[
    {
        "id": 204970,
        "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-1965",
        "page_number": 78,
        "title": "RAS-1965",
        "content_text": "69\n\nPIRACY ON THE CHINA COAST\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nFor most of recorded history piracy has been a menace to sea-borne trade, and there have been times when it has been difficult to distinguish between pirates and honest or should one say legitimate traders. Nationality has often been the only mark of distinction, as Spanish and English views of Drake, Hawkins, and the like illustrate.\n\nThe Chinese were pioneers in piracy, as in so many other things, and a history of piracy in China would begin many thousands of years ago. The Chinese were probably skilled practitioners of the art before history began to be recorded. The earliest accounts are in the records of the Chou Dynasty in the fourth century B.C., and piracy continued in China long after it had been suppressed in other parts of the world.\n\nWhen the first Europeans arrived in the China Seas in the sixteenth century, many of the pirates on the coast were Japanese. For three centuries after the defeat of Kublai Khan's invasion of Japan in 1281, Japanese pirates mainly from Kyushu were active along the whole coast, from the Liaotung Peninsula in the north to Hainan Island and the Straits of Malacca in the south. The famous Arctic explorer, John Davis, met his death at their hands in 1604. Davis was serving on an East India Company ship which was anchored off the island of Bintang, east of Singapore, when it was attacked by Japanese pirates.\n\nThis was at the end of the Japanese era, which came about as the result of several different factors. One was the establishment of a strong central government in Japan by Iyeyasu, the first of the Tokugawa Shoguns at the beginning of the seventeenth century; and another was the increasing superiority of Chinese over Japanese junks.\n\nThe depredations of these Japanese pirates often extended far inland, and they were accompanied by atrocities reminiscent of the Japanese Rape of Nanking in 1937. Because of this the Ming Emperors banned all intercourse between the two countries, and this afforded the Portuguese the opportunity to act as",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208942,
        "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-1980",
        "page_number": 104,
        "title": "RAS-1980",
        "content_text": "72\n\nJOHN VILLIERS\n\nlegitimate trade that could be allowed to the Portuguese. Portuguese ships were indeed used both by the Chinese and Japanese for suppressing local pirates.\n\nThere was keen competition among the daimyō of Kyushu to attract the Great Ship from Macau to their fiefs. In 1562 Omura Sumitada gave what amounted to extra-territorial rights to the Portuguese at Yokoseura and soon after was baptised with the name of Dom Bartholomeu. Yokoseura was however destroyed in 1564 by some anti-Christian merchants from Bungo and the Great Ship was diverted to Hirado. In 1568 Jesuit missionaries first visited Nagasaki, then a small fishing village in a wood belonging to a Christian vassal of Omura Sumitada. It provided excellent anchorage and in 1571 the Great Ship called there for the first time. From then on it was the chief port in Japan for the Macau trade and by 1580 had become a large settlement with an entirely Christian population. In that year Omura offered possession of Nagasaki to the Jesuits, reserving only the shipping dues for himself.\n\nFrom about 1578 the Macaonese began to make use of the Jesuit missionaries, then gaining rapidly in influence in Japan, to market their goods. As the Italian Fr. Valignano wrote to his superiors in 1580: “After the grace and favour of Goa, the greatest help we have had hitherto in securing Christians is that of the Great Ship. For as the Lords of Japan, even though they have much land, are very poor in revenue and ready money, the benefits they derive when the ships come to their ports are very great...they try hard to entice them to their fiefs\".15 The Jesuits indeed depended for most of their revenue on this investment in the Macau-Japan trade. By an agreement of 1578 with the Macau merchants they were allotted a share of 50 piculs in the annual cargo of 1600 piculs of raw silk.16 These 50 piculs brought a profit of about 1600 cruzados. There was much opposition to this arrangement — from the Mendicant Orders, particularly the Spanish Friars in the Philippines, from the Jesuit General in Rome and even from some of the more scrupulous merchant casados in Macau, but it survived at least until 1614, when the first decree of the Tokugawa Ieyasu banishing all foreign and Japanese missionaries from Japan was issued, and it gave the Portuguese an edge over their English, Dutch and Spanish rivals.17\n\nMeanwhile, the Philippines were being brought under Spanish rule by force and the missionary work of the religious orders. The",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1980.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/kh04md207",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216412,
        "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-2003",
        "page_number": 171,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "121\n\n176,243 grt. Built in 1907 in Dumbarton, Scotland as CULNA for British India S.N. Co. Ltd. In 1923 bought by Ryuoh Kisen K.K. of Dairen, Manchuria and re-named RYUJIN MARU. Japanese flag. She was to be salvaged from the Tan Rocks however on 13th April 1942, when to the south of the Bungo Strait between Kyushu and Shikoku, to be torpedoed and sunk by U.S.S. GRAYLING SS-209 (Lieut. Commander E. Olsen).\n\n1*2,549 grt. In 1915 built at Taikoo Dockyard in Hong Kong for China Navigation Co. Ltd. (Butterfield & Swire). From 2nd August to 5th December 1922 ashore at Swatow, there blown by a typhoon. Eventually in May 1948 to be sold for breaking up.\n\n19PRO ADM 116/2843. Report 158/197 dated 6 November 1931.\n\n20770 tons. Built shortly after the Great War. Three 4.7\" guns.\n\n214,400 tons. Launched in October 1911. Eight 6\" guns.\n\n223,802 grt. Built in 1919 for Osaka Shosen K.K. On 31 May 1944 to be torpedoed and sunk to the west of the Kuril Islands by U.S.S. BARB SS-220 (Lieut. Commander E.B. Fluckey).\n\n233,001 grt. A new ship, built in 1931 by Scotts at Greenock for China Navigation Co. Ltd. (Butterfield & Swire). Between the World Wars there was a great demand for a passenger service between Shanghai and destinations to the north such as Tsingtao, Wei-Hai-Wei, Chefoo and Tientsin. The ship had been especially built for this trade with twin screw steam turbines to give 16 knots, and her cabin accommodation was luxurious. For winter service her bow was ice strengthened.\n\n241,765 grt. Also built by Scotts but rather earlier, in 1905. She too served on the Shanghai/Tientsin route but was reaching the end of her useful life. In November 1933 to be sold for breaking up in Shanghai.\n\nPRO ADM 116/2844. 158/1559 dated 24 June 1932.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    }
]