[ { "id": 204269, "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-1961", "page_number": 37, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n33\n\nmurdered man sent a messenger to report the murder to the throne, the messenger too was killed by Kuo's followers. The Emperor ordered Kuo's arrest, whereupon Kuo left his family and ran away by himself. After a long time he was caught, but exhaustive investigations showed that all his crimes had been committed before a recent amnesty and he could not be punished. However, something new happened. A Confucian scholar from Kuo's native district remarked, \"Kuo Chieh makes it his business to break the law; how can he be called a worthy man!\" When one of Kuo's followers heard this, he killed the scholar and cut off his tongue. The officials questioned Kuo about this, but he really did not know who had done it. The killer was never found, and the officials reported to the Emperor that Kuo was innocent. However, the Imperial Censor Kung-sun Hung said, “Kuo Chieh is a commoner who indulges in knightly deeds and wields great power. He would kill a man for a trivial offence. Though he does not know about this murder, his crimes are greater than the murderer's, and he deserves the penalty for high treason.\" Therefore, Kuo and his whole family were executed.\n\nApart from the knights described in the \"Biographies of knights errant\", we find others mentioned in various individual biographies in the Shih chi. From these accounts we get a fairly clear picture of the typical behaviour of the ancient Chinese knight errant. What were the ideals underlying such behaviour? Briefly, the ideals of knight errantry were justice, altruism, honour, and individual freedom. In many ways, the knight errant formed a strong contrast to the Confucian scholar. While the Confucian scholar aimed at order and moderation, and stressed the need for the individual to conform to a rigid pattern of behaviour and to subjugate himself to the family, the knight errant stressed justice and freedom and placed personal loyalty above family loyalty and above law and order. Both were condemned by the Legalist thinker Han-fei-tzu, who said, \"The Confucians disturb the law with their writings, while the knights errant break the law by force.\" It is easy to see why he condemned them both, for both placed a moral code above the law, though the moral code of each was different. The Confucian regarded obedience to one's sovereign and parents as a sacred duty more important than observance of the law, but would not resort to force in the discharge of such duties; the knight errant, on the other hand, regarded loyalty to a friend as more important than one's duties to one's king and parents, and would not refrain from violence in performing what they considered their moral obligations or what they thought their honour required. In so far as the knight\n\nA\n\ne.g. the biographies of political assassins (chüan 86); the biographies of Chi An and Cheng Tang-shih (chüan 120).\n\n* Han-fei-tzu, \"Wu tu\" chapter, quoted by Ssu-ma Ch'ien at the beginning of the \"Biographies of knights errant”.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204403, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1962", "page_number": 35, "title": "RAS-1962", "content_text": "26\n\nCURRENCY PROBLEMS IN A CYCLE OF CATHAY\n\nG. FINDLAY ANDREW, O.B.E.*\n\n44\n\nIn these days of simplified travel, when one may either \"pay as you go\" or travel first and pay later; when the traveller is spoon-fed by agencies and bear-led by travel bureaux, the many difficulties which faced the would-be traveller in the Chinese Empire during the early days of this century are almost entirely forgotten. Not the least of these were the many problems which arose in connection with financing such journeys. I shall only refer to foreign exchange very briefly as my subject has to do with the disbursement of Chinese currency. Suffice to say, in passing, that the sixty years under review has witnessed the pound sterling at $2.90 Mex, and the U.S. $ at sixty cents Mex. at the nadir, through to the astronomical zenith of 1949 when staffs had to be paid in the National currency twice daily and then given time off to spend the money before it deteriorated further.\n\nTo-day the would-be traveller presents himself, hat in hand before the Manager of his bank, arranges an overdraft, converts the proceeds into letters-of-credit or travellers' cheques, then proceeds blissfully upon his way shedding rays of sunshine through the distribution of his \"promises to pay\". This was not so in the days at the turn of the century. Then, the traveller in the interior of China might be able to engage his transport by payment with the native bank draft or gold or silver bullion, but the day by day road expenses had to be paid in the existing common currency of China, the old brass cash—the coin with a square hole in the centre. At that time the issuance of this currency was under the control of the Imperial Throne and new issues were uttered by each fresh monarch, perpetuating his memory by the inscription thereon. The value of the brass cash was based upon the tael of silver and fluctuated with the law of supply and demand. In the larger centres the daily rate of exchange was fixed by the Chamber of Commerce.\n\nBut in the matter of the exchange of silver into cash at the exchange shops there were many vagaries to be taken under\n\n*The author was born in China and was engaged for many years there in welfare work,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9s166f47f", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204591, "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": 72, "title": "RAS-1963", "content_text": "BRITISH LEGATION AT PEKING\n\n61\n\nacquire at Peking a site for Building, or may hire Houses, for the accommodation of Her Majesty's mission, and that the Chinese Government will assist it in so doing\". Then, when the Imperial Government appeared to procrastinate over the ratification of these treaties, another English and French force fought its way to the capital and compelled the Manchu authorities to ratify them by the Convention of Peking. This was signed by the British envoy, Lord Elgin,1 and by Prince Kung,2 the chief Chinese representative, on October 24th, 1860 in the Hall of Ceremonies situated in what was later to be called Legation Street. The second clause of the Convention stated that \"Her Britannic Majesty's Representative will henceforward reside permanently, or occasionally, at Peking, as Her Britannic Majesty shall be pleased to decide”. \n\nLord Elgin proposed that Prince Kung's own residence should be rented to the British, but Prince Kung memorialized the throne as follows: \n\nAs regards the matter of the English residing at the capital in the near future, we have been discussing it with them during the past few days. The chief barbarian official [Lord Elgin] considers that the quarters in Prince I's [Prince Kung] palace are spacious and he insists that it is to be their future residence at the capital. Moreover, he stated that there were still open spaces in the palace and that he wants to build houses there himself. It seems to your ministers that to \n\n1 James Bruce, eighth Earl of Elgin. He served as Governor-General of Canada 1846-1854. In 1857 he was appointed envoy extraordinary to China and signed the Treaty of Tientsin in 1858, returning to England early in 1859. In 1860 he was again sent to China as special envoy, and signed the Convention of Peking. He returned to England in 1861 and was appointed Governor-General of India in the same year. He died in India in 1863. \n\nHis younger brother Frederick William Bruce held the post of Colonial Secretary at Hong Kong from 9 February 1844 until 27 June 1846. In 1857 he accompanied his elder brother to China as principal secretary. He was appointed minister plenipotentiary to the Emperor of China in December 1858, but had to wait until March 1861 before actually taking up residence in Peking. He left China on his appointment as British Minister to Washington in 1865. \n\n2 I-hsin (1833-1898), the first Prince Kung, was the sixth son of Emperor Tao-kuang. When the joint French and British forces approached Peking in September 1860 the Emperor Hsien-feng fled to Jehol leaving his half-brother, Prince Kung, to make peace with the allies. When a prototype Chinese foreign office, the Tsungli Yamen, was set up in 1861, Prince Kung was in charge of it, and he played an important part in Chinese affairs for the next fifteen years.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204716, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1964", "page_number": 19, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "W. C. HUNTER \n\nengaged in the lucrative trade drew out of the country large amounts of silver. Lin Tse-hsu, Governor General of Hupeh and Hunan wholeheartedly threw his support to those who memorialized the throne requesting stringent measures to prevent the use of opium within the country, and to cure addicts. Moreover, Lin took direct action and seized caches of opium, 12,000 ounces and 5,000 pipes. As a result of his success in combating opium addiction and forceful condemnation of the sale of the drug he was called to Peking by Emperor Tao-kuang and appointed Imperial Commissioner to examine the opium traffic at Canton. He arrived at the provincial capital in early March, 1839. For several years prior to 1839 nearly 30,000 chests had been imported annually there.\n\nFateful events immediately took form. Lin warned the western merchants of dire results if the iniquitous trade did not cease. His threat was followed by the demand that within three days they offer a bond that no opium would be imported. A counter proposal was made to turn over to Commissioner Lin about 1000 chests of the drug which he summarily rejected. On March 22, he demanded that Lancelot Dent, one of the principal importers be given to Chinese officials as a hostage until all opium was given up. The western merchants insisted that Dent could be surrendered only on condition that his personal safety was guaranteed. The Chinese merchants doing business with foreigners were frightened by the action of their own government. Some of them were deprived of their buttons of rank and two appeared in public with chains around their necks. Under these circumstances the Hong (the association of Chinese merchants trading with the western merchants at Canton) pressed the foreign community to comply with the ultimatum of Lin and deliver up Dent.\n\nIn the midst of this seething situation, on March 24, Captain Charles Elliot, British naval officer and Chief Superintendent and Plenipotentiary of the China Commission arrived from Macao. He entered the foreign compound with great difficulty inasmuch as the river had been blockaded and the streets leading to the foreign section had been barricaded. The predicament of approximately 300 western people seemed most serious since food and water were in short supply and a large encampment of Chinese troops was close at hand. Canton was cut off from formal communications from Macao which was nearly sixty miles distant", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205267, "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": 29, "title": "RAS-1967", "content_text": "22\n\nJEN YU-WEN\n\nolder than Hsien and Ping, was also reared by Young, being the younger sister of Shih. Hsien, the 2nd son, by virtue of being the offspring of the Queen, was regarded as the legitimate heir to the throne according to Chinese tradition. After being crowned, the boy emperor named his new reign Tê Yu () beginning with the next year (1275).\n\nIn the first year of Tê Yu (1275), the Mongol army under the premier Pê Yen (16) invaded South China and after many victories marched toward the capital Lin-an in the winter. The imperial court was alarmed and evacuated the Emperor's two brothers and sister under the care of mother Young and their uncles.3 Before departure, the two princes received new titles: I Wang (1) and Kuang Wang (1), respectively. Early in 1276 the royal party left Lin-an in a hurry heading for the south. It was the beginning of an itinerary of constant flight which would last for three full years.\n\nShortly afterwards, Emperor Hsien and the Queen Mother Ch'uan surrendered to the Mongols who subsequently took them to Peking. The Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan gave the dethroned Sung Emperor the new title of Duke of Ying Kuo (). Years later he was forced to become a Buddhist monk, was banished to Mongolia and died in exile there. It was said that his own son, who had been adopted by a Mongolian prince, would eventually become the last emperor of the Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty. The Ex-Queen Mother Ch'uan became a Buddhist nun and died of old age.4\n\nWhen the capital Lin-an fell, the royal evacuees arrived at Wuchow (##), Chekiang. They continued their flight toward the south. They had to travel on foot for seven days and the two young princes were carried by their uncles on their backs all the way throughout the rough journey. After reaching Wenchow (), a city near the seashore, they stayed for about three months trying to rally loyal supporters there. A few did come, such as a high official Lu Hsiu-fu (✯✯✯) and generals Chang Shih-chieh (*) and Su Liu-i (***) each bringing soldiers along. An army of considerable size was mustered. The Premier Ch'en I-chung (1), who had deserted the court after the Mongols entered Lin-an, also reported his presence at Wenchow, which was his native city. In view of the grave situation created by the capture of the young emperor, which thus", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1967.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205943, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 23, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "18\n\nL. CARRINGTON GOODRICH\n\nHsieh's proposal approved, the emperor appointed him editor, and associated with him a staff of 147 assistants. For seventeen months they toiled diligently; then, on December 13, 1404, they submitted to the throne the first draft, entitled Wên-hsien ta-ch'êng. The emperor, however, was not satisfied. He ordered work resumed, adding two other scholars as co-directors of the enterprise: Yao Kuang-hsiao (1335 - 1418) and Liu Chi-ch'ih (1346 - 1423). The staff too was enlarged to the number of 2,169. On December 14, 1407, Yao submitted the Wên-hsien ta-ch'êng once more to the emperor. By this time it had grown in size to 22,211 chüan, bound in 11,905 pên. His majesty showed his satisfaction by bestowing on it the title Yung-lo ta-tien. But it was still not quite finished. A year later he contributed a preface, now included in the table of contents (an additional 60 chüan), in which he used the phrase \"completed in the winter of our sixth year\" (i.e., 1408). In this preface the number of chüan is given as 22,937. (The table of contents, excluding its own 60 ch., gives the figure as 22,877 ch. in 11,915 pên.) Obviously the editors had added some 700 chüan in the interim between Dec. 14, 1407, and the writing of the preface (Dec. 17, 1408).\n\nThe original was stored in the Wên yüan ko, Nanking, and a copy began to be made ready for printing in 1409. The cost was found to be so prohibitive, however, that this plan was abandoned. Woodblocks for a small number may, on the other hand, have been engraved. (This is the assertion of the eminent official and collector, Tuan-fang (1861-1911), who informed Professor Paul Pelliot that at one time he had seen more than one hundred chüan in printed form.) Following the removal of the capital, the YLTT was taken in 1421 to Peking and stored in the Wên lou in the palace area. In May 1557 a fire destroyed three palaces in the imperial precincts. Happily this work survived; it was then shifted to the historiography office.\n\nFive years later (Sept. 11, 1562), because of the danger of another conflagration, Emperor Chu Hou-ts'ung (1507-67) ordered the making of another set, with the calligrapher Ch'eng Tao-nan in charge of more than one hundred scribes delegated for this service by the ministry of Rites. Other responsible persons were Kao Kung (1512-78) and Chang Chü-cheng (1525-82). As this work is essentially a mammoth", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205944, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 24, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "MORE ON THE YUNG-LO TA-TIEN\n\n19\n\ndictionary, the characters were arranged under four main tone groups, based on the Hung-wu chêng-yün, sponsored by the first Ming emperor. Kao Kung oversaw the first and second tone-groups, Ch'in Ming-lei (1518-93) the third, and Ch'en I-ch'in (1511-86) the fourth. On May 23, 1567, Hsü Chich (1494-1574), then chief grand secretary, submitted the duplicate copy to the throne. Great rejoicing must have ensued, for the shih-lu records a long string of honors and emoluments presented on that day to high officials at court. The original was now stored in the Wên yüan ko (Peking) and the duplicate in the Huang shih chêng (office of imperial 皇史宬 archives). In 1594 a number of scholars, among them Lu K'o-chiao (a chin-shih of 1577 and currently chancellor of the National University), agitated for the installation of a bureau for the compilation of a history of the Ming dynasty. Following the approval of their proposal, several historians began to busy themselves with various aspects of the work, and gather documents for their research. Lu at this time recommended that the YLTT be printed, the labor of doing so to be parcelled out to publishers in various parts of the country. Regrettably his suggestion, along with the initial proposal of a dynastic history, was never consummated, at least in Ming times. The war in Korea against the Japanese invaders, incursions by the Mongols in the north-west, and insurrections in the south-west were all then in progress, and the resources of the empire could not bear so heavy a burden. At the end of the dynasty, during the occupation of the capital by the rebel Li Tzu-ch'eng (d. 1645), the original set was entirely put to the flames, and a considerable portion of the duplicate (about one-tenth) likewise destroyed.\n\nFor over a century silence reigns, Ch'ing dynasty scholars seeming to be totally unconcerned about the YLTT. Then in 1771/72 Chu Yün (1729-81) suggested to the Ch'ien-lung emperor first that he launch a similar and even greater enterprise, and later that certain rare books contained only in the YLTT be reproduced in the new work, which came to be known as the Ssu-k'u ch'üan-shu. The emperor was pleased to accept both suggestions; as a result, 385 works in 4,946 chüan were made an important part of the latter. By this time only 9,677 volumes were available (although a report of Nov. 9, 1794, records\n\n+", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206511, "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-1972", "page_number": 59, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TSUNGLI YAMEN\n\n53\n\nmaster a foreign language then memorialize requesting that he be rewarded.\n\nAs regards duties on foreign goods at the ports, it has been agreed that at present twenty per cent of the value of the duties shall be deducted and handed back, and a joint record maintained'. Also there are barbarians who are helping to manage revenue matters20. It should be made absolutely clear how much revenue is to be collected each month, so that it does not result in misappropriation and embezzlement. But in future, after the amount withheld has been cleared, let Prince Kung and others further concentrate on deciding what appropriate regulations ought to be fixed so that after a period of time malpractices do not grow up. As regards any other arrangements to be made let them also carefully deliberate and memorialize from time to time.\n\nFor an examination of the implications of these two important documents the reader is referred to Banno's China and the West, pp. 223-236.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Harvard University Press, 1964.\n\n2 Bruce to Russell, No. 51, May 23, 1861, FO17/352.\n\n3 Teng Ssu-yü and John K. Fairbank, China's Response to the West, Harvard University Press, 1954, 47-48; 73-74.\n\n4 Masataka Banno, China and the West 1858-1861, 220-221.\n\n5 Meng Ssu-ming, The Tsungli Yamen: Its Organization and Functions, Harvard University Press, 1962, 20-21.\n\n6 Translated in collaboration with Mr. Vei-Tsen Yang, formerly of the Department of Chinese Studies, University of Hong Kong, now Special Lecturer in the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto.\n\n7 The Chinese text is in Ch'ou-pan i-wu shih-mo (#MR#&*) Hsieng-feng, 71: 17b-26.\n\n8 During the time of the Three Kingdoms Liu Pei, the founding ruler of the Kingdom of Shu, invaded the Kingdom of Wu in order to avenge the death of Kuan Yü. He suffered a crushing defeat and died soon after. After the accession of his son to the throne in 223 B.C. the chief minister Chu-ko Liang sent Teng Chih as an envoy of good will to Wu, which resulted in a rapprochement between the two states. See San-kuo chih, chuan 35 and 45 for the biographies of Chu-ko Liang and Teng Chih.\n\n9 In fact the emperor was at the summer palace at Jehol. Since the emperor had fled from the enemy the term hsing-ying ('travelling headquarters') was used rather than pi-shu shan chuang ('avoiding the heat hill palace') for reasons of face.\n\n10 At this time the prince-ministers in charge of the travelling headquarters were Tsai-yuan, Prince I, and Tuan-hua, Prince Cheng. Ministers of the imperial presence at this time were: Prince I, Prince Cheng, Su-shun and Ching-shou. Of these Su-shun was the dominant figure and was entrusted with the main responsibility for affairs at the travelling headquarters (also referred to in English as \"the temporary court\"). There were four Grand", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207006, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1974", "page_number": 77, "title": "RAS-1974", "content_text": "CRAFT OF GOD CARVING IN SINGAPORE\n\n71\n\nbe under the left or the right foot with the coiled snake under the other foot. It could be entwined by the snake or the snake could even be stretched across the god's outstretched arms with the god standing or seated on the tortoise. There was no controversy over the bare feet, but the pointed finger and the unkempt hair were also long disputed. One daring apprentice was quickly squashed by his vexed master when he suggested that as the Northern Emperor is also called the Emperor of the Black Heavens perhaps his face should be black. This only highlighted how easily individual interpretations can develop into an accepted recognition feature.\n\nThe decoration of the robes is usually a personal choice of the carver unless it is part of a particular identification feature. Images of soldiers are depicted wearing armour with coloured robes showing underneath. Images of officials varied considerably, many wearing scholar's robes and hats rather than official's robes bearing their badge of rank. During Imperial times as it was not permitted for images to be depicted wearing genuine badges of rank, blurred outlines were painted on their chests, and even to this day in the decoration of the images the carvers still do not depict the old Ch'ing mandarin-square chest and back badges of birds for civil officials and animals for the military.\n\nIt must be remembered that to Chinese the attitudes of stylized form is the important part of the image. The faces and dress, more often than not, are irrelevant and most images are dressed in official court dress of past centuries. A few images, typically Taoist, are garbed in the gown of a priest, with a top knot of coiled hair which supports a very small coronet or crown.\n\nMany wooden images are carved from one piece of wood, excluding of course the sword and other similar final additions. Quite a few, however, have their throne carved separately and even more have the head and neck carved as one piece to be fitted later into a body which has been carved separately. Some images are required by custom to have articulated limbs (e.g., the Ch'ao Chou patron of street actors) and others consist only of marionette heads on stakes or skewers for use by spirit mediums for self-immolation.\n\nGod carvers not only produce images, they are also the carpenters who build the temple furnishings, the altar, side screens, etc., and also the ancestral tablets for both temples and homes.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1974.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/x633mp077", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207354, "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": 122, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "114\n\nRICHARD J. SMITH\n\npolicymakers tended to respond to the unprecedented situation in terms of their own sophisticated tradition of \"managing\" barbarians. The theoretical foundations of this tradition have been much discussed, although usually with reference to China's external relations. Its practical application has received little systematic study apart from inquiries into the structure and operation of the well-known tributary system. Against the background of Chinese tradition in both its dimensions--theory and practice--this article examines the major features of Ch'ing policy toward foreign military employees in the T'ung-chih period (1862-1874), when Western influences first became a significant factor in China's military affairs. It argues that behind the rhetoric of the Chinese world order throughout the imperial era lay realistic, sophisticated and generally effective policies of \"barbarian management,\" which were neither inherently \"unmodern,\" nor even uniquely Chinese. Furthermore, it suggests that the Ch'ing throne was more flexible in its outlook toward Western barbarians than is generally recognized, and that its failure to go further in abandoning its Sinocentrism may be explained largely by the behavior of the barbarians themselves.\n\nThe Theoretical Foundations of Chinese Policy\n\nClassical sanction for the use of foreigners to serve Chinese purposes may be traced to the Tso-chuan (Commentary of Tso), a work written during the chaotic Warring States period, which referred to the practice of using the talents (lit., materials) of the semi-barbarian Ch'u state for the purposes of the Chin state (Ch'u-ts'ai Chin-yung). As employed by later writers, the phrase usually implied the notion that barbarians would willingly turn toward or revert to Chinese civilization (hsiang-hua or kuei-hua) and offer their allegiance. Other classical literature reinforced this view of China's cultural superiority, emphasizing the natural gravitation of foreigners to the Middle Kingdom.10 Mencius provided the neat formula, \"using [the doctrines of] China to transform the barbarian\" (yung-Hsia pien-i), a phrase which became the standard expression of Chinese ethnocentrism for the next twelve hundred years.11 The reverse theme (yung-i pien-Hsia) served as a derogatory epithet to be hurled at those who had allegedly departed from the Chinese cultural tradition.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207360, "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": 128, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "120\n\nRICHARD J. SMITH\n\nbeen awarded the imperial surname in 869 for his military exploits. Although Li K’o-yung's loyalty was not as unwavering as either Ch'i-pi's or Kao's, his tribal and provincial armies were considered the best in the empire, and his services—particularly during the rebellion of Huang Ch'ao (875-884)—were therefore indispensable to the throne. He was given high rank and large financial awards in the hope of securing his fidelity, but in the end he became a virtually independent warlord.37\n\nLess prominent in the record, but no less significant, is the employment of Wen-mo-ssu (Ormudz), a Uighur prince who submitted, together with more than 2,000 of his troops, to the T'ang after the destruction of the Uighur capital by the Khirgiz in 840. It was his submission that inspired the compilation of the I-yü kuei-chung chuan as a monument to foreign loyalty and military merit.38 Descriptions of Wen-mo-ssu's \"return\" to China, and his career as a T'ang military officer, highlight the behavior patterns and attitudes of barbarian employees deemed most admirable by the Chinese: Loyalty and sincerity, “intuitive” knowledge of right behavior, respect for the throne, and admiration for Chinese ways. These were clear indications that the barbarian had \"turned toward Chinese civilization.\"39 But the Chinese could also admit freely the practical circumstances of the Uighur prince's submission. Li Te-yü, in fact, considered the decision to leave a “disordered state\" evidence of Wen-mo-ssu's wisdom—an additional attribute.40\n\nAs a Chinese officer, Wen-mo-ssu conformed to, and even exceeded, the expectations of his imperial masters. A zealous partisan, who devoted his \"utmost efforts\" to defending China, Wen-mo-ssu was also fully conversant with Chinese customs. As evidence of his complete \"return\" to China, the former Uighur aristocrat requested that he be allowed to marry and make his home in the Middle Kingdom. Obviously such loyalty could not go unrewarded. In addition to enfeoffment, high office and material awards such as banners and leopard tails, Wen-mo-ssu received the imperial surname as a mark of the throne's favor; henceforth he was known as Li Ssu-chung (lit., Li, whose thoughts are loyal). As might be expected of tradition-minded officials and the throne, requests for such honors, as well as the edicts in response, often looked to classic literature and precedent for sanction.41\n\nBut the employment of foreigners in the T'ang, as had been the case in Han times, was not without its hazards. Arab and Turkish", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207366, "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": 134, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "126\n\nRICHARD J. SMITH\n\nWhen Ward's employment was first reported to the throne in early 1862, the governor of Kiangsu, Hsueh Huan, took special pains to point out that Ward, in addition to being a courageous and seemingly invincible warrior, was also a loyal servant of the throne, who had petitioned to become a Chinese subject and to change to Chinese ways. Although Ward's petition had in fact been submitted almost a year earlier in a successful attempt to avoid prosecution (this was, of course, unmentioned in the memorial), Hsueh argued that it would be \"inconvenient to repress the sincerity\" of his \"wholehearted turning toward [Chinese] civilization\" (hsiang-hua). Hsüeh suggested that Ward should be granted the fourth rank button and peacock feather in order to encourage him to \"admire right behavior and establish merit” (mu-i li-kung). In response, the throne issued an edict conferring the honors, satisfied that the foreigner had indeed \"turned out of admiration toward Chinese customs\" (hsiang-mu Hua-feng). He was, in Peking's eyes, sincere, helpful and obedient, \"surely worthy of admiration and esteem.”67\n\nIn subsequent months, Ward received additional rewards: the third rank button, brevet rank as colonel, and finally \"expectant\" colonel status. By all accounts he was a brave and singularly effective commander. At the same time, however, he was a brash individual, whose independent spirit and flamboyant style offended, and occasionally alarmed, the Chinese. As Ward's prestige and self-confidence grew, criticisms of his behavior began to appear in memorials to the throne. Hsieh Huan, for one, began to complain of his arrogance and unmanageability. Prince Kung, a leading figure in both the Grand Council and the Tsungli Yamen, found Ward to be proud, boastful, and overly independent. The throne, for its part, expressed special concern over Ward's failure to shave his head and change to Chinese clothing. (Particularly damaging was Hsüeh's report that the barbarian commander had failed to conform to Chinese customs because he feared the ridicule of foreigners!) From Peking's vantage point, the acceptance of Chinese culture was the principal means of gauging the foreigner's receptiveness to imperial control. When Ward failed to conform to the dictates of propriety, his actions cast doubt on his sincerity, and perhaps more importantly, on the efficacy of traditional restraints.68\n\nAll Chinese did not view Ward's indiscretions as matters of great concern, however. Hsüeh's successor as governor, Li Hung-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207368, "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": 136, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "128\n\nRICHARD J. SMITH\n\nto his loyal soul” (i-wei chung-hun). The throne, for its part, expressed profound grief over Ward's death, and ordered that special posthumous honors, including the erection of memorial temples, be bestowed upon this upright, brave, and “irreproachable” warrior.72\n\nWard as a Model for Barbarian Employees\n\nIt is perhaps not surprising that Ward's employment became the standard for other foreign employees in the Chinese military service. Soon after his death, an imperial edict expressed the view that if foreigners were to lead Chinese troops and be granted military authority, they had, like Ward, \"to petition requesting to be enrolled on the Chinese population register [p'an-t'u] and be willing to accept Chinese control [chieh-chih].\"73 At least in part because of such stipulations, Ward's second in command, Henry Burgevine, assumed command of the Ever-Victorious Army in October, 1862. Like his predecessor, Burgevine had petitioned to become a Chinese subject, and expressed his willingness not only to accept Chinese control, but also to be bound by Chinese law.74 In the course of his career he had been granted honors similar to those bestowed upon Ward, and had also married a Chinese. But he did not enjoy a close personal or business relationship with any Chinese officials, and in time he clashed with his Chinese sponsors. After a quarrel with Yang Fang in early 1863, Burgevine was dismissed by the Ch'ing authorities and branded a “rebel” (ni).75 Eventually he joined the Taipings, and although subject to Chinese jurisdiction by the terms of his own petition, Burgevine avoided prosecution owing to the intercession of foreign officials. In 1865, he drowned under mysterious circumstances while in the custody of the Chinese authorities.76\n\nThe Burgevine episode highlighted the inadequacy of cultural controls in \"managing\" barbarian employees. But even before Burgevine's \"rebellion,\" the Chinese had begun to appreciate the limitations of cultural submission as a determinant of loyalty. On December 6, 1862, the throne received a joint memorial from Hsüeh Huan and Li Hung-chang which spelled out these limitations on the basis of their experience with Ward. Hsüeh and Li harbored few illusions about the American commander and his motives. Pointing out that Ward had indicated his willingness to become a Chinese subject, but had never shaved his head or changed to Chinese clothing, the two officials went on to state that despite his", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207370, "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": 138, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "130 \n\nRICHARD J. SMITH \n\nArmy,83 Others, such as Captain Coney, Baron de Meritens, and William Winstanley, headed foreign-training programs established in treaty port areas. Still others, including John Pennell, Halliday Macartney, and William Mesny, served in Chinese armies as individual instructors or officers.85 Forced by circumstance to employ these foreigners, the Chinese became quite adept at handling them—despite China's disadvantageous position vis-à-vis the West. \n\nAs in the past, Ch'ing officials paid their foreign employees well, at the same time subjecting them to close surveillance, and fostering personal relationships with them as a means of control. In addition, however, they also took special pains to define regular channels of communication and command, and specified roles and responsibilities through the use of detailed regulations and written agreements.86 Furthermore, in rewarding loyal foreign service, the Chinese authorities went beyond simply arranging for edicts of praise and encouragement, the dispensing of ranks and titles, and the bestowal of traditional marks of imperial favor such as peacock feathers, silk, animal skins, and silver. They also began notifying foreign governments of the accomplishments of their respective nationals, and distributing foreign-style (as opposed to Chinese-style) medals—a rather significant departure from traditional practice. The throne even went so far as to acknowledge in 1864 that since Westerners especially esteemed foreign-style medals, these awards were the most generally appropriate expression of imperial gratitude.87 \n\nTo be sure, Peking continued to reward evidence of cultural submission, casting it in traditional terms of imperial condescension. The cases of Pennell and Mesny provide striking examples of this tendency.88 Moreover, throughout the nineteenth century, even as the Chinese world order crumbled about them, Ch'ing policymakers continued to use expressions such as \"turning toward Chinese civilization,\" \"cherishing and soothing men from afar,” and “using [the doctrines of] China to transform the barbarian.\" Policymakers also persisted in referring to both ancient and more modern precedent in order to justify (or argue against) the employment of barbarians in Chinese military affairs. Allusions to the use of foreign \"allies\" as the Hsiung-nu and Uighurs, as well as references to such diverse individuals as Yu Yü, Chin Mi-ti, Ch'i-pi Ho-li, and Gordon, continue to crop up in Ch'ing documents of the 1890's", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207647, "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-1976", "page_number": 35, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "20\n\nRICHARD J. SMITH\n\nplayed an historic role similar to that played in the West in late Tokugawa Japan, first precipitating a political crisis, and then helping to resolve it in favor of revolution. It would not be the last time Japan would play the part in China.\n\nViewed from the perspective of military modernization in China and Japan, two factors seem crucial to Meiji Japan's domestic and international success: (1) A sustained sense of crisis, sufficient to justify fundamental institutional change; and (2) strong central government leadership and support in implementing reform, together with the systematic use of foreign assistance. Paul Cohen is obviously correct in pointing out that pre-Meiji Japan enjoyed a number of distinct advantages in responding quickly and creatively to the Western \"impact.\"51 But we may question whether without the self-conscious and concerted modernizing policies of the Meiji central government Japan could have achieved \"wealth and power\" so quickly, even with these advantages. An examination of military change in Japan during the period 1853-1868 indicates, for example, that Bakumatsu military reform efforts were in fact no more effective than those of the T'ung-chih era.52\n\nIn China, the Manchus refused to sponsor basic institutional change, fearful of upsetting the system of military checks and balances that had preserved their rule in China for over two hundred years. More concerned with the maintenance of internal control than with the problem of external defense, the Manchus had little incentive to go beyond the limited military changes that had enabled them to suppress the major rebellions of the 1860's and 70's. It was not until 1907 that the throne took the first concrete steps to dismantle the costly, cumbersome and worthless Manchu Banner system-steps that even then were soon retraced.53\n\nIt should be noted that Manchu rule was less significant in other areas of Chinese life, notably the economy. Dwight Perkins insists, for example, that the Ch'ing government's sins in the economic realm were less those of commission than of omission, that the policies of the Chinese government \"were not so much wrong as inadequate.\"54 But in comparing Japan's economic success with China's failure, Perkins attributes China's difficulties primarily to \"lack of funds.\" Sapped of money by foreign and domestic wars, heavy indemnities, the sustenance of huge and useless \"regular\" standing armies, and the high cost of maintaining irregularly financed \"temporary\" imperial armies, the Ch'ing government...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208310, "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-1978", "page_number": 34, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "18\n\nRICHARD J. SMITH\n\nprocess. Ch'i's view was that by seeking \"genuine scholarship,\" badly-needed military talent might be secured for the defense of the dynasty.' His proposal was blocked however — undoubtedly in part because Ch'i fell out of favor as a negotiator with the British, but also because the proposal itself was so revolutionary in spirit.\n\nIn late 1851, the censor Wang Mao-yin resurrected Ch'i's innovative proposal. His memorial, dated November 11, stated baldly that \"for seeking talent within the examination system, there is nothing better than Ch'i Kung's five categories to encourage scholars to study military affairs.\" The memorial was forwarded by the emperor to the Board of Rites for deliberation, but Wang's suggestion regarding the reform of the examination was not approved, on grounds that Chinese scholars were men of breadth and “need not be specialists\" (pu-pi chuan-men ming chia),16 Once again Ch'i's proposal died a swift death. It had no other prominent advocates.\n\nSeveral more years passed, during which time Wang Mao-yin attained the rank of senior vice-president of the Board of War. In the midst of both the \"Arrow War\" negotiations and the Taiping Rebellion, Wang again memorialized the throne (July 9, 1858), once more requesting meaningful military reform. Making pointed reference to the abortive proposals put forward by Ch'i Kung and himself over the past decade and a half, Wang suggested that they might now be reconsidered together with the policy of recommendation (pao-chi) as a means of recruiting badly needed military talent. He did not mince words. Reminding the throne that many of China's best military commanders were not in fact products of the examination system, he went on to criticize the appointment of imperial relatives to positions of military responsibility, and the throne's tendency to place military affairs in the hands of officials schooled only in essay-writing, poetry, and other literary skills. He ended with a highly moralistic appeal for self-cultivation (hsiu-shen) on the part of the emperor, replete with quotations from the Shu-ching and Ta-hsüeh, but his proposals fell on deaf ears,17 Wang retired from office within months of writing this bold but fruitless memorial.\n\nEfforts to reform or abolish the nearly useless military examinations met with no more success than this. During the Hsien-feng emperor's reign, a number of officials advocated changes in the outdated system, including dispensing with the military examinations", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208311, "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-1978", "page_number": 35, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "MILITARY EDUCATION IN CHINA, 1842-1895\n\n19\n\naltogether. But fears over tampering with inherited institutions and respect for ancestral precedent (tsu-tsung ch'eng-fa) prevented the tests from being either transformed or abandoned. Subsequent attempts to reform or abolish the system of military examinations, such as Shen Pao-chen's famous memorial of 1878, came to nothing.19 As late as 1898, we still find the throne ordering officials to determine what the policy of the imperial ancestors had been regarding military reform before taking concrete steps.20 Small wonder the prestigious civil service examinations also remained essentially unaltered throughout the nineteenth century.\n\nThere was, however, room for the reform of military education outside the examination system - particularly during the Taiping period. Not only did the Rebellion allow for the emergence of new civil and military leadership in China; it also resulted in the establishment of new-style military forces which placed comparatively heavy emphasis on military education. The yung-ying armies of Tseng Kuo-fan and others, for example, employed the highly effective training methods of the famous Ming general Ch'i Chi-kuang - techniques that had long since fallen into disuse. In addition to Confucian moral instruction, yung-ying armies received daily drill, which was all but unheard of in Banner and Green Standard forces. They practiced regularly with firearms, swords, knives, spears and other weapons, and were taught tactical formations such as Ch'i Chi-kuang's \"mandarin duck\" (yuan-yang) and the \"three powers\" (san-ts'ai).\n\nIt is true, of course, that officers received very little, if any, formal military training, since it was deemed sufficient that they be upright gentlemen (chün-tzu) who led by moral example. Moreover, we know that active involvement by officers in troop training was generally considered demeaning. But at least some lower level personnel in yung-ying staff organizations (ying-wu ch'u), and perhaps some high-level officers as well, were more knowledgeable about key aspects of military affairs - planning, command, field maneuvers, discipline, supply, communication and so forth - than the vast majority of their Banner or Green Standard counterparts.25\n\nAfter 1860, Western influences began to penetrate Chinese military forces. In the latter stages of the Ch'ing-Taiping War, the British and French took an active role in supporting the introduction of foreign-training to Chinese troops. Foreign-officered con-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208586, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1979", "page_number": 43, "title": "RAS-1979", "content_text": "16\n\nCHAN KIT-CHENG\n\nAmerican and British representatives would be invited to participate. After the surrender he would authorize the British to land troops for the reoccupation of Hong Kong.37 In a private letter in reply to Chiang, Truman reiterated that his decision was in no way related to the question of British sovereignty in Hong Kong.68\n\nChiang Kai-shek remained reluctant to concede the main point. However, he realized that he needed American aid in getting his forces to Hong Kong. Consequently, he communicated a further compromise to Truman on 23 August: he had notified the British that, as supreme commander of the China theatre, he agreed to delegate his authority to a British commander to accept the surrender of Japanese forces in Hong Kong.69 Although Truman regarded Chiang's concession as \"quite reasonable\" and hoped that it would settle the matter,70 it was not acceptable to Britain. While he deplored the Sino-British friction, Truman clearly did not contemplate taking further action.71 It was therefore a relief both to Britain and the United States that Chiang eventually accepted Britain's revised offer that Harcourt accept Japan's surrender on behalf of both Britain and Chiang as supreme commander of the China theatre.72\n\nHong Kong was thus reverted to British rule, much as the Americans, both in official and unofficial circles, had clamoured against during the Pacific War. Such clamouring, especially during the first half of the war, no doubt troubled the British and encouraged the Chinese. But, in the main, American wartime policy, if one can at all speak of a conscious and consistent policy, regarding the postwar status of Hong Kong had been characterized by much talk and little action. \"Hopes\", \"wishes\", \"opinions\", \"views\" were abundantly expressed to Britain, but little can be said of direct and persistent American pressure on the subject.\n\nNOTES\n\n1 Author's article, \"The Question of Hong Kong during the Pacific War, (1941-45)”, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, II, no. 1 (October 1973), pp. 56-78.\n\n2 C. Thorne, Allies of a Kind (London, 1978), p. 156.\n\n3 Thorne, ibid., pp. 172-3, referring to opinions cited in the New York Times, the Chicago Daily News, and the Christian Science Monitor.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1979.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2801w5938", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 209272, "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-1981", "page_number": 175, "title": "RAS-1981", "content_text": "JUAN YUAN'S MANAGEMENT OF SINO-BRITISH RELATIONS IN CANTON, 1817-1826 161\n\nMeanwhile, the Tao-kuang Emperor felt keenly British challenges to traditional Chinese foreign policy. Juan Yüan was summoned to Peking. One topic of their discussions was Sino-British relations at Canton. But these discussions must be interpreted in the light of another pressing development.\n\nPage 162\n\nIn 1821, the Tao-kuang Emperor, newly on the throne, adopted a policy that was closer to Juan Yüan's point of view. A more stringent anti-opium policy was enforced at Canton, leading to closer monitoring of activities and movements of foreigners in port. The following year, a new situation developed in the northwest, giving further evidence that the British were challenging the Canton system by trying to open new trading frontiers in China. The combination of these factors led to toughened measures to control Westerners in Canton. That year, Wu-lung-a, assistant military governor for administration (ts'an-chan ta-ch'en) in Kashgar, reported to the Emperor the presence of two British traders near Yarkand in western Sinkiang. These traders had entered the Chinese Empire from Kashmir and Tibet, and had travelled by camel across the Sinkiang desert, but had sent the camels back when they were no longer suitable for the terrain. These traders and the remainder of their caravan had been prevented by the local chieftain of Yarkand, Akim Beg Mohamet, from buying horses, blankets and other provisions. Wu-lung-a, whose responsibilities included Yarkand, had ascertained that these traders were indeed British, and had indeed come from Kashmir. He enclosed with the memorial a letter from a British official in India which gave in considerable detail the route taken by the two traders from Kashmir to Sinkiang, as well as their intention to travel through the Chinese Northwest to Bukhara, north of Afghanistan, hence their need for horses. This letter to the Akim Beg identified the writer and the traders, then continued:\n\nThese traders and their retinue would like to go to Bukhara, taking any road that was safe for them, ... It is their understanding that the road through Yarkand is good and safe. They also heard that his Imperial Majesty is kind and fair to strangers, therefore, they have come to discuss with me the possibility of taking this road. They have asked me to certify their need to purchase horses, blankets and stockings. As it is the British practice for the chief in each city to write a letter to the chief of the next city on the traveller's route on behalf of the traveller, I am writing this letter to the Akim Beg of Yarkand. Wu-lung-a, maintaining the traditional Ch'ing policy that the only\n\nPage 163", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1981.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ff36bt18m", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211175, "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": 236, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "211\n\nand commerce have increased with unprecedented bounds, and the wealth of the nation has also grown in a measure totally unknown before in any similar period of our history.”\n\nWith the present labour unrest in Britain, inflation, high taxes and an uncertain economic future, we are sharply reminded that the sentiments of the speaker expressed conditions of what in retrospect seem to be a golden period; that is, if we view it from an imperial standpoint which largely ignores the exploitation and racial condescension upon which the structure of Empire stood.\n\nWith the extension of power to remote corners of the globe and the gathering of the profits of trade, there was also progress to be noted within the nation: \"The arts and sciences also have progressed in a manner that could have been thought impossible when Her Majesty ascended the throne. Discoveries and inventions have taken place which have added most materially to the prosperity, happiness, and comfort of all classes of Her Majesty's subjects. Nor has the progress been confined to material objects. Much has been done to raise and elevate the people, the advance in education has been surprising, and especially the efforts which have been expected.\"\n\nThere had also been advances in humanitarianism and liberalism: “Legislation has not been behindhand. Beneficent laws have been passed to mitigate the severity and harshness of former enactments, and other measures have been passed abolishing unnecessary restrictions and privileges and opening careers to many thousands of Her Majesty's subjects.”\n\nThe speaker prudently did not refer to the furore created among the expatriates of Hongkong when a few years earlier Governor Hennessy had introduced measures to make more humane the punishment meted out to Chinese criminals.\n\nNor did he speak of the strong objections raised to Governor Hennessy's efforts to introduce more equal status for the Chinese, such as the appointment of Mr. Ng Choy (Wu Ting-fang) as the first Chinese member of the Legislative Council and the Governor's wish to abolish class legislation such as the light and pass", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211399, "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": 115, "title": "RAS-1988", "content_text": "91\n\nbefore leaving Kwangtung or on his arrival in Peking is uncertain, and there are many private records that state that he did not die a natural death, having taken poison by his own hand, as a protest to the throne. Roughly translated Wong's address said, in part: \"Although your Majesty has not thrown me away but instead given me this post, I am an officer of no use, most of the government affairs that I want to do having failed, and my abilities being inadequate for the position. Now I have received information from Peking that the ministers of the Board have reported badly of me, and having the Imperial degree dismissing me, I may die at any moment. It is hopeless for me to return to the capital while I am alive. But as I have been in this appointment for two years already, I understand quite well Kwangtung affairs. Your Majesty wants to have the affairs kept better and better, and as I have a clear knowledge of things and can be sure of future happenings, if I keep my mouth shut when I am about to die, I surely carry my sin to the grave. Therefore I cannot help putting it to your Majesty that the boundary be removed as soon as possible. Kwangtung faces the water and is backed by the hills, and the level land is not wide. Twice have the people living near the water been moved inland. Several hundred thousand people are now homeless, large troops of soldiers are kept in the places whence they were removed, in order to watch the boundary, and government builds beacons, railings, etc., which have to be repaired. None of this is paid for out of government funds; the people are taxed in order to pay it. ... I therefore beg that the boundary be abolished and the people allowed to return to their own villages to farm and evaporate salt. ... The above-mentioned affairs are forbidden, and all high officers dare not mention them, but as I am on the point of death, I pour out my blood to write this suggestion as my will before my death. Though I have done nothing for my country, since I can have this matter put before you, I can die without regret.\"\n\nAt first, this letter had no result, but eventually, a party of officials were sent from Peking to inspect the boundary in the company of Chau Yau Tak (**周佑德**), the Viceroy. The latter, seeing the wretched condition of the removed people, at once urged the Emperor to let them go home. \"Do not wait till the inspection is over,\" he said, \"It is urgent to let the people prepare seeds and develop the land to be ready for farming next spring.\" Thus, at last, in the 8th year of Hong Hei, 1669, an Imperial decree was issued abolishing the boundary. It is said that when the people", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211631, "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": 46, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "21\n\nto be regarded as such by mankind and to be revered only as the representation of that power. However, over the centuries, he has developed into a god in his own right, depicted as a gilded image of an emperor sitting on a throne, and is accepted by the masses as the ruler of the Heavenly bureaucracy.\n\nIn T'aishan in Shantung province it was claimed that the Jade Emperor in mortal life had been merely a learned doctor of medicine who had lived during the 12th century AD at the Sung court in Kaifeng. He attended the emperor Hui Tsung during a serious illness and saved his life with a miraculous cure. He was known as Chang Yu-huang, but, on his death, he, like many a hermit, was deified by imperial decree.\n\nBritish representatives met the imperial representative, Li Hung-chang in 1876 in the temple (Yuh Huang T'ing) dedicated to the Jade Emperor to the west of Yent'ai (Cheefoo) in Shantung province to arrange the Chefoo Convention. Another incident involving the British in North China and connected with the Jade Emperor concerned Sir Meyrick Hewlett of the China Consular Service at the turn of the century during the clearing up after the siege of the British Embassy during the Boxer Rebellion. He found in the house of Sir Ernest Satow, HM Ambassador in Peking, a tablet with a background of sky-blue, framed in rich gold and inscribed with the four characters in gold — 'Huang T'ien Shang Ti'. Prince Ch'ing identified it as an item from the Temple of Heaven which had been missing for more than a year. When Sir Ernest asked how to restore it to its rightful place, the Prince begged the Ambassador not to send it round to his palace as should it be placed in the entrance he could neither leave nor enter his home without kowtowing twenty-seven times before it. Another more enlightened official helped out by bearing it off at dead of night in a Peking cart to the vaults of a European bank where it awaited a favourable day for restoring it to the Temple of Heaven. Some thirty-five years later, Sir Meyrick, paying his farewell visit to Peking, visited the Temple of Heaven and asked the attendants whether he could see the tablet, kept with the other tablets sacred to the emperors of the Ch'ing dynasty in a small temple opposite the Altar of Heaven. They replied that this was quite impossible, since even in post-imperial Kuomintang days no-one was allowed to see it. Sir Meyrick related the story of its recovery, upon which the attendants agreed to show him the tablet together with the tablets to the 28 Major Constellations, to Thunder and Lightning, and to the other forces of nature, but said that the tablets to the emperors were all lost after their", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212659, "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-1991", "page_number": 213, "title": "RAS-1991", "content_text": "194\n\nKang district of Chia I county where his grave is flanked by a pair of stone civil and military guardians and stone horses. Wang was created an Earl, granted the posthumous name Kuo-min, \"Determined and Beneficial\", and the posthumous title of T'ai-tzu T'ai-pao, the Grand Guardian of the Heir Apparent. Votive tablets bearing the name Wang Te-lu can be seen in a number of temples in Taiwan, including the Lung-shan Ssu in Taipei, reflecting the importance with which he is held within the island.\n\nHis paternal grandfather was a lieutenant in the force sent to Taiwan to put down the revolt by Chu I-kuei against the Manchu Ch'ing dynasty in 1721. He was killed in battle in Feng-shan county, and was followed to Taiwan by his sons and grandsons who settled in the area now known as T'ai-pao village in T'ai-pao district of Chia I county, places bearing Wang's posthumous honour of Grand Guardian, T'ai-pao.\n\nAccording to folk memory Wang Te-lu was a feckless youth causing his parents to fear humiliation. They took the extreme step of constructing a secure area within the home where he was incarcerated and fed three meals a day by his elder brother's wife who perceived that his face bore the fateful signs of a formidable future. One day she failed to follow the instructions of her parents-in-law, left open the door to the secure area which permitted Te-lu to escape. He was ever beholden to his sister-in-law, and after she died and was buried in Pai-ho district of Tainan county, he memorialised the throne requesting she be raised posthumously to the \"Lady of the first official grade”. \n\nIn 1786 Lin Shuang-wen led a revolt in Taiwan against the Manchu Ch'ing dynasty in support of the campaign to \"Restore the Ming”. Although Wang Te-lu was a mere youth at the time, he would have been 15, he nevertheless became involved in the struggle to suppress the revolt and after the troubles were over was awarded Hung-ting Hua-ling: (the red button and the peacock's feather), mandarin's rank and an imperial honour.\n\nLocal history maintains that in 1821 Wang was transferred to be the staff of the provincial military commander of the two provinces of Chekiang and Kiangsi, and in 1828, during the siege of Chia I led by Chang Ping, Wang Te-lu's service with the imperial force protecting the town and building up the town's walls resulted in him being awarded the honour of the Imperial Grand Guardian of the Apparent.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212716, "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": 25, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "Chinese Military Services which have not before been recorded in English. One aspect of Mesny's writings which will bring wry smiles to a number of western faces was his occasional essay into the ever-popular art of China-watching. In 1896 his conjecture that Earl Li Hung-chang was a likely candidate to be the first ruler of a China ruled by Chinese is now, with the benefit of hindsight, amusing to say the least. Even more so was Mesny's next thought. Li perhaps might even marry the Empress Dowager and thus amalgamate his influence with that of the reigning line. He added that the Empress Dowager was however too old to bear children and would therefore only be a witness to her own departing glory by seeing her husband, [and Li would then have been 74] begetting an heir to the throne through a younger woman.\n\nBetween 1850 and 1873 peasant discontent, both Chinese [Han] and non-Chinese, led to a wave of rebellions, some of exceptional size. These included the Taipins, the Nien and the Moslem revolts, but not Ya'qub Beg's Sinkaing rebellion which ended in 1877. Mesny first became involved in the Taiping rebellion [1850-1864] towards its latter days, a time when the imperialists were gaining the upper hand and had confronted the Taiping leadership in its capital, Nanking where he was held captive for some months. Later, whilst he was working with the Chinese Maritime Customs in Hankow, he became involved with the Nien-fei [the Nien rebels] bandits who ravaged north of the Yangtze between 1851 and 1868.\n\nThe Nien, a decentralised association of peasants, were basically bandits without any ideology as such, whereas the Taiping rebels were a pseudo-Christian movement led against the imperial rulers in Peking by Hung Hsiu-ch'uan who had adopted some elements of Christian beliefs into his ideology. The Taiping rebels, whose capital city was Nanking, enjoyed some sympathy from westerners but eventually the rebellion was defeated but not until many millions had died. When the final defeat came it was due mainly to the Chinese imperialists under Tseng Kuo-fan, Li Hung-chang and Tso Tsung-t'ang, aided to some extent by several foreign-trained Chinese forces which included the much-vaunted western-trained force, first under an American Frederick Ward and finally under a British colonel in the Royal Engineers, Charles Gordon, together with direct British and French military intervention in Shanghai and Ningpo areas. The rebels, with whom Mesny and many Christian missionaries at first sympathised, introduced many reforms such as monogamy, and the banning of opium, tobacco and alcohol, and foot-binding.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212734, "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": 43, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "28\n\n[yun-yen].\n\nIn October 1874, at the age of 32, Mesny returned to Hankow from Kueichou with the rank of Major-General and, he claimed, an excellent letter of recommendation from the Governor of Kueichou, addressed to Prince Kung and the Ministers of the Tsung-li Yamen in Peking. In 1886 he was promoted to the brevet rank of Lieutenant-General.\n\nIn his autobiographical ‘obituary' in the North China Herald, Mesny wrote \"The confirmation of my rank as a Major-General in the Chinese Army with the decoration of the Kualing [hua-ling] Plume, the order of the Pa-t'u-lu and promotion to be Brevet Lieutenant-General, with ancestors ennobled for three generations, was published in the Peking gazette, and the documents handed to me by the British Legation officials at Peking, and by the British Consul at Canton\": His decoration, the San-tai Erh-pin Kao-feng, an honorary title and patent of retrospective rank conferred upon meritorious officials, their wives and their immediate ancestors for three generations, was recommended to the Throne by the Governor of Kueichou, Ts’en Yü-ying, in 1879. [Grandfather Guillaume Mesny, who had died many, many years earlier and who was now presumably in the Afterworld, must have been most surprised, to say the least!]\n\nMesny also handed out awards and decorations: During his first campaign in Kueichou, Mesny had a supply of Meritorious Warrants (kung-p'ai [which confers the right of the recipient to wear a button on his hat, normally the fifth or sixth degree with blue feathers]). His supply was already sealed with the commander-in-chief's seal, and Mesny bestowed them on meritorious men after each battle, adding the name of the recipient, the date, etc., and Mesny's own seal. He also had hundreds of the Military Silver Medal [Chung-kung Yin-pai] made during the war in Kueichou from 1867-1874, at his own expense, and bestowed them as rewards to deserving soldiers. It consisted of a thin piece of silver about three and a half inches at its longest diameter, with a slit in it for a ribbon, and the character Shang \"Bestowed\" in repoussé work stamped upon it.\n\nHis ranks and grades during his service with the Chinese Imperial forces are a more complex subject and one that is far from clear from Mesny's own writings. He portrayed himself as having 'senior' mandarin rank, and this has been reflected in one of the postage stamps produced by the Jersey Post Office in 1992, on which he is depicted as a 'Mandarin'.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212750, "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": 59, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "44\n\nacknowledging the initial concept having been his, or so he claimed.\n\n+\n\nHe has been described as 'an adventurer and an explorer, a plant collector and a Chinese general. He was certainly an adventurer though nowadays he would be referred to as a soldier of fortune, an adviser, an opportunist, and even a mercenary.\n\nThe question remains, how successful was he? Money certainly came his way at times though judging from his Will, he was not a particularly successful businessman. He certainly collected plants and sent them back to the British Consul in Canton and has one specimen, Jasminum Mesnyii, named after him. He bore the brevet rank of Lieutenant General in the Chinese Imperial army but to what extent this was a genuine rank rather than an honour and a courtesy rank, though fully earned during his military service, is hard to judge. Again, though accurately described as an explorer, he was in fact much more of a traveller in parts of China already settled by Chinese and visited earlier by other foreigners. The trek he made, as recorded by Captain Gill, from Ch’eng-tu in Szechuan province to Burma through what was then called lower Tibet has a different slant to what would have been Mesny's account. In Gill's Mesny is scarcely mentioned and he would appear to have been taken along by Gill as his interpreter. It would have been interesting to have read what Mesny would have, and indeed may have written about his journey of very nearly four months with Gill.\n\nHe saw himself as what nowadays would be called a go-between, a consultant, and in those days regarded, perhaps, as a fixer. Mesny had a few major bees in his bonnet the most barefaced of which was the value he put on the advice he constantly proffered to every senior Chinese official whose ear he could reach on how to modernise China. He had, for example, prepared a list of some nineteen items, suggestions presented to the Viceroy Chang Chih-tung, and although Mesny assures us that Chang accepted the list there is no evidence that he did anything about it or if he did, that he even mentioned Mesny in any memorials to the throne. Mesny wrote indignantly at one point in his Miscellany about his list of suggestions to Chang having been ignored, or put into practice piecemeal and inexpertly, penny pinching and ineffectually without any reference whatsoever to Mesny.\n\nIn 1906 at the very end of his fourth and final volume of his Miscellany he prided himself on his advice with the words 'All those great industrial", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213063, "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": 131, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "112\n\nduring which he acquired extraordinary powers having been provided with a set of secret prescriptions, exorcists and talismans by the major goddess, Hsi-wang Mu'. He was a Taoist Master, a vegetarian who never married and a philanthropic doctor who died at the early age of 58 having worn himself out in the service of his fellow men. A tale told by a Taiwanese related how Wu T'ao's father, Wu T'ung and his mother, née Huang, fled from their home in northern China, during the troubled times of the Sung, to a village near T'ung-an on the Fukien coast where they settled and built a thatched cottage. His mother realised after a dream that she had become pregnant by a famous deity and eventually bore a child naming him T'ao. In another version his mother conceived after she had dreamt that she had swallowed a white tortoise.\n\nWu T'ao, or as he is known in a number of temples, Wu Chen-jen [Wu the Perfected Man] is often claimed to have come from Ch'uan-chou in Fukien, although in SE Asia there have been several other cities and areas claimed by devotees to have been his birthplace, including T'ung-an, Swatow and Chang-chou [in practice, as we have seen, he came from a small village in the centre of a triangle between T'ung-an, Amoy and Chang-chou]. As Wu T'ao grew up he travelled far and wide studying Taoist disciplines and grew strong and healthy but remained celibate and vegetarian. A temple keeper in Singapore understood that by vegetarian it was meant that he could eat buffalo and goat meat but not dog.\n\nImages of Pao-sheng Ta-ti in general represent him as a black-bearded middle-aged man dressed in court robes and an imperial crown consisting of a flat mortar board with a bead screen hanging down before his face, and sitting on a dragon throne. There are a number of variations such as the scholar's gauze cap instead of the crown. His images are generally identifiable by the convention of the cuff of his left sleeve being clutched by the thumb of his right hand, with only this thumb visible. In Singapore where all carvers were aware of this convention such images are universal. However, the carvers all added that they were unsure whether such a convention was known elsewhere. It is, and in a number of temples in Taiwan the images of Pao-sheng Ta-ti have the right thumb just poking out of the right sleeve, although in Chia I the convention has added one finger to the thumb. In the majority of temples he is portrayed with small animals under his feet, said to be lions, whilst in two temples, both in Taiwan, he has two tiny tigers protruding from his clasped hands within the long sleeves of his robes.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213069, "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": 137, "title": "RAS-1993", "content_text": "118\n\nin Anhsi where he and his supporters fought on as a resistance movement against the occupying Mongol forces. His followers and later, devotees, supported the forces which eventually overthrew the Mongols and drove them out of China, bringing the Ming to power. Ch'ing-shui is now being remembered and, so it is said by some, having been deified by a Ming emperor, was a loyal anti-foreign hero.\n\nAmong the several radically differing stories of Ch'ing-shui Tsu-shih's origins, one maintains that he, Ch'en Chao-ying, was born as late as AD 1084 in Honan province, distinguishing himself in battle in the imperial army of the Southern Sung during an expedition into south China. He settled in the area of Ch'ing-shui in Fukien province and, as a determined opponent of the Mongol invaders who had usurped the throne having conquered China, he travelled around Fukien and Chekiang disguised as a Buddhist monk, plotting against the occupying forces. Although he had little success himself, he finally settled in Anhsi where he exhorted the local Chinese to resist Mongol rule and restore a Chinese emperor. After his death he was deified and revered as a patriot, with the first emperor of the Ming bestowing a posthumous title on him, as the Lord Protector of the Country (Hu-kuo Kung). In Taiwan tales are told about his loyalist Chinese activities against the invading Manchus in the mid-17th century, a confusion by those who had heard of his exploits against the invading Mongols, and confused it with the invading Manchus some five hundred or more years later.\n\nThe second major story describes him as a very ugly Tang dynasty monk named Ch'en Ying, or Ch'en P'u-tsu, born in Anhsi in Chuanchou prefecture where he entered a monastery as a child and spent his life travelling about helping the sick and the poor as well as doing valuable social work such as constructing bridges and repairing roads. He died at an early age, underfed and cold. His body did not decay, it simply turned black and a cult grew around his preserved body [there is no evidence that such a preserved body ever existed though the practice of preserving the bodies of certain dead monks, called Fleshy Bodies was not uncommon]. Variations of this story assert that he entered the Ta-yun Monastery to become a monk before moving to the Kao Tai Mountain where he built a hut and spent his time meditating. He later studied for three years with a hermit on Ta Chin Mountain and learnt from him a new meaning of Buddhism. He returned to his home area to care for the sick and needy and once when there was a dreadful drought\n\n6", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1993.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 213203, "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-1994", "page_number": 25, "title": "RAS-1994", "content_text": "4\n\nincluded (CO129/414, p. 177).\n\nThe three German females in the 1921 census are mentioned in a report Canon Bannister sent to the Church Missionary Society in 1914. The Berlin Foundling House had 150 children and the two Blind Homes had 120 children. \"The Government has allowed three German ladies to remain in each home and the writer was asked to take general oversight”, (Archives of the Church Missionary Society, University of Birmingham, England, CH1/P/4 No. 149, Bannister, 5 Nov. 1914).\n\nThe German community gradually reestablished itself in Hong Kong, but in 1931 it was less than half of what it had been in 1911.\n\nHong Kong being a British colony, the British were the largest non-Chinese community. Next was the Macanese-Portuguese. The third were the Germans. They were followed by the Americans,\n\nGermans in the Canton trade\n\nGerman-speaking merchants participated in the China trade in the eighteenth century. The trade was confined to Canton. In 1729, the Holy Roman Emperor, the Emperor of Austria, chartered the Imperial East India Company to trade in the East using the port of Ostend in the Netherlands as its home base. At that time Netherlands was a part of the Austrian Empire. This company did not use German ships, but chartered British vessels which were principally manned by British crews. This was a stratagem to get around the efforts of the British chartered East India Company to control the European trade with China. Over the years there were usually two or three ships each season from Bremen or Hamburg arriving at Canton.\n\nBritish free traders used the protection of the office of Consul for foreign states to acquire the privilege of permanent residence in China. These free traders were large importers of opium of India, a trade the British East India Company ships did not engage in as it was prescribed by Chinese Imperial Edict and the company wished to maintain a good relation with the Dragon Throne. It feared that if it was too closely identified with the opium trade the Chinese authorities would curtail the company's lucrative and traditional trade in tea.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214301, "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": 159, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "123\n\nwhile trekking and living amongst Chinese his Chinese language skills must have been of immense value and probably were the prime reason why he was invited to join several natural history expeditions through northern China.\n\nArthur's father, the Reverend Arthur Sowerby was a missionary in China for forty years, mostly in Taiyuan though during his latter years he was a tutor to the sons of Republican President Yuan Shih-kai [who attempted to mount the imperial throne in 1916].\n\nSowerby was a man of his time. He would have seen the Chinese first, as a child and a young man, from a missionary point of view, “sad heathen souls needing saving,\" later, with the eyes of a traveller and so-called explorer as \"dullards who needed leadership and western civilisation,” and finally, as a businessman and resident in the Foreign Concession of Shanghai, where the Chinese were regarded as \"the Yellow Peril, natives to be kept at a distance, and frequently ridiculed.\" China and the Chinese were popularly denigrated by the Western community and Chinese in general were distrusted. These strongly rooted beliefs reflected nearly a century of western misunderstanding and reaction to Chinese conduct, and shaped the behaviour of Treaty Port Westerners and Britons in particular. However, Sowerby had a redeeming feature as the editor of and a writer for a journal, one of the aims of which was to educate foreigners living on Chinese soil on, amongst other things, Chinese culture,\n\nThe only connection this article has with the Millennium, however tenuous, was the fortunate escape of the Sowerby family, including the fifteen year-old Arthur, from the largest Boxer massacre of missionaries exactly a century ago in 1900. The great majority of Western missionaries in Shansi, many scores, were murdered - with the provincial Governor, Yü Hsien, taking part in the killing of fifty-one Catholic and Protestant missionaries in his yamen, and with a further fifty or so being killed elsewhere in the province. The Sowerbys were lucky enough to be back in England on long furlough at the time and the Reverend Arthur Sowerby who lost many friends and colleagues had the sad task of writing the obituaries of several of them.\n\nArthur was educated at home in Taiyuan and also at a missionary", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214334, "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": 192, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "156\n\nfor what lustre could our arms acquire in a contest wherein it seemed evident that all the superiority of warlike science, discipline, and equipment would be on our side and all the slaughter on the side of the Chinese?\n\nIt is represented by The Illustrated London News that there had been a concern, similar to that frequently expressed at a later period, relative to twentieth-century interventions of western powers in a variety of countries: a concern as to \"how far our demands could be enforced without shattering to atoms the machinery of the Imperial [Chinese] Government.\"\n\nThe same article praises Elgin for \"having in a few months pushed his way through this crowd of uncertainties, obtained all he went out for, and returned to England without having lost an army, without having sustained a serious check, without having been overreached by mandarin duplicity, without having inflicted any large amount of suffering upon the Chinese population, and without having shaken the Manchu dynasty from the imperial throne.\n\nIt commends Elgin because \"There was nothing vainglorious, extravagant, vindictive, nor gratuitously humiliating in the terms he set out with insisting upon from the Emperor.... Lord Elgin knew when to forbear, and when to insist - when to show patience, and when promptitude. He could wait when it seemed expedient, and he could advance with boldness and rapidity when it was necessary. The very vengeance he inflicted was levelled at property rather than at persons, and was designed to punish the Emperor and his Court rather than the [Chinese people].”61\n\nReaders' Response\n\nReaders' response to this coverage must have been mixed. Several at least would have felt unease when reading of \"Looty, a small Chinese dog, belonging to Her Majesty\" - a diminutive dog found at the loot of the Summer Palace, brought back to England and presented to Queen Victoria. \"It is supposed to have belonged to the Empress or to one of the ladies of the Imperial family. By what name it was known to its small-footed62 mistress will in all probability remain a mystery. It has, however, appropriately enough, been renamed Looty....Her Majesty", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214352, "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": 210, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "175\n\nthe Zhou dynasty and became the emperor of the new dynasty, the Zhou, and is known by his reign title of Wu Wang. The Book of History suggests that his army consisted in part or in the main of a central Asian race, the Western Yi. Zhou Xin is vilified as a moral degenerate under the spell of a wicked concubine, Dan Ji. The Shang were attacked and replaced as the dominant force in northern China by the Zhou just before the first millennium BC, having come from the west. They established their capital near present-day Xi'an.\n\n6\n\nThe victor, Wu Wang [King Wu], passed on the title of Zhou Gong [Duke Zhou] to his brother, Dan, and also conferred the imperial title on his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather who had only been dukes when still alive. Zhou Gong was the paragon of literary China for some three thousand years, and it was he rather than his imperial brother who was the author of the Constitution of Zhou. When his brother, the emperor, died leaving a young son, court officials and the vassals assumed that Duke Zhou would usurp the throne and kill his nephew. He did nothing of the sort, and instead, it was the young king who at the age of nineteen stripped his uncle of his powers and forced him to live in exile in Shandong where he died a few years later.\n\nThe deities described in traditional vernacular fiction, and in particular in the immensely popular novel the Fengshen Yanyi, are known to most Chinese, whereas the majority of those left out of the Fengshen Yanyi, apart from the major cult deities, have to all intents and purposes gone into limbo and are only known within small pockets of China or have been lost in the mists of time. Versions of the legend passed on orally often in local dialect, which frequently does not extend further than the extent of the dialect group, have numerous minor and occasionally major variations, whereas the written version was read China-wide in its 'established' state.\n\nSo many heroes and worthies make their appearance at one stage or another that it is impossible to name them all. Some appear momentarily during one of the battles, others are recorded in several chapters, occasionally with different names or titles, such as the Northern Emperor [Bei Di] who is also known by his titles, Xuantian Shang Di, The Supreme Lord of the Dark Heavens, and Zhen Wu, The True Warrior. And in temples today, in all probability, he will be known by only one of these titles, with local devotees vigorously denying that an identical...\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214955, "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": 51, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "6\n\nmet in armed conflict - futile and unnecessary. Ironically, both were strongly devoted to tea though their actual taste in tea may have been different.\n\nThe Chinese did not call their country China. To them it was the Middle Kingdom, the kingdom between heaven and earth, the Celestial Kingdom. The Emperor was the Son of Heaven who possessed divine powers. Their civilization was 5,000 years old, and for nearly half that period they lived in solid houses, dressed in silk, and produced works of art which are still admired today. Almost completely isolated from the western world since the Song Dynasty, China was oblivious to the achievements of the West in many fields. Proud and self-contained, China shunned outside contacts. In their self-proclaimed superiority, the Chinese in the 18th century still believed that only barbarians lived beyond their boundaries and that their countries were automatically vassal states of the Celestial Kingdom. Chinese contempt for foreigners persisted into the later periods, no doubt fuelled by the shameful behaviour of the foreign powers towards China, humbled and humiliated by the defeats in the Opium Wars. 'Barbarian devils' was a description often uttered even by relatively enlightened Chinese. Is it then any wonder that even in our time “Kwai Lo” (though no longer “Fan Kwai”) is still often heard, though perhaps more in jest, and used even by the foreigners themselves?\n\nBritain, on the other hand, in the early 19th century was opening one of the most glorious pages of its history. Napoleon was defeated and France was no longer a threat. The Royal Navy reigned supreme over the waves and Britain had become truly a great imperial power dominating huge areas of territory and much of the trade from the New World to the Far East. In 1837 the young Queen Victoria ascended the throne and a long period of British colonial rule had asserted itself. The British nation had every reason to feel proud and superior. But with superiority came also arrogance and a deep distrust of foreigners.\n\nWe live in a time when the world has discarded Imperialism and Colonialism, the right of strong nations to rule over weak ones, when some disputes at least are settled in a forum of nations, when the right of all peoples to self-determination is recognized. The latter is a recent principle: born of the Versailles Treaty, after the 1st World War, it has forged ahead without stopping. But in the 19th century, imperialism", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214962, "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": 58, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "13\n\nslaughtering her citizens in a quarrel which could never have arisen if we had not been guilty of an international crime.' While Lord Shaftesbury,23 on the same occasion, declared:- 'I cannot rejoice in our successes; we had triumphed in one of the most lawless, unnecessary and unfair struggles in the records of history.'\n\nThe Alternative History\n\nThe facts of history cannot be altered. Is there then any profit in speculating what might have happened if certain events had or had not taken place? Perhaps, if there are lessons to be learned from such speculations for, after all, events of today will become history tomorrow, next year, or a century later.\n\n1) How would history have proceeded if Macartney's mission had succeeded and China had allowed the presence of a British minister in Beijing? There are strong reasons to believe that the British government would have co-operated effectively with the Chinese government in stopping, or at least greatly reducing the illegal opium trade. Trade might then have been channelled into other mutually beneficial commodities. Quite likely, a Chinese minister would have taken his place in London. The two nations would have learned a great deal more about each other, resulting in mutual respect, equal standing, and normal commercial intercourse. Above all, the tragic and largely unnecessary Opium Wars might have been averted.\n\n2) What course might history have taken if China, in defence of its anti-opium policy, stopped export of tea? The British government, which had generally adopted a laissez faire policy towards opium trade, claiming that it was up to the Chinese government to stop it, might have been forced to act: not by an act of war against China, but by using her Navy to stop the opium trade. Chinese merchants, who have always been eager to sell tea, might now have been persuaded to accept British goods in greater quantity to balance trade. Again, the Opium Wars might have been averted.\n\n3) What if the Imperial Throne had come down from its lofty position and negotiated with Britain on an equal basis? History might have proceeded as in 1).", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "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 } ]