "page_number": 85, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "74\n\nChinese Imperial Carnage Sheds and enclosure\n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG\n\nRed Temple\n\nBowling Alley\n\nStudents Kitchen Mess\n\nHan Lin Library HALL\n\nKrosk Essay Hall Kosk\n\n \n [brar]\n Servants Store Room\n \n \n Teachers\"\n QVYI Students' O'tri\n \n \n Theatre\n \n \n\nMinister's House\n\nFives Court\n\nLarge Pavilion\n\n2 Chinese Doctor's O't'es a't'rs Chupet\n\n2 Wall 7\" thick 12\" high\n\nEscort QI'm Small Pavilion\n\nConstable's Bell Tower Chapt Minister's Stables\n\nStone Trans Gateway\n\nAssistant Chinese Secretary\n\n \n £ 22 22 2\n Accountant Stables Surgery Escort Otrs Stabler, Simbler.\n \n \n G D G D OF OF\n Tennis Courts 2nd Sect Chancery Chancery Assistant\n \n\nOpen space of Mongolian Market\n\nN Servants\n\nSCALE\n\n0 100 150 200 Ft phonepa 400\n\nSecretary of Legation Cemetery\n\nPlan of British Legation at Peking in 1900.\n\nCanal Wall 2′′ x 12′′\n\n12 Adapted from a plan in \"China in Convulsion\" by A H. Smuth, published by Fleming H Revell Company, NY 1901", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204613, "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-1963", "page_number": 94, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "BRITISH LEGATION AT PEKING\n\n81\n\nthe death of Sir Robert Hart during the siege, and on July 21st it carried a long letter from the President of Queen's College, Belfast, which served as a somewhat premature obituary notice for Hart, who, in fact, lived until 1911.**\n\nThe relieving troops finally entered the British Legation on August 14th, when a Company of mounted Sikhs rode in at about 3 p.m. accompanying General Gaselee and his staff. So ended the siege which had lasted from June 20th until August 14th, a total of 55 days. Fortunately no overwhelming damage had been done to the British Legation, though many of the roofs were badly smashed about and bullets and shells had gone through most of the buildings. One last ironic touch; immediately after the raising of the siege the commissariat functioned so inefficiently that the besieged had to forage for themselves and for some days got less to eat than during the fighting. Meanwhile those who had 'enjoyed' the hospitality of the British Legation during the siege departed and the work of clearing up and repairing the damage began.\n\nThe actual damage suffered by the British Legation buildings was slight in comparison with the damage done to the other foreign Legations. The outer walls were badly damaged and had to be rebuilt, but one small section on the north-east corner facing the Imperial Canal was sufficiently unharmed to be left intact, and on its surface someone painted in black nine-inch letters the words \"LEST WE FORGET”. Most of the buildings in the compound were soon repaired and the Legation again looked substantially the same as before the siege. However, as part of the settlement after the Boxer troubles and the siege of the Legation Quarter Britain acquired considerable ground on the northern and western sides of the old Legation. This consisted of land formerly occupied by the Mongol market, by the Imperial Carriage Park and by the Hanlin Academy, which was burnt out during the fighting. This newly acquired land was later used for\n\n28 Born in 1835 Hart came out to China in the Consular Service in 1854 and spent his first three months as an interpreter at Hong Kong. After various consular appointments he was permitted by the British Government to resign from the consular service in 1859 and to join the newly formed Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs service as Deputy-Commissioner of Customs at Canton. In 1863, at the age of twenty-eight, he was appointed Inspector-General of the Maritime Customs, a post which he held until his resignation in 1908.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204615, "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-1963", "page_number": 96, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "BRITISH LEGATION AT PEKING\n\n83\n\n1950 the British government recognized the Chinese Peoples' Republic, and as a result the British representative in Peking was recognized and the remainder of the diplomatic staff came to Peking from the former capital of Nanking. In 1954 the two governments agreed to exchange Chargés d'Affaires. Meanwhile a few changes had taken place which affected the Legation. For instance, in 1945 it was decided not to repaint the words LEST WE FORGET on the outside wall. In 1950 the part of the Legation compound which formerly housed the barracks was requisitioned by the government of the Chinese Peoples' Republic.\n\nThis was the position when I went to Peking as a tourist in July 1958 and enjoyed the hospitality of friends in the old Legation. It was my first and only visit to Peking and I was impressed by the spaciousness and picturesqueness of the old Legation. The British Embassies at Tokyo and at Bangkok, although impressive in their own ways, could not compare with the old Legation at Peking. Here the grounds were more extensive, and the Chinese buildings and pavilions well preserved and brilliantly painted, so that it was an attractive place in which to stay. Only the water-tower and the dingy brick power-plant spoilt the pleasant effect of trees and lawns and flowering shrubs. The large extent of the grounds deadened the noise of the city outside as well as attracting various wild birds — magpies, hoopoes, woodpeckers, and orioles, crows, cuckoos.\n\nWhile I was enjoying my stay in the Legation and sightseeing every day in the city, the news suddenly broke that American troops had landed in Lebanon and British troops in Jordan. Two days later demonstrators began to assemble outside the gate of the Legation shouting slogans and pasting handwritten posters on the 400-yard stretch of the high walls facing the old Imperial Canal. I had been warned that this demonstration was likely to start in the afternoon but I was so engrossed in sightseeing at the Summer Palace during the morning that I failed to start on the return journey to the Legation early enough. In fact, I travelled back to Peking in a bus with a number of children carrying home-made pennants bearing Chinese characters which meant 'English wolves get out', so that I knew that the demonstration was about to begin. When the bus arrived at the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204616, "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-1963", "page_number": 97, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "84 \n\nJ. L. CRANMER-BYNG \n\nnorth-west gate of Peking I took a pedicab, but when we reached the Wangfuching and ran into columns of marching children the driver began to show signs of fright, so I paid him off and started to walk. By now I realized that I had left it too late to reach the Legation gate before the demonstrators arrived, so I made a wide circuit and eventually reached the Hsinchiao Hotel near the Chungwenmen (Hatamen Gate). Having been told that the demonstration would probably end by about 10 p.m., because a previous demonstration over the Suez episode had lasted until that time, I decided to wait at the Hsinchiao Hotel until the coast was clear. Just before 11 p.m. I walked to a point near to the entrance of the British Legation and mingled with the sightseers, but found the demonstrators still hard at work. It was rather like a rowdy Bank Holiday evening on Hampstead Heath. There were large crowds strolling about watching the demonstrators who were still queueing up five or six abreast and moving forward very slowly towards the gate of the Legation. Once opposite the open gate they performed their slogan-shouting, sometimes accompanying their shouts with gesticulations and a series of jumps, before being waved on by cadres who appeared to be controlling the demonstration. All along the road facing the wall of the Legation ran a water pipe with taps every few yards so that in the summer heat of Peking no one need go thirsty. Among the bushes growing down the centre of the street (where once the Imperial Canal flowed) were canvas latrines, while the whole area was lit up at night by arc lamps fixed among the trees, and the front of the Legation gateway was picked out by powerful spot-lights. Nests of amplifiers had been fixed to the trees near the gate so that the inhabitants of the Legation had no difficulty in hearing the slogans being chanted, such as 'Ying-Kuo lang kan ch'u-ch'u' 'English wolves get out'. Since the demonstrators seemed particularly fiery at this stage I decided to retreat and try again at dawn. After a few hours sleep at the Hsinchiao Hotel I again approached the Legation gate only to find a long queue of new demonstrators, refreshed by a night's sleep, taking some vocal exercise before going to work. At this stage I decided that it was quite safe to enter the gate of the Legation, and joining the queue I moved forward gradually until opposite \n\nI", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204672, "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-1963", "page_number": 153, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "BOOK REVIEWS\n\n137\n\nIt is therefore a delight to read such a work as Mr. Cranmer-Byng's An Embassy to China. Produced by an historian, and one moreover who combines integrity with an uncommon knowledge of the East, this book is indispensable to an understanding today of the problems that East and West have inherited in their dealings with one another.\n\nThe main body of the book consists of the Journal kept by Lord Macartney on his embassy to the Emperor Ch'ien-lung in 1793. He describes his journey to Peking, beyond the Great Wall to Jehol, and back by the Grand Canal and by river to Canton. There follow a series of \"observations\", compiled by Macartney from his own shrewd judgment and from data supplied by members of his entourage, on subjects such as the Manners, Religion, Government, Population, Arts and Sciences, Language etc. of China under the Ch'ing Dynasty.\n\nThe first 58 pages of the book contain an Introduction by the editor, in which he comments on early Anglo-Chinese relations, paints a brief biographical picture of Lord Macartney, and discusses the embassy, the manner of its reception, and its results. The final pages of the Introduction lead up to the Journal itself, its style, content and the method used by the diarist in compiling such a detailed account of his mission - an account written by a professional diplomat, skilled at seeing behind the facade, patient in negotiation, lucid in recollection and description.\n\nLooking back today from our vantage point in time nearly two hundred years later, it is easy to see that Macartney was given an impossible task. Remote in her geographical isolation and sublimely ignorant of world affairs, China had sealed herself for centuries in a false cocoon of imagined cultural superiority. The eighteenth century was both too late and too early for any European power to overcome the supreme complacency of the Imperial Court and Government. From the mid-sixteen hundreds onwards, Western nations, notably the Dutch, the Russians and the Portuguese had sent embassies to China, but all had failed.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205364, "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-1967", "page_number": 126, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "A NOTICE OF THE SANON DISTRICT\n\n119\n\nWhen the Mandarins intend to levy the taxes, they announce their intention to the gentry of the villages, one or two weeks, or sometimes a month, before their arrival. They then make a progress through the district, accompanied by a sufficient force to protect themselves against large bands of robbers, which sometimes have the audacity to attack the tax-collectors if the escort be not strong.\n\nThe mandarins reside on these occasions either in the temples or the ancestral halls, according to the accommodation they afford. One particular and fertile source of revenue is the Imperial salt fields, which, at Sai-heong, and Yun-long, and Lantao, cover many acres of land. These fields are raised flat areas, enclosed by embankments about one foot in height. The floors of these are made very hard and smooth, being covered with chunam, into which pebbles are stamped, so that the crystals of salt can be collected without loss and without injury to the fields. These fields measure from thirty to fifty yards square; they are intersected by canals into which the sea water is admitted at high tide. From these canals the water is allowed to flow into the salt-fields, and cover them to the depth of about six inches; the communication with the canal is then shut off, so as to prevent the reflux of the water.\n\nIn dry weather crystals begin to be formed as early as the second day, and if no rain interfere with the process of crystallization, on the third or fourth day the water may be drawn off till it is only one inch in depth, and on the fifth day, fair weather continuing, the salt may be collected. If the weather be cloudy without rain, nine days are required for the process; whilst in wet weather, the labourers, who are paid according to the quantity of salt which the fields produce, do not earn enough to support their families. At present, in consequence of the large quantity of cheap salt imported from Hongkong, much smuggling goes on, and the people have greatly relaxed in their diligence to produce the amount due to government. The income derived from this source is consequently much reduced.\n\nThere are several charitable institutions supported by government, of which I will say a few words. For the last 400 years two plots of ground in the neighbourhood of Sanon have been set apart for the burial of the destitute and of strangers, and for the interment of any human bones which may be found scattered", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214989, "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-2000", "page_number": 85, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "41\n\nhis contingent of coolies via the Panama Canal for New York and ahead of them was the Empress of Asia which was torpedoed, so they headed for the safety of Jamaica. From his memoires I cannot ascertain a date. He held a high opinion of his coolies and stated that the greatest aid to maintain discipline was to retain his sense of humour under all circumstances. He also believed in seeing that they were properly cared for when ill and, most important of all, when selecting coolies for promotion, to prefer the old man with character with the slow moving brain to the smart young town coolie.\n\nDaryl Klein, who joined the CLC as a 2Lt in late 1917, assisted in escorting a large contingent by sea, leaving Qingdao in about February 1918, sailing via Japan where they coalled ship and on to Canada where they stayed for about ten weeks. They were then conveyed in June 1918, with some Canadian soldiers, on HMT Empress of Asia, this ship being used to convey troops and others, via the Panama Canal to Kingston, Jamaica and, after refuelling in New York, on to France. This contingent consisted of 13 officers [of whom one was an ex-banker, one an ex-officer from Russia and one an ex-missionary], 4,200 coolies with five interpreters and one medical assistant. During the voyage, Klein interviewed two First Class Gangers [or sergeants], Sgt Tang Chi-chang, aged 27 and previously a school teacher in Nanjing and a graduate of Weixin University; he was also a Christian. Sgt. Sen Shin-lin, aged 26, had served in a warlord's army for six years.\n\nAs Halifax, in Canada, had been so badly damaged by the accidental explosion of an ammunition ship in harbour, G. E. Cormack and his contingent had to stay at Victoria, British Columbia and whilst there he had to look after a coolie who had been admitted to hospital for a severe operation, which was successful. Later a deputation came to see Cormack and presented him with a carved wooden panel, which they had made, representing two stags fighting. This was their way of showing appreciation of his attention to their sick comrade. This carved panel is now held in the Imperial War Museum, London, and, at the time of writing, is not on display. [see photograph]\n\nWorking in France\n\nIn a Company of about 500 men, there would be 24 British officers and NCOs, lead by a major or captain; 476 Chinese labourers, with the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216025, "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": 324, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "258\n\nShanghai did not possess, and were undoubtedly conducive to health by promoting exercise. In winter the climate is bracing and healthy though fever and dysentery were to be dreaded in summer'.\n\nThere are a number of highlights for foreign visitors beginning, perhaps, with the former foreign concession, though nowadays more than seventy years on, it is difficult to discern. Outside the Chinese old city with its modern main roads, cobbled side streets and a stone pagoda said to be 13th century Yuan dynasty, though its present condition suggests that it has either been well restored or completely remade within the last century, there are the fourth century Jin Shan temple and pagoda; the Grand Canal; the former British Consulate; the home of Pearl Buck, as well as the sites of the storming of the town by a British brigade on 21st July 1842 during the First China War [commonly referred to as the Opium War]. There are also the remains of the lengthy trench dug by the Taiping rebels to protect the city from recapture by Imperial forces as well as the ruins left after the destruction of the city by the Taipings during the 1850s. And for those who have read a little Chinese literature or attended Chinese opera the widely-known tale of the White Snake Lady is also part of the story of the Jin Shan temple.\n\nBefore waxing too lyrically about its glories let us remember that Zhenjiang is the vinegar capital of China, with, if the wind is in the wrong direction, an evocative sour tang forewarning approaching visitors long before they are anywhere near to the city. The majority of Chinese when confronted with the name of the city almost to a man voice the single word 'vinegar' or to the connoisseur 'brown rice vinegar'.\n\nZhenjiang was a treaty port with a foreign concession for sixty-eight years, from the signing of the Treaty of Tientsin in 1860 until 1928, one of the minor footholds foreigners had obtained from China in one of the 'unequal treaties' and the base for numerous foreign interests. There were great hopes for the place and Sir Robert Hart, the Inspector-General of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, even anticipated that eventually it would eclipse Shanghai as a commercial centre. Despite numerous westerners passing through the place down the years only a few spent full tours of duty there. Many of the temporary visitors were the lesser employees of major western companies such as BAT and Butterfield and Swire, whose regular tours to the many small", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216028, "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": 327, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "261\n\nwere keen to claim association with the first rulers of the Zhou, of the 12th century BC, and also with the infamous first ruler of China, Qin Shih Huangdi who, it was claimed, had used the area of Dantu as a penal settlement.\n\nDuring dynastic times Zhenjiang was a walled administrative seat, an important prefecture, and one of twelve prefectural cities in Jiangsu province, in a major region known as Jiangnan [South of the River]. Zhenjiang means 'Guard-post of the River', a title given in 1113 during the Song dynasty, and its location, guarding the junction of the Grand Canal and the Yangzi, is such that it was a fortified post at the point where the southern arm of the Grand Canal crosses the Great River to join the northern arm, as well as being the first and ideal position to control the upstream passage of the Yangzi. The British political aim, when their soldiers captured the city in 1842, was to cut off the vital supply route, the Grand Canal, from southern China to the north in order to exert maximum pressure upon the Imperial government.\n\nAlthough Zhenjiang lays claim to a number of incidents, destruction by nature and by human hand, visits by royalty, legendary happenings we shall restrain ourselves to note but a few.\n\nSun Ce**, who was assassinated in 200 AD, conquered a wide territory down to the mouth of the Great River, to which region he gave the title Jiangdong [East of the River]. His brother, Sun Quan of Wu# succeeded to his throne, and it is to him that Zhenjiang is said to owe its existence as a city. Moreover, it was here that he came to court the beauty, Pan Furen, whose father Sun Quan had condemned to death. He pursued her until he was able to make her his wife. Although Nanjing was Sun's main city Zhenjiang had reminders of his fortifications still visible during the early years of the Republic. The foundations of the fortifications that he built round his Governor's Residence could still be traced in a line of crumbling masonry that capped the ridge of heights connecting the then existing Zhenjiang city wall northward to the monastery, Ganlu Si. Also, inside the present city stood a high solitary gateway, with a building on it known as the Old Drum Tower. The masonry foundations of the gate were alleged to date from the time of Sun Quan, and some graves outside the North gate were also said to be those of some members of his line.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216032, "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": 331, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "265\n\nin 1144, built to the west of the Bridge of a Thousand Autumns, Qianqiu Qiao, beside a small canal with landing places attached. It would seem to have been inside the present city, about where the road from the west gate crosses the canal, before you reached the City God Temple. It was restored in 1271 with a commemorative inscription composed by Liu Xiufu, and the whole establishment was enlarged during the Ming so as to have 109 rooms, with stabling for 80 horses, forty of which had to be kept constantly saddled, presumably for use by imperial messengers.\n\nMoving on to the Yuan [Mongol] dynasty, an interesting account, if indeed it is genuine, claims that Marco Polo mentioned the foundation of Nestorian Christian churches at Zhenjiang (Cinghian fu) by a Nestorian Christian governor, Mar Sargis [or Mar George] from Samarkand. Kublai Khan, the Mongol emperor of China during the 13th century employed foreigners within his civil service, one of whom was Marco Polo who spent three years as Governor of Yangzhou, the city a short distance upstream on the northern arm of the Grand Canal immediately across the Great River from Zhenjiang. The story goes that the maternal grandfather of Mar Sargis cured Genghis Khan of a sickness by administering sherbet and his secret recipe. The latter was passed down the family and each generation did good business ensuring their fortune. The story of his appointment as governor would appear to have been confirmed by various entries in the old records of Zhenjiang in which there are references to seven Christian monasteries [i.e. churches] in or near the city, adding that the Zhenjiang Christian population in about AD 1280 amounted to 215. These were started after Mar Sargis had a dream in which he was instructed to construct seven Nestorian churches. Using his fortune he is said to have completed all seven but unwittingly with one on the site of a former famous Buddhist monastery which Mar Sargis was ordered to hand back to the Buddhists. Of the remaining six two were said to have been on the ridge running inland from the former site of the British consulate.\n\nDuring the early days of the Ming, in the reign of the Yongle emperor, various expeditions sailed down the Yangzi from Nanjing, and out into the Eastern Ocean, a commander of several of the expeditions being the renowned eunuch, Zheng He. The policy of despatching such expeditions far beyond China's shores was short-lived. Between 1405 and 1425 Zheng's fleet voyaged through south-east Asia", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]