[
    {
        "id": 212222,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1990",
        "page_number": 164,
        "title": "RAS-1990",
        "content_text": "141\n\nvehicles, with much kind assistance from my Chinese friends, I found my way, frequently changing buses, to Kinhwa, the large commercial town to which the capital of Chekiang had been removed after the fall of Hangchow. A stretch of the Kiangsi-Chekiang railway was still in operation, though the terminals at either end, Nanchang and Hangchow, were in Japanese hands. The railway carried me to Yintang, where I again took to the bus, and eventually made my way, via Kanshow, to Laolung, the roadhead above Hongkong, at the head of junk navigation on the East river. My progress was often delayed by air alarms, as in accordance with their usual practice, the Chinese would not allow vehicles to enter a town while the alarm was on, and you might spend half a day waiting in the country outside.\n\nOn the way I was struck by the enormous numbers of Chinese migrating from occupied to unoccupied parts. These mass migrations, which have been extended by each subsequent Japanese advance, cannot but have a great influence on conditions in China after the war. The people of the provinces are getting mixed up in a way which has not happened in China before. The effect should help to break down the exclusive provincial barriers which have handicapped unity in the past. Also, owing to the bombing, it was the habit, in many towns, to close down until about four in the afternoon. Everyone who could manage it would walk out into the countryside early in the morning, only to return late in the afternoon after any chance of bombing might be over. The shops would then open and remain open till late at night, and all the intercourse of the town would be...* ...good progress, but the boatman refused to travel at night; muttering about the danger of bandits, he tied up alongside a number of other junks - they always go into a huddle at night for safety - and proceeded to light his opium pipe. Next day we reached a town whence a launch service connected with Waichow. The launch only travelled at night to avoid the risk of being shot up by Japanese aircraft; so we reached Waichow early in the morning and breakfasted off the hot steamed rolls which are popular amongst the Cantonese.\n\nFrom Waichow the track led overland to Mirs Bay in Hongkong waters. For about half of the sixty miles, the recognised form of conveyance was on the carrier of a push-bike propelled by a muscular coolie. We distributed ourselves and our baggage over the necessary\n\n* 27 lines missing here...",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299",
        "rank": 0
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    {
        "id": 212621,
        "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": 175,
        "title": "RAS-1991",
        "content_text": "155\n\nfoiled the third Japanese attempt to take that city. Mac was full of energy and good cheer, spoke fluent Chinese, and had a supply of good stories, which had by no means been exhausted during our stay at Maymyo. Over the next eighteen months in China he added to his fund of stories in English, another fund in Chinese of no less lurid a nature.\n\nOur plans were advancing slowly, and we decided to pay a visit to Kinhwa, the temporary capital of Chekiang and the largest shopping centre at that time in eastern China. We needed stores and supplies of various kinds and thought to fill in time by laying those in now. The intention was then to go on to Chin Ya to make all the necessary preparations for opening the school. Unfortunately I was taken ill and had to enter the hospital in Kinhwa kept by the American Presbyterian Mission, where I was given every attention. My symptoms were complicated and it was impossible to decide whether I was suffering from appendicitis or malaria: however, a regimen of alternate sulfanilamide and quinine - I am told they cannot be taken together - gradually restored my health, though it took a month. Meantime Singapore had fallen and I think my Chinese friends must have thought I was so mortified that I was feigning a diplomatic illness, which of course I was not. General Ku sent his Adjutant General to enquire after my condition and the Army Commander in that area also took a kind interest in me. Mac went off to Chin Ya with Michael and they engaged carpenters, masons, and furniture makers to provide for all the needs we could foresee.\n\nBy the beginning of March I had recovered and was back in Shangjao awaiting the arrival of the small convoy which was due with the first of our personnel and military stores. Part of a much larger contingent, destined for other purposes, they had driven in by lorry all the way from Burma, over the Burma road, through Kunming and Kweiyang, to the Hunan-Kwangsi railway, where the lorries had been entrained, to conserve petrol, already a rare and precious fluid. The contingent had detrained in south Hunan, from where our party had sorted out their stores and come on with four lorries. This advance party consisted of two officers, Leo and Cyril, and a stalwart warrant officer of the Royal Engineers, whom we shall call the Chief. They had with them several Hongkong Chinese, who had joined the British army in Burma, and some tons of explosives and gadgets calculated to cause the enemy unexpected discomforts.\n\nThe sight of these lorries, however few, with Union Jacks painted",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j",
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    },
    {
        "id": 212624,
        "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": 178,
        "title": "RAS-1991",
        "content_text": "158\n\nit responsibilities of adjudication, or what by Chinese custom is better described as arbitration, in the small affairs of the village; and, more important, of tax collection. By his own account Mr. Hsiao was renowned as a catcher of robbers. He had once caught two, and frequently in his cups, for Mr. Hsiao was the soul of charity and was always inviting us to feasts, he would relate how he had been visited by the two miscreants, had recognised them and made them drunk while he sent round for the police. They had been tried, sentenced, and executed on yonder hill. Mr. Hsiao did not drink the mild yellow rice wine, known as Shaoshing wine, with a taste rather like thick sherry; he plied us with a raw white spirit, also distilled from rice, a spirit of great potency, and what is more he did not only drink it neat of course, Chinese wine is not mixed with water - out of the little thimble cups commonly used, but would challenge us to empty it out of rice bowls, three bowls at a time. The Chief was the only one who could compete, and by the time Mr. Hsiao had finished with him they would be telling each other stories of interminable length in a language which the ignorance of each of the other's mother-tongue confined to gesticulation.\n\nWhile still in Kinhwa I had been concerned at the delay of the Chinese in finding interpreters for us, for work in class; and as, with the Japanese occupation of the Settlement in Shanghai, many young Chinese men were moving into the interior to avoid having to study under Japanese auspices, I took the opportunity of a Y.M.C.A. relief organisation there to enquire for suitable candidates. We found three lads of about twenty, who spoke good English, and took them on at what by Chinese standards were really high salaries. They were nice lads, but infected with the Kuo Min Tang teaching which made them very touchy about their dignity. Soon after our arrival at Chin Ya there was an unfortunate development. It had been my hope that we could all eat in mess together, but in practice we found the limits imposed by scattered accommodation, small kitchen facilities, and the scarcity of foreign table utensils, knives, forks, spoons, plates, and so on, made it impossible to eat all together at one time. When we travelled we all ate Chinese food, and very good it was too as a rule; but British stomachs are not used to a rice diet, and from my own experience I knew I kept fitter if I had an occasional change to our own type of cooking. So I was anxious that the British members of our party, while at Chin Ya, and it must be remembered that the various members were often absent for long periods, should have the comfort of eating their own kind of food, and so it seemed to be going rather far to go to the trouble of providing them with food to which they were",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j",
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    },
    {
        "id": 212628,
        "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": 182,
        "title": "RAS-1991",
        "content_text": "162\n\nammonal, 50 lbs, if properly placed under the track will lift a locomotive ten feet into the air and throw it far enough off the track will lift a locomotive ten feet into the air and throw it far enough off the track, to make it difficult for the usual type of railway repair-crane to reach it to lift it back.\n\nWhile in Hunan, information came through that the Japanese had started to advance from Hangchow in the direction of Kinhwa and it looked as if they might cut off our part of the front. I made hurried arrangements to return; but before we left I was disconcerted to learn from the Chinese general, X....., under whom the British contingent in Hunan worked, that I was to come under his orders. General Ku had placed us under an Army Group Commander, whose headquarters were in the village next to ours; and I could not understand the advantage of now being placed under a General whose headquarters were 1600 kilometres away and, moreover, in another war zone. It looked as if the work we had commenced in Eastern China was to be wrecked; I saw General X...... and he assured me the change was a mere formality and would make no difference to the work we were doing. Later events, however, were to show that my uneasiness was fully justified and that we had become a pawn in high level politics.\n\nThe news of the Japanese advance on Kinhwa got worse. I loaded the lorry with all the stores we could beg or borrow, and we set out on a return journey which was to prove exciting. In addition to Michael and Doctor Petro, and the driver and a mechanic, I had been able to collect two Chinese medical orderlies, who had escaped from a detention camp in Hongkong, and a Hongkong wireless operator. I still hoped I might one day have a wireless set. The lorry was grossly overloaded and we nearly lost it next day when crossing on the Siang river ferry. We had to collect volunteers to help us to unload it hurriedly, as the ferry arrived on the far side with such a heavy list that we could not drive the lorry off. Further on a tyre blew out; we also received news not only that the Japanese were on the point of occupying Kinhwa, but that they had commenced a push from Nanchang to the east along the Kiangsu-Chekiang railway to meet their troops who were advancing from Hangchow. It became a race to see if we could reach Yingtan before the Japanese, and as we had no more spare tyres, we could not risk continuing with an overloaded lorry; we had to dump some of our previous cargo. We were not to see it again for six months.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 212634,
        "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": 188,
        "title": "RAS-1991",
        "content_text": "168\n\nfirst successes; our teams succeeded in cutting two bridges on the important Shanghai-Hangchow railway, by which supplies for the Japanese forces attacking Kinhwa moved. One bridge, a single span, was near a Japanese post on the railway, but the team had succeeded in obtaining its measurements and preparing the charges, so that they had little difficulty in sneaking up one wet night and fixing them, when the garrison were all sheltering inside the post. The first the garrison knew of it was when they heard the explosion. But even then, they did not seem to realise that the span had been dropped into the creek, because at dawn next morning a power-driven trolley came along with an inspection party and ran full tilt over the gap into the waters. Of the party of four Japanese, two were drowned. Although Chinese troops had done some demolition work in the past, it was not of the same quality. The Japanese were furious. They took four miserable farmers off the fields by the bridge and gave them the water treatment. That consisted of inviting them in and offering them a nice bowl of tea. After the farmer had finished the first bowl, he was invited to drink another; if he showed signs of demurring, he was encouraged by prods and kicks to take more, and he had to continue drinking till he simply could not swallow any more. Four Japanese would then take him outside, seize him each by an arm or leg, and throw him into the air, allowing him to drop to the earth. If that did not rupture his full stomach, they would jump on it. They would then leave him to die in agony. Finally, the heads of the four farmers were cut off and stuck up at each corner of the broken bridge.\n\nOur own position at Chin Ya was none too secure. After the departure of our Army Group Commander, we had been placed under the command of a general, whose headquarters were not far away, but whose troops faced west towards Wuhu and the Poyang lake, where, as I have already explained, there were no targets. As soon as the success of our work became known, there was pressure from all sorts of generals to enter their students at our school; I do not flatter myself that the desire was based so much on the wish to benefit from our instruction as to have a share in our supplies. Our new general now wanted to take possession of us hook, line, and sinker, and the better to do it, he proposed we should move over to his part of the country. Not only were there no targets there, but neither was there any derelict railway on which we could train; we hastily explained what a lot of work and money we had put into our \"plant\" and the overwhelming disadvantages of moving. It was agreed we should stay, but we felt under the obligation to accept a number of teams from the General's regiments for our next course; all wasted effort.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j",
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    },
    {
        "id": 212635,
        "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": 189,
        "title": "RAS-1991",
        "content_text": "169\n\nas they subsequently produced no results, and indeed, in the absence of targets could not be expected to\n\nHowever, the next course had to be postponed time and again owing to our dangerous position. The Japanese took Kinhwa, advanced and after severe fighting took Chunsien, and joined up with their other troops who had advanced from Nanchang to Yingtan. They occupied Shangjao: the Headquarters of the 3rd War Zone withdrew to Fukien. We were thus entirely cut off. The most serious consequence was to break our telegraphic communication with Chungking. It was fully expected that the Japanese would mop up the areas left behind; in the absence of the telegraph we could not get accurate information and all sorts of wild rumours circulated. We broke up our stores and found hiding places for them in the mountains. We had already decided on our own line of retreat to a mountain hideout, which had last been used by the members of our village during the Taiping rebellion.\n\nWe ran out of money. Michael was able to borrow some from his friends, and the magistrate did what he could to help us; but currency seemed to have vanished. Eventually the Government dropped a supply by aeroplane in the area and the situation eased. I found a Chinese civilian who was a wireless expert, and who had made a good set, driven by hand-operated power, which had sufficient strength to reach Chungking. We applied to the Chinese authorities for permission to use this set; the request was relayed by wireless to Chungking, but after a long delay we received a refusal from General Ho Ying Chin \"Lest precedent be set\". I know, of course, that wireless was one of the subjects on which the Chinese government was very touchy, but I had hoped, in view of our circumstances, that an exception might be made.\n\nAfter three months the Japanese withdrew from Shangjao, conditions improved, and students collected for the second course. In the meantime, we had not been idle. One of our chief problems was to obtain the metal for our mines and booby-traps. We had heard that a number of damaged locomotives were to be found down the line; on inspection, we discovered that they had been stripped of anything portable, particularly of all brass work, but in some of them, the boiler tubes still remained. The Chief felt sure he could make good mines out of these. We obtained permission from the engineer in charge of the railway to take what tubes we could find; they had to be cut out by explosive, as those that screwed out had already been taken. The Chief put in a lot of work at this, and we acquired quite a useful stock of tubes. They were 1\" in diameter and when cut\n\nI",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j",
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