[
    {
        "id": 204445,
        "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": 77,
        "title": "RAS-1962",
        "content_text": "66\n\nHEROLD J. WIENS\n\nMoreover, in return for the slave helping his former master over economic difficulties, the slave inherits the master's property when the master dies without children. Thus, it would seem that this so-called slave system is more like that of adoption of children.\n\nIt is readily understandable that in such a society as that of the Black-bone Yi, the Chinese Communist cadres would find a ready response among the slaves and bondsmen for a change, even to a system of society where the state limits freedom to the extent that a Communist society does. However, among the Ching-p'o or Kachins the Communist cadres found no enthusiasm for their reforms. The Ching-p'o are among the least restricted of societies and apparently found it hard to understand the Communist rationale for reform. The proselyting cadres found it most annoying that the Ching-p'o youths spent so much of their time in all-night singing and love-making sessions in the village communal houses, so that they had little labour power until they were married.\n\nAmong the Ching-p'o there is no social discrimination against such promiscuity, although the chances for a good match are sharply reduced for a pregnant unmarried girl. Moreover, fathers of children of unmarried mothers may get out of marrying the girls concerned by sacrificing a buffalo and thus providing a general feast.\n\n44\n\nEven the cadres could find little evidence of oppression of the tribesmen by the Ching-p'o chiefs whose public services amply required any gifts or dues given them by the villagers. The cadres, it would appear, were disappointed in the lack of a bourgeois acquisitive sense among the Ching-p'o who freely gave as they freely received. In trying to apply the collective principles of their home areas, the Chinese Communist cadres wanted the Ching-p'o to count their work-hours and divide up their produce according to the amount of work done in a collective which the cadres tried to organize. The young Ching-p'o leader put in charge of this cooperated, per force, but seems to have been unconvinced in heart despite outward acquiescence. He expressed the Ching-p'o attitude to Winnington: \"Our custom is to look down on people who haggle over what one person does for another. We think it shows a bad heart. I may help you build",
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    {
        "id": 204452,
        "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": 84,
        "title": "RAS-1962",
        "content_text": "CHINA'S 35 MILLION NON-CHINESE\n\nTABLE 1\n\n73\n\nCHINA'S MINORITY POPULATIONS IN ORDER OF SIZE,\n\n1. Chuang\n\n2. Wei-wu-erh (Uighur)\n\n3. Hui (Dungan)\n\n4. Yi (Lolo, etc.)\n\n1953\n\n5. Tsang (Tibetan)\n\n6. Miao\n\n7. Man (Manchu)\n\n8. Meng-ku (Mongol)\n\n9. Pu-yi\n\n10. Ch'ao-hsien (Korean)\n\n11. Tung\n\n12. Yao\n\n13. Pai (Pai-man)\n\n14. Ha-sa-k'e (Kazakh)\n\n15. Ha-ni\n\n16. T'ai\n\n17. Li\n\n18. Li-su\n\n19. Tu-chia\n\n20. She\n\n21. K'a-wa (Wa)\n\n22. Kao-shan (Malay-Polynesian)\n\n23. Tung-hsiang\n\n24. Na-hsi (Na-khi)\n\n25. La-hu\n\n26. Shui\n\n27. Ching-p'o (Singpho, Kachin)\n\n28. Ko-erh-k'e-tzu (Kirghiz)\n\n29. T'u (Mongor)\n\n30. Ta-kuan-erh (Daghor)\n\n31. Mo-lao\n\n32. Ch'iang\n\n33. Pu-lang (Palaung)\n\n34. Sa-la (Salar)\n\n35. Ngo-lo-ssu (Russian)\n\n36. K'e-lao\n\n37. Hsi-po (Sipo)\n\n38. Mao-nan\n\n39. A-chang\n\n40. T'a-chi-k'e (Tadjik)\n\n41. Wu-tzu-pieh-k'e (Uzbek)\n\n42. Nu\n\n43. T'a-t'a-erh (Tatar)\n\n44. O-wen-k'e (Evenki)\n\n45. Pao-an\n\n46. Yü-ku (Sara Uighur)\n\n47. Peng-lung\n\n48. Tu-lung\n\n...\n\n7,000,000\n\n3,640,000\n\n3,559,000\n\n3,250,000\n\n2,775,000\n\n2,511,000\n\n2,418,000\n\n1,463,000\n\n1,247,000\n\n1,120,000\n\n712,000\n\n665,000\n\n567,000\n\n509,000\n\n481,000\n\n478,000\n\n360,000\n\n317,000\n\n300,000 *\n\n286,000\n\n210,000\n\n200,000\n\n155,000\n\n143,000\n\n139,000\n\n133,000\n\n101,000\n\n70,000\n\n53,200\n\n44,100\n\n43,100\n\n35,600\n\n35,000\n\n30,600\n\n22,600\n\n20,800\n\n19,000\n\n18,400\n\n17,700\n\n14,400\n\n13,600\n\n12,700\n\n6,900\n\n6,200\n\n4,900\n\n3,800\n\n2,900\n\n2,400\n\n2,200\n\n450\n\nO-lun-ch'un (Orochun)\n\n50. Ho-che (Nanai)\n\n* Found by Fang Jen in 1955 to be 300,000, but Bruk listed 49,000.\n\n† From April 19, 1957 issue of Kuang-ming Daily News.\n\n† An estimate.\n\n§ Collectively including the So-lun (4,900), T'ung-ku-ssu (Tungus: 1,205), and Ya-k'u-te (Yakut; 137).\n\nHere is the revised response in HTML format using Markdown table syntax for the table:\n\n  \n    Order\n    Minority Population\n    Population (1953)\n  \n  \n    1\n    Chuang\n    7,000,000\n  \n  \n    2\n    Wei-wu-erh (Uighur)\n    3,640,000\n  \n  \n    3\n    Hui (Dungan)\n    3,559,000\n  \n  \n    4\n    Yi (Lolo, etc.)\n    3,250,000\n  \n  \n    5\n    Tsang (Tibetan)\n    2,775,000\n  \n  \n    6\n    Miao\n    2,511,000\n  \n  \n    7\n    Man (Manchu)\n    2,418,000\n  \n  \n    8\n    Meng-ku (Mongol)\n    1,463,000\n  \n  \n    9\n    Pu-yi\n    1,247,000\n  \n  \n    10\n    Ch'ao-hsien (Korean)\n    1,120,000\n  \n  \n    11\n    Tung\n    712,000\n  \n  \n    12\n    Yao\n    665,000\n  \n  \n    13\n    Pai (Pai-man)\n    567,000\n  \n  \n    14\n    Ha-sa-k'e (Kazakh)\n    509,000\n  \n  \n    15\n    Ha-ni\n    481,000\n  \n  \n    16\n    T'ai\n    478,000\n  \n  \n    17\n    Li\n    360,000\n  \n  \n    18\n    Li-su\n    317,000\n  \n  \n    19\n    Tu-chia\n    300,000 *\n  \n  \n    20\n    She\n    286,000\n  \n  \n    21\n    K'a-wa (Wa)\n    210,000\n  \n  \n    22\n    Kao-shan (Malay-Polynesian)\n    200,000\n  \n  \n    23\n    Tung-hsiang\n    155,000\n  \n  \n    24\n    Na-hsi (Na-khi)\n    143,000\n  \n  \n    25\n    La-hu\n    139,000\n  \n  \n    26\n    Shui\n    133,000\n  \n  \n    27\n    Ching-p'o (Singpho, Kachin)\n    101,000\n  \n  \n    28\n    Ko-erh-k'e-tzu (Kirghiz)\n    70,000\n  \n  \n    29\n    T'u (Mongor)\n    53,200\n  \n  \n    30\n    Ta-kuan-erh (Daghor)\n    44,100\n  \n  \n    31\n    Mo-lao\n    43,100\n  \n  \n    32\n    Ch'iang\n    35,600\n  \n  \n    33\n    Pu-lang (Palaung)\n    35,000\n  \n  \n    34\n    Sa-la (Salar)\n    30,600\n  \n  \n    35\n    Ngo-lo-ssu (Russian)\n    22,600\n  \n  \n    36\n    K'e-lao\n    20,800\n  \n  \n    37\n    Hsi-po (Sipo)\n    19,000\n  \n  \n    38\n    Mao-nan\n    18,400\n  \n  \n    39\n    A-chang\n    17,700\n  \n  \n    40\n    T'a-chi-k'e (Tadjik)\n    14,400\n  \n  \n    41\n    Wu-tzu-pieh-k'e (Uzbek)\n    13,600\n  \n  \n    42\n    Nu\n    12,700\n  \n  \n    43\n    T'a-t'a-erh (Tatar)\n    6,900\n  \n  \n    44\n    O-wen-k'e (Evenki)\n    6,200\n  \n  \n    45\n    Pao-an\n    4,900\n  \n  \n    46\n    Yü-ku (Sara Uighur)\n    3,800\n  \n  \n    47\n    Peng-lung\n    2,900\n  \n  \n    48\n    Tu-lung\n    2,400\n  \n  \n    49\n    O-lun-ch'un (Orochun)\n    2,200\n  \n  \n    50\n    Ho-che (Nanai)\n    450\n  \n\n* Found by Fang Jen in 1955 to be 300,000, but Bruk listed 49,000.\n\n† From April 19, 1957 issue of Kuang-ming Daily News.\n\n† An estimate.\n\n§ Collectively including the So-lun (4,900), T'ung-ku-ssu (Tungus: 1,205), and Ya-k'u-te (Yakut; 137).",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1962.txt",
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    {
        "id": 207791,
        "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": 179,
        "title": "RAS-1976",
        "content_text": "164 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\nand gorges in their upper reaches. Yet British and French explorers light-heartedly planned roads and railways through the region, when earth moving and other civil engineering techniques were primitive by modern standards. \n\nPolitical difficulties were equally formidable. In addition to Anglo-French rivalry, there was an involved relationship between Britain, Burma, China, and the Kachin and Shan hill peoples in the borderlands. A further complication, from 1855 to 1873, was the devastation of Yunnan by the Panthay Rebellion, a Moslem uprising almost as destructive as the more famous Taiping Rebellion. \n\nAlthough the Treaty of Yandabo had established Britain in Lower Burma, Upper Burma continued as an independent state, with an ill-defined tributary relationship with China. However, during the sixty years before Britain annexed Upper Burma in 1886, Britain obtained the province of Pegu (1852), and mounted a succession of expeditions to find a practicable trade route from Burma into Yunnan, contemporary with other expeditions up the Yangtze from Shanghai. \n\nBetween Marco Polo in the late thirteenth century, and the French priest M. Huc in the 1840s, practically no European had travelled in West China. So little was known of it that while their compatriots in China looked on neighbouring Szechwan as the El Dorado of the East, the British in Burma and India had their eyes on the province of Yunnan. The extravagant and over enthusiastic appraisal of Yunnan's potential wealth gave rise to what became known as the \"Yunnan Myth\". \n\nThe first British attempts to reach Yunnan and West China came from Burma in the late eighteenth century. When Captain Sorrel went to Ava in 1792 to deliver a letter to the King of Burma from Lord Cornwallis, Governor-General of India, some Burmese offered to take him overland to China. Sorrel's reference to this aroused great interest in India. Over a century earlier, Dutch East India traders in Ava and Syriam had given glowing accounts of a flourishing trade between Burma and China, conducted through Chinese merchants in Bhamo. In 1795 when Captain Michael Symes was sent on an official mission to Burma, he was instructed to “find a mart in the south west dominions of China by means of the great river of Ava”. Symes' report was enthusiastic. He said the principal export from Ava was cotton, which went up the Irrawaddy in large",
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    },
    {
        "id": 207796,
        "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": 184,
        "title": "RAS-1976",
        "content_text": "LAND AND RIVER ROUTES TO WEST CHINA \n\n169 \n\nto Bhamo that the Irawaddy Flotilla Company doubled its service between Mandalay and Bhamo.* \n\nSimultaneously pressure in Britain from Chambers of Commerce persuaded the government to support the Indian government's plan to resume exploration of the Bhamo-Yunnan overland route, and to request co-operation from China through the British Minister at Peking. The King of Burma was also in favour of resuming trade relations with China, having been advised from Peking that China would like to resume \"the old relationship, and continue the practice of exchanging decennial missions\". \n\nLieutenant Colonel Horace A. Browne, a former Deputy Commissioner in Burma, was chosen as leader of the Burma party, which would go from Mandalay to Bhamo by steamer, and then overland into Yunnan by one of three possible routes. At the same time A.R. Margary of the China Consular Service would start from Hankow—then the limit of steam navigation on the Yangtze—and go by junk to Yochow at the entrance to the Tungting Lake, through the Lake and by the Yuan River to the border of Kweichow, from where he would complete his journey overland. Browne's party arrived at Bhamo on 15th January 1875, and were joined by Margary, who had left Hankow on 4th September 1874, two days later. The latter had had a comparatively uneventful journey, although at some places the population was decidedly hostile. At Yunnanfu, however, the officials were courteous and helpful. All through Yunnan Margary had passed ruined towns and villages, and seen the widespread destruction caused by the recent rebellion. \n\nOn 23rd January the combined party left Bhamo for Yunnan, accompanied by fifteen Sikh guards brought from India by Browne, and an escort of 150 soldiers provided by the King of Burma, who were to go as far as the border. At the last minute Browne decided to go by the Ponlyne instead of by the Sawaddy route, to avoid possible conflict with the Kachin tribesmen on the latter. A few \n\nThe Irawaddy Flotilla Company was formed in 1864 when Todd Findlay & Co. of Glasgow (who had a branch in Rangoon) bought four old river steamers and three 'flats' of the Indian government's Irawaddy Flotilla, which had given good service in the Anglo-Burmese Wars. Hopes of greatly increased trade between Burma and Yunnan were high, and there was keen competition to buy the Flotilla, including an offer from a French company, and one from Mackinnon & Mackenzie, who were then managing agents of the Calcutta and Burma Steam Navigation Company which later became the British India Steam Navigation Company.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 212829,
        "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": 138,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "123\n\nHeadquarters of the C.E.F. was stationed. The British Assistant Military Attache from Kun-ming went with me to introduce me to the Chief of Staff, from whom we were to receive our passes. The Chief of Staff was not particularly affable. There was some talk of wireless and he stated we would have to supply photographs in duplicate for every member of our party: no easy matter in a small upcountry town in a land which had been closed to foreign imports for many years. However, we were lucky and found a small photographer in the place who still had some film and undertook to produce the required photographs. Next day when these were presented at the Headquarters we were informed that after all they would not be necessary; all that would be required was my own photograph in duplicate, a contingency for which I had been well prepared having armed myself with a dozen before I left India. Even then there was delay in preparing the pass and it was not till late on the afternoon of the second day that I was able to leave. The reason for the various delays became apparent later. The parachute party had reported that the Myosa was held a close prisoner by the Chinese at Tetang. My route lay through Tetang, but when we arrived there we found the Myosa had already been removed further into China. They were evidently anxious I should not meet him and wished to allow sufficient time to get him out of the way. They were holding him for trial on a charge of treasonable relations with the Japanese.\n\nOn arrival at Paoshan we found our parachute party living in the American officers' mess; the Colonel in charge was our old friend from Kun-ming. He went out of his way to make us all feel at home; he found us quarters, he fed us, and he sent our signals for us. After talking the position over with the parachute officers, I decided to send one of them back to report: that left us a party of twelve. Stan, the chief parachutist, was an expert in many lines: Bren gun, Tommy gun, machine guns, he had even taken an armourer's course, an additional accomplishment which turned out most useful. Jack had spent most of his life in Burma; he not only spoke Burmese fluently, but he also spoke Kachin, an important point, as we were to enter country bordering on Kachin land and we were anxious to enlist the co-operation of those doughty tribesmen in our work. They had already acquired a great reputation for their fighting qualities further north. We were three British officers and three Chinese interpreters, one Burmese-Chinese interpreter, two Hong Kong wireless operators, a medical orderly, and Rogue and Lao Teng. The interpreters were all men who had escaped from Hongkong and had registered with the British Relief Organisation maintained at Kweilin to...",
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    },
    {
        "id": 212834,
        "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": 143,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "128\n\nthat serve as leaves in this plant threw a new light on the perils of parachuting. The weather was propitious and the sortie a success. The supplies included a small proportion of gifts with which we were able to show our appreciation to the battalion commander, whose troops had provided most welcome assistance. On completion of the sortie I despatched Stan up the valley to enter Kokang further south towards Sincheng, where the Myosa's brother had his headquarters, and more especially to search for a suitable dropping zone inside Kokang, and not too near the Salween. Jack had already gone on into Kokang to Nancha, the place where the parachute party had stayed, and shortly after I broke camp to join him.\n\nMany paths over the mountains connect China and Burma throughout the length of the border; passage is unrestricted and along these paths the Chinese people are gradually infiltrating, circulating as hawkers, establishing their little shops, or cultivating a small plot of land. In Kok-ang the population was very mixed as it is all along the border country. Over half the population was now of Chinese blood; up on the mountains were many Lihsaw and Palaung villages. The Chinese distinguish between ‘Land' Shans and 'Water' Shans, Han Payee and Shui Payee; one meets them all through Western Yunnan and Eastern Burma, and Kokang had a proportion. There were also occasional Was and Kachins. The best description of all this country is to be found in Maurice Collis' Lords of the Sunset; and Where China meets Burma, a book written by a government official's wife, Beatrix Metford.\n\nOver a third of Burma is occupied by the hill people; they number three-and-a-half millions, and are governed by their chieftains and princes on the British principle of indirect rule; the princes come directly under the Governor of Burma and not under the corrupt clique of professional politicians, who have formed the core of the Burmese legislative assemblies during the past few years. The unit of control under the chief is the circle, which contains more or fewer villages, each under its own headman. The system has many feudal features well adapted to these conservative and primitive people. Nancha, where we stayed for a time, contained the residence of the circle headman of that district, a dear old gentleman, who could neither read nor write, but employed a Chinese writer for the purpose. The writer had married one of his daughters, as often happens, and lived in one wing of the house. The better houses are built round the four sides of an inner courtyard; the pack animals, the cows, and the pigs, may be housed on the lower",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt",
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    {
        "id": 212843,
        "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",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1992",
        "page_number": 152,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "137\n\njackass stood tethered near the herdman's hut, on a knoll from which he could proudly survey his young.\n\nAt Lunghtang Jack rejoined us; he had followed the Salween and inspected all the ferries, except those around Kunlong, where the Japanese had established their bridgehead. During the past two years they had on several occasions raided from Kunlong as far north as Tawnio, putting the villages to fire. Kokang south of Tawnio was practically deserted and the mule tracks overgrown; there were no Chinese troops, but the Japanese were watched by standing patrols of the Kokang Defence Force.\n\nThe Salween at this season was low; in long stretches the current ran slow and the river could be crossed; the ferries were marked on the map at places, where tracks led down to the water. The width of the river, of course, varied; in the rapids where the water rushed through it might be no more than 100 feet, elsewhere generally nearer 300 feet. There were no boats; the method of crossing was to cut down a number of bamboos, lash them together, and paddle across. At the northern ferries small parties of Chinese troops watched on our side; the Japanese could be seen on the far side; but after the river left China to turn south, there were no more Chinese troops, and the ferries were watched by unarmed village levies, obviously ineffectively. The Japanese used the same system on their side, and at one ferry Jack had been able to shout over and hold a brief conversation with the two Kachin watchers on the far bank. At certain of the northern ferries shots were frequently exchanged between the Chinese troops, assisted by men of the K.D.F., and the enemy; and sometimes the Japanese would roll a gun up and lob some shells over; at other times it would be a trench mortar. On certain sections of the muletrack it was unwise to move by daylight.\n\nI sent Jack back to Hsintang where we had picked up some useful contacts, mostly thanks to Lopez' earlier work. Opposite Hsintang the Kachin tribes appeared ready to help, and we hoped we would be able to get people through onto the Burma road to watch Japanese movements, and so to facilitate Wingate's operations; if we could at the same time destroy some Japanese dumps so much the better.\n\nWhile at Hsintang I had been visited by one of the staff officers of the Nth division. I had with some difficulty persuaded him to allow our agents to cross the Salween at the ferry, which led most directly to the friendly Kachins and where the Japanese watch was not strict. We had",
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    {
        "id": 212845,
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        "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": 154,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "139\n\na mess for the British, with a kitchen where Lao Teng ruled: similar buildings for our Chinese, Burmese, Kachin and Chin assistants; and barracks for the K.D.F. We also built a store-room, where one of our Chinese assistants, a most excellent man who had previously worked in the service of one of the few remaining Chinese sawbwas, presided; an armoury, where Stan played about with screwdrivers in his spare moments; and an office, and a wireless station. As our party grew larger we kept on having to increase the accommodation.\n\n―\n\nAt most times of the day there would be a small crowd of visitors from distant villages, sitting on their haunches outside the office, with offerings of eggs and chickens, or wandering through the camp looking at everything. They too were much impressed with our water-works. But the main show-piece was a Browning machine gun, which Stan had mounted on a post in the centre of the camp for A.A. protection; it was one of a number salvaged from an R.A.F. supply plane which had crashed in the mountain nearby. If we wished to impress a visiting headman we would loose off a few tracer rounds from this gun at the hawks, circling far overhead. We never hit a hawk but the demonstrations delighted these good simple people.\n\nThe furniture was mostly of the fixed type, and of bamboo: beds, shelves, hooks; baths, basins, and stools. For our mess room we borrowed a table in the local style from the headman; it was only two feet high, with benches of corresponding height, a much more comfortable height in my opinion than our own high chairs and tables. There is a good deal to be said for the argument that the nearer you sit to the ground the more sociable you feel. A dear old man, an expert in bamboo work, became one of our permanent retainers, and when anything came unstuck he would busy himself going round and doing the repairs. There were no nails.\n\nThe evenings were still chilly; at night we would light a camp fire outside the mess door and sit around and talk, often about the ration of rum which, if we were lucky, might be included next time the aircraft made a sortie. Our talk seemed to be much of food and drink; in the supplies we received from the air naturally weapons for our work took precedence, so that we had to rely much on local provender for our nourishment. With Lao Teng in the background we did not do so badly.\n\nThe Myosa's brother paid me a visit; I shall call him the Puppet,",
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        "id": 212848,
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        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1992",
        "page_number": 157,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "142\n\nfires and flying away again unable to find them. Inevitably there were some accidents and losses.\n\n―\n\n--\n\nRarely half a dozen 'planes would make a sortie the same night; we would then be busy for days collecting the heavy containers they would weigh up to three hundred pounds and carrying them back to camp. We received reinforcements; officers with long experience in the East; British wireless operators; Chin, Kachin, and Burmese assistants. Our money and our mail also came this way; Bren guns, Stens, Italian carbines, clothing, food and occasionally drink. Sometime later we were visited by two American officers attached to the Nth division; they spent the day with us. We discovered they had a partiality for Bourbon whisky, a thing most difficult to find in Calcutta. However, we thought we would plan a little surprise for them; we asked our friends in Calcutta whether they could not find a couple of bottles and include them in the next sortie. The sortie was made in due course, several containers crashed, and when we anxiously looked over the lists of contents, we sadly found that the precious bottles had \"pranged\" as Stan put it in his airforce jargon.\n\nThe problem of cutting a way through the jungle was ever present in Burma. We decided we would equip one man out of every two with a cutting implement for the purpose. There were many opinions about which implement was the best; each officer had his own idea. We left it to our 'furnishers' to supply what they had, and I have never seen such a collection of deadly looking hacking weapons as the variety sent. It included dahs, the light Burmese single-handed sword, with a blade about two feet long and in my opinion not quite heavy enough for the job; kukris, a choice for the expert; the East African panga, which I like best, but then perhaps I am prejudiced it reminded me of my days with the King's African Rifles during the last war; a short two-edged stabbing sword, obviously borrowed straight from the Roman Legion; and some quite unrecognisable kinds, probably designed by enthusiastic cranks.\n\nThe Italian carbines had been captured in Africa and were believed useful for our type of work; they only weighed four pounds, were short and handy but they had a very high muzzle velocity and kicked like an anti-tank rifle, without the rubber padding with which that rifle is fitted. They had fixed sights; on the little thirty yards range, which Stan had built in a fold of the mountain, we found they threw at least a foot off the bull; but they appeared to be fairly accurate at somewhere around",
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        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
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        "document_key": "RAS-1992",
        "page_number": 161,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "146\n\nanother. At about this time too I received a signal from Jack, who was doing most useful work across the Salween, that despite our previous agreement the Chinese were refusing to allow his agents to cross, unless they held a pass issued by the Headquarters of the Nth Division at Tetang. That meant a week's delay in each instance, and also it involved making public the names of our agents — the Chinese are not noted for security. So now I made a signal to our Headquarters, and the next I heard was that the Chinese had withdrawn their troops entirely from the ferries in question.\n\nJack himself crossed the river with a small party; but he found he could not proceed far. The Japanese kept a tab on all movement; at uncertain times their men would pass through villages, check the inhabitants and their pack animals. Any discrepancies had to be explained. Moreover, the Kachins were terrified lest the Chinese troops should cross over into their territory. It seemed that in 1942 when the armies retreated from Burma, there were a number of incidents between Chinese troops and Kachins, questions of women, taking food, pack animals, and all those difficulties which do arise on a retreat. The Chinese troops had left a bad reputation. The Kachins had killed some of them and they now feared, should the Chinese return, that they would take vengeance. The situation was difficult and we were unable to develop our plans.\n\nIn April we were joined by an American officer and his radio operator; from the first we had suggested that an American officer should join our party, and we were delighted when he arrived. He went off to join Jack across the Salween for a while. His operator stayed with us and was a great asset to our group. He had led a most interesting life in the States 'following the horses.' We learnt much about American race tracks, American girls, and other things. He would keep the campfire party at night amused for hours on end. At about this time too we ran short of \"imported\" food; things like butter, jam, sugar and tea. During the sorties that month our people had forgotten to include any in the containers, a lapse most unpopular at our end and the subject of lengthy and uncomplimentary comment, after the fashion of soldiers. But our racing expert now produced some American B ration, a large tin of butter, and another of jam, some cheese, some incredibly white caster sugar, such as we had not seen in months, and even a tin of pickles. It was all most welcome.\n\nAs will be imagined we were much dependent on the working of our",
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