[
    {
        "id": 205497,
        "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-1968",
        "page_number": 39,
        "title": "RAS-1968",
        "content_text": "34\n\nMARJORIE TOPLEY\n\nUnder what circumstances might sects expand and include numbers of the ordinary peasantry? Did they ever include members of the local gentry or enjoy support of a whole village? The Nien is said to have recruited whole communities when getting ready to rebel.43 De Groot notes that when all villagers were members of a sect a piece of white cloth was used by the village as a mark of distinction.44\n\nRebellions and local disturbances initiated by sects appear to have taken place when economic conditions in the countryside worsened and local officials were at their most oppressive. Some sects clearly aimed mainly at the poor. One I know provided charms which when eaten were supposed to have overcome hunger for several months. In times of extreme poverty and oppression the organization of villages might have been weakened. The interests of village leaders and ordinary peasants might draw closer to each other in such conditions and also to those of the dislocated peasantry.\n\nThe objects of most religious rebellions was not to change the social order but purge the government of unvirtuous elements and sometimes change the ruling dynasty. Local village leaders in times of stress might also have desired this object. It seems that some organizations even attracted leaders of large mono-lineage villages. In times of disaster it must have been difficult to maintain a strong lineage organization to support the ancestral hall association with wealth. And other villages seeing their powerful landlords weakened might have taken advantage of the situation to resist their control. The Nien and the Eight Diagrams Sect are both said to have aided villages in inter-village fights (ultimately increasing their dominance over the villages concerned).45 The Eight Diagrams sect is said in fact to have risen as a result of antagonisms among village communities. Leaders of large lineage villages were made leaders of some organizations.46\n\nOne Nien head is said to have been leader of a \"clan\" composed of a thousand families, allying his village with more than ten others (his exact \"leadership\" status in the kin-group is not very clear, however).47 But the Nien was careful to preserve village leaders in its organization and this brought its own problems of expansion. The interests of various communities and local village heads inhibited the build up of centralized control over large areas by the Nien.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 205498,
        "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-1968",
        "page_number": 40,
        "title": "RAS-1968",
        "content_text": "CHINESE RELIGION AND RURAL COHESION\n\n35\n\nAlthough religious sects are said to have been involved at times in political rebellion, one wonders how efficient they were in military operations. They certainly encouraged excessive bravery. Members of the White Lotus were said to be morbidly unafraid of death, but this would not necessarily make for efficiency, of course.4 Presumably, in selecting leaders for military manoeuvres, less emphasis would have to be placed on religious qualifications—“degrees”—and more on war-like skills. This might sometimes have led to rivalry within the sect; the type of person attracted by sectarian ideology and religious skills would not necessarily be an efficient military leader (unless he were himself a retired military leader), and might have to take a back-seat. A strong ideology, although knitting people together, encouraging bravery and sanctioning militant action, might bring its own problems for military success. The records I have seen show there were sometimes conflicts over ideological interpretations: the “work” to be undertaken by a sect at a particular time. Some local leaders planning rebellion in the name of Heaven were declared unorthodox by others, and the action was not supported by all divisions of the sect.\n\nThe Nien was certainly militarily successful for parts of its career, but little evidence is given that it was in fact a sect: an organization with an ideology and rituals. Although it is said to be an offshoot of the White Lotus, there is no information on religious meetings or ritual materials. It may be that the Nien was in fact a secret society rather than a sect: an organization using religious elements to support an ultimate secular aim rather than one taking up a secular cause to support an aim ultimately religious.49\n\nSecret Societies\n\nSecret societies have a form of organization which might have been more efficient, or less inefficient, for rebellious purposes than the majority of religious sects. The group usually known in English as Triad societies, which have a similar form of organization and ritual, and were strong in Fukien and Kwangtung, had in the nineteenth century, rebellion as their major goal; their motto was “Overthrow Ch'ing, restore Ming”. Religion appears to have always been confined largely to their rituals of initiation, and a",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 205505,
        "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-1968",
        "page_number": 47,
        "title": "RAS-1968",
        "content_text": "42\n\nMARJORIE TOPLEY\n\n28 Information on the Shuntê anti-marriage movement is scattered and unsystematic, but for brief information on it and also its connexion with religion see J. Dyer Ball, Things Chinese: or Notes Connected with China, 5th ed. rev. E. Chalmers Werner (Shanghai, Kelly & Walsh, 1925) section on marriage, pp. 367-76; p. 375.\n\n29 See C. K. Yang, Religion in Chinese Society: a Study of Contemporary Social Functions of Religion and Some of their Historical Factors (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1961) chap. XII.\n\n30 Ibid., p. 333.\n\n31 Cf. John Blofeld, The Jewel in the Lotus: an Outline of Present Day Buddhism in China (London, The Buddhist Society, 1948) p. 58.\n\n32 The Religion of the Void was brought to Singapore from China and specialises in cure of drug addiction. On this religion see Hsü Yün-tsiao, \"The Religion of the Void”, Journal of the South Seas Society, Vol. X, Pt. 2 (No. 20) (in Chinese). English version in same issue, tr. Chiang Liu. In Hong Kong the Green Pine Religion aims to cure disease.\n\n33 The most factually detailed work on sects is by J. J. M. de Groot, Sectarianism and Religious Persecution in China: A Page in the History of Religions, 2 Vols. (Amsterdam, Johannes Müller, 1903-4), reprinted by Literature House, Ltd., Taipei, Taiwan, 1963). For discussion of alternative names of sects and evidence of sectarian connexions through names, see my \"The Great Way of Former Heaven: a group of Chinese secret religious sects\", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. XXVI, Pt. 2, 1963, pp. 362-392, at pp. 384-6.\n\n34 See Chiang Siang Tseh, The Nien Rebellion (Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1954). The preface by Renville Lund contains reference to White Lotus connexions.\n\n35 Op. cit., vol. 1, p. 210. George Miles writing of the Yao-ch'ih sect (my evidence shows it to be an off-shoot of Hsien-t'ien Ta Tao) states that members had vegetarian halls but he says they were usually in isolated villages where men and women were found in constant residence. See his \"Vegetarian Sects\", in The Chinese Recorder, Vol. XXXIII, No. 1, 1902, Pp. 1-10.\n\n36 See Sidney D. Gamble, Ting Hsien, a North China Rural Community (New York, Institute of Pacific Relations, 1954) p. 414.\n\n37 Belonging to Lo Chiao (Lo Religion)—a sect named after one of its important early patriarchs (and related to Hsien-t'ien Ta Tao), described by Suzuki Chusei in \"Rakyo ni Tsuite\", Tōyō Bunka Kenkyujo Kiyō (Tokyo), No. 1, 1943, pp. 441-501.\n\n38 Gamble, op. cit.\n\n39 See de Groot, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 231-241 on funeral rites of the Lung hua sect.\n\n40 Gamble, op. cit.\n\n41 See for example Hsiao, op. cit., p. 231f, and p. 233.\n\n42 Yang, op. cit., p. 226.\n\n43 Chiang, op. cit., p. 37.\n\nDe Groot, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 308.\n\n45 According to Chiang the Nien emerged as community defence groups.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d",
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    },
    {
        "id": 205760,
        "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-1969",
        "page_number": 66,
        "title": "RAS-1969",
        "content_text": "60\n\nR. G. GROVES\n\n* Skinner, G. W. \"Marketing and Social Structure in Rural China Part I: The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. XXIV, no. 1, November 1964, p. 32.\n\n9 Ibid., p. 5ff.\n\n10 Ibid., p. 32.\n\n11 Ibid., pp. 32ff, C. K. Yang brings out clearly the significance of the market town as the centre of a system of communication. “In times of peace and tranquility, the subjects for chatting range from the births and deaths, weddings and quarrels, conditions of crops, some strange signs in the stars, some mishaps in certain villages, to all the big things and little things that make up the interest and chores in the daily life of the village peasants. But in time of war and political upheavals, in periods when banditry runs rampant or natural calamities plague upon the countryside, from the markets wild rumours fly; seeds of fear and suspicion are sown; signs of omens are interpreted and widely scattered.\" Yang, C. K., A North China Local Market Economy. Institute of Pacific Relations, New York, 1944, p. 13.\n\n12 See, for example, Freedman, op. cit., pp. 82ff., Hsiao, op. cit., p. 423.\n\n13 Skinner, op. cit., pp. 21ff.\n\n14 Skinner, op. cit., p. 27.\n\n15 Freedman, op. cit., pp. 18ff.\n\n16 Ibid., p. 20.\n\n17 Ibid., pp. 20-21.\n\n18 Amyot, J. The Chinese Community of Manila; A Study of Adaptation of Chinese Familism to the Philippines Environment, Research Series no. 2. Philippines Studies Program, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago (mimeo), 1960. As will become clear, Amyot's analysis is important to the arguments of both Skinner and Freedman.\n\n19 Hsiang is commonly translated as 'township', a practice followed by Amyot. Freedman points out that both 'Hsiang' and 'township' have been used as administrative terms and proposes the more neutral 'vicinage' as an alternative translation, Freedman, op. cit., p. 23.\n\n20 Amyot, op. cit., p. 40. Quoted by Freedman, op. cit., p. 22.\n\n21 Ibid., pp. 52ff. Quoted by Freedman, op. cit., p. 23.\n\n22 Freedman, op. cit., p. 23.\n\n23 Ibid., p. 25.\n\n24 Ibid. It will be argued below that, even in the case of the Hsin-an higher-order lineages, the standard marketing area was organizationally significant.\n\n25 The New Territories formerly constituted roughly three-fifths of Hsin-an county. By the Convention of Peking, 6th June 1898, they were leased to Britain for 99 years.\n\n26 Wakeman, op. cit., p. 36. The term \"local corps\" is used by Chiang Siang-tseh in his work The Nien Rebellion, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1954.\n\n27 Wakeman, op. cit., p. 38.\n\n28 Ibid., p. 39.\n\n29 Ibid., pp. 39-40.\n\n30 Ibid., p. 63.\n\n31 Ibid., pp. 64-5.\n\n32 Ibid., p. 112.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1969.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208047,
        "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-1977",
        "page_number": 86,
        "title": "RAS-1977",
        "content_text": "70\n\nJ. T. KAMM\n\nout to private concessions. So pervasive was tax farming in this regard that the Kowloon Customs itself joined with the local magistracy in insuring its maintenance. CSO15 of 1900 records the case of the Ying Yi Farm which was granted the concession for supplying services to trading junks at Lai Chi Kok (*** ) in exchange for supplying free water to customs cruisers.4\n\nDespite its significance for late Ch'ing finance, little has been written concerning the origins and structure of tax farming in China. C.M. Chang's case study of auctioned revenue collection in Ching-Hai Hsien **), Hopei, remains our most authoritative account. Chang, who focuses on the workings of the brokerage tax farm, ascribes the origins of tax farming in China to the growth of miscellaneous taxes imposed after the Taiping Rebellion, an assertion decisively rebutted by Lien-sheng Yang, who traces the institution as far back as the fifth century. In general, we can say that tax farming arose at various times in Chinese history to meet the demands of the specific era and locality.\n\nThere was indeed a remarkable increase in miscellaneous taxes imposed on Hsin-An in the late nineteenth century. In an appendix to his report on the New Territory, Lockhart lists a number of \"extra\" taxes and rents not found in the gazetteer of 1819. This list, in turn, is borne out by an investigation of the data contained in the Kwangtung Ts'ai-cheng Shuo-ming-shu (*****). Lockhart, distrusting the figures supplied by the Nam Tau Magistrate, persuaded an informant in Sham Chun () to provide him with an unofficial assessment of the revenue collected annually in the Tung Lu. As expected, Lockhart discovered a great number of omissions and discrepancies between the \"official\" and \"unofficial\" revenues. Lockhart observed that the magistrate and his superiors benefit substantially from these discrepancies, but noted that \"not a small portion of it (the difference between reported and collected revenue) is secured by those who farm various items of revenue, for which they pay much less than they make out of them.\"\n\nDespite the surge of miscellaneous taxes and the consequent rise in the activity of farmers in the trade sector, the origins of tax farming in the East River counties of the Kwangchow Prefecture can be traced to earlier times. I propose to show that tax farming evolved in the agricultural sector, and was the direct result of the failure to effectively implement the official li-chia system.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211542,
        "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": 259,
        "title": "RAS-1988",
        "content_text": "235\n\nvarious heads, including causation and factors leading to the development of such large fleets, whether the pirates were rebels or only another form of Chinese bandit (using the later 19th century North China Nien Rebellion on land for purposes of comparison), and suggesting that overcoming the pirate menace was not, in the end, a good thing for Ch'ing government or its coastal forces, owing to its contributing to the false sense of security and sufficiency that was to be shattered by the encounters with Western forces thirty years on.\n\nThere are useful appendices giving information on a small number of pirates' social backgrounds (for voluntary pirates), on the “Pirates' Declaration” of 1809 posted in Macao and Canton, on Pirate Junks, on the Pirate Surrender Document of 1810, and on Chinese Weights and Measures. The Notes at pp. 179-213 contain much extra material.\n\nProfessor Murray has given us a readable and fascinating account of a colourful period, and an insight into a group of persons who brought fear, suffering and violent death to many people.\n\nThere appears to me to have been no particular socio-economic or political reason that would either justify or extenuate the activities of these pests. The times no harder nor the government more inept or corrupt than the norm, on land or at sea, although the beneficial results of a long period of stability and prosperity were beginning to be offset by increased pressure of population. As the author says, piracy was a part of life in the \"Water World”. In the Hong Kong Region, this was true up to and after the British took over the New Territories in 1899: see pp. 26-31 of my book The Rural Communities of Hong Kong, Studies and Themes (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1983). In the late 18th century, as Dr. Murray states, it just so happened that larger than usual groups of pirates on the Sino-Vietnamese coast were encouraged by contesting rivalries over the Vietnamese throne, and that above average leadership was available.\n\nThe book resulted from a doctoral thesis. Dr. Murray has done a good job. Her industriousness is evident, and she has opened up a fascinating subject with asides on other major themes. If I can voice a personal \"moan\", it is about something for which she herself is not really responsible. I refer to the deplorable habit of giving Cantonese place",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q",
        "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": 212771,
        "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": 80,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "65\n\n1900 ca 1900\n\n1901 December\n\n1904\n\n1905 Jan/Jun\n\n1907\n\nca 1910/1911\n\n1914 November\n\nca 1914/1915\n\n1914-1919\n\n11 Dec 1919\n\nClaims to have volunteered for service in Peking [Boxer troubles]\n\nMesny visited Nan-chang in Kiangsi where he met Hsiung Shih-fu, a young reformer\n\nInterviewed Viceroy Liu K'un-yı în Nanking.\n\nPublished Mesny's Chinese and English Almannac\n\nPublication of his final volume of his Chinese Miscellany\n\nMost Excellent High Priest in the Keystone Royal Arch Chapter, in Shanghai\n\nHis wife, Han, obtained a legal separation in Shanghai\n\nMesny moved to Hankow\n\nClaims to have passed a medical and then offered his services to the Crown [World War 1]\n\nEmployed by Messrs. Reiss and Co. in Hankow\n\nDied in rue de Paris in Hankow\n\nAppendix C\n\nThe Chinese Imperial Forces\n\nMesny's Involvment in the Suppression of the Miao Revolt\n\nThe First Campaign by Imperial Troops\n\nin Kueichou Province\n\n1868-1871\n\nand\n\nOrder of Battle of the Szechuan Force\n\nChinese Imperial Forces, with the aid of a number of foreigners and foreign arms, had by 1864 succeeded in suppressing the Taiping rebellion against the dynasty. They then turned to liquidating the other rebellions seething in various parts of China which included the Nien movement in northern China, the Moslem minority revolt in Yunnan province, another major Moslem uprising in the North-west, and finally the Miao aboriginal tribes which had revolted in Kueichou province.\n\nThe Miao, or Miao-tzu as Mesny refers to them, rose against the Ch'ing dynasty Manchu rulers of China in 1854 after discontent reached boiling point due not only to Chinese settlers colonising the best lands in the low lying areas of the province of Kueichou, but also to the exploitation of the Miao by Chinese officials and merchants. According to Mesny the passionate and untamed Miao gradually took back almost the whole province apart from the capital, Kuei-yang Fu, and the city",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 212781,
        "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": 90,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "75\n\nof the Szechuan Force under the C-in-C had been badly defeated and had left him in the lurch without support. However, the other half of the fourteen battalions remained in Ch'ing-p'ing Hsien and stood firm, and even recovered much of the abandoned equipment. This was not reported to Kuei-yang and Ch'engtu in Szechuan in time to benefit the C-in-C of the Szechuan Force, the story put about by the commander of the seven battalions who had evacuated Ch'ing-p'ing Hsien being believed and acted upon. The C-in-C, T’ang, was therefore degraded and posted to Szechuan,\n\nThe story, according to Mesny's narrative, ended with the demobilisation of several units of the Szechuan Force, the C-in-C's guards and the Ko-i Brigade in particular, and with Mesny settling into life as an adviser to the new supreme commander of all the Imperial forces in Kueichou, Chou Ta-wu; leaving us in anticipation of the next and successful campaign to suppress the rebel Miao, beginning later the same year, 1871, to be published by Mesny. Regrettably it never seems to have got beyond either Mesny's pencil jottings or good intentions.\n\nThe Organisation of the Szechuan Force\n\nIn his Notes on Chinese Military Services Mesny explained that there were several branches of the Army, the Manchu Banner Corps, the Mongol Banner Corps and the Chinese Banner Corps, each with eight banners. There were also the Chinese militia called Chih-ping; volunteer troops raised during the Taiping Rebellion and on many other occasions of emergency, called Yung-ying or simply Yung i.e. braves [known to Mesny as the Mobile Volunteer Force], and the local train bands\", Tuan-lien [known to Mesny as the Sedentary Volunteer Force]; armed peasants trained in the use of weapons for the defence of their homes in both town and country.\n\nMesny appears to have used notes written during the early 1870s to compile his descriptions of the Chinese Imperial forces and seems not to have taken much advantage of the benefit of hindsight to amend them prior to going to press in 1895. It had proved difficult to differentiate between Mesny's personal knowledge and his accuracy in recording detail, and information he acquired from other non-Chinese sources. Many of his notes on the Manchu Army and the Green Standard Regiments have been taken from Mayers'\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 212783,
        "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": 92,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "77\n\narmy in itself, especially organised to meet the requirements of its own territorial demands or necessities. The various provincial army corps [chün] consisted of two or more territorial divisions called chen besides several [from 3-10] territorial brigades called hsieh. The divisions consisted of several regiments and battalions, both of which were called ying; the regiments were commanded by ts'an-chiang [colonels] or yu-chi [lieutenant-colonels], and battalions by tu-ssu [majors]. Most regiments and battalions were divided into two or more companies, shao; however, a few regiments and battalions were not divided at all, with the officers in each regiment or battalion holding common authority over all portions of the regiment or brigade.\n\nMesny frequently referred to individuals as holding the rank of lieutenant-colonel in one context whilst elsewhere describing them as generals. This was finally clarified in a throwaway line buried in other text when he wrote, 'In China Brigadier-Generals, Colonels and Lieutenant-Colonels in command were all considered to be General officers, that is Chiang-Chün.' General officers, chiang-kuan, in the territorial army were those brigadiers, colonels and lieutenant colonels in command. In field forces the commanders of battalions were also so styled by courtesy irrespective of rank. The same courtesy was extended to the chief of battalion, ying-kuan, in field forces where many of them had only permission to wear a button sometimes of the lowest civil rank and degree.\n\nMesny summarised the order of battle including the Chinese naval forces, with two provinces, Kuangtung and Fukien each having a naval force, and another stationed on the Yangtze. Finally, with the northern steam fleet of iron-clads there was a total of twenty-one army corps, i.e. provincial forces, and four naval corps for the whole Chinese empire. To these had to be added the Tartar Banner forces forming the garrisons of several important towns, Canton, Foochou, Hangchou, Cha-pu, Chinkiang, Nanking, Peking and elsewhere. Also the numerous regular field troops denominated Yung or Lien-chün which had been kept under arms in various parts of the empire since the Taiping Rebellion (which, he added, were a great deal more formidable in numbers as well as effectiveness than the whole of the sedentary garrisons or ordinary chün or army).\n\nIt was not until, literally, the latter days of the first campaign that an overall commander was appointed, with the Szechuan Force commander",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 212792,
        "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": 101,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "86\n\nNOTES\n\nIn one of the notes written by Mesny in his Miscellany, [Volume 4 page 34], he listed the various classes and degrees of military rank in what he terms the Chinese Militia Service. A marshal or general was a T'i-tu Chün-men, a lieutenant-general was a Tsung-ping Kuan, a major-general a Fu-chiang; and a colonel a Ts'an-chiang.\n\n2 Mesny gives various totals for the number of battalions serving with the Szechuan Force and in particular with the Ko-i Brigade, with a grand total of thirty-three battalions in the whole Force. These vary from eight to fifteen and a half operating with the Ko-i Brigade. Presumably the explanation lies in the arrival of new battalions to support the Force from time to time, though we are unable to be certain how many battalions were serving at any one particular moment.\n\nMesny states at the beginning of Volume 1 of his Miscellanies that in 1861 General Ward had organised a disciplined force for the Chinese Government, at first locally styled \"Ward's Force\" and later as the 'Ever-victorious Legion'.\n\n4 Mesny later keeps referring to thirty-five battalions.\n\nThe I-ho-t'uan, the \"Patriotic Train Band\", was the official title of the Boxers, of ill-repute.\n\n6 Mesny too had been a member of a train band, the volunteer force in Hankow between 1863-67, under arms several times during the approach of the Nien-fei rebels, when he wore the uniform of the Queen's Western Rifles [sic].\n\n7 Mesny goes into some detail providing recruitment policy, promotion schemes, ranks and titles, training and duties.\n\nUse of the term Disciplined Force was a contemporary fashion. It later became popular to refer to the Lien-chun Ying as Field Forces.\n\n9\n\nMost of the ranks of unit commanders given by Mesny do not tally with those given by Hucker in his Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China.\n\n10 All commanders of divisions and corps had one or more battalions, regiments or brigades, serving a sort of staff brigade and forming the headquarters of that particular army corps. It was popularly designated the Body Guard Battalion or Regiment.\n\nPresumably Han Chinese rebels such as the Huang-hao or the Pai-hao, the remnants of the Taipings or even the Moslem rebels.\n\n12 This is the same title as the Force previously operating under the command of General Gordon during the Taiping Rebellion. Either Mesny has incorrectly recalled the title of the new Force or the new Force continued to bear the former title.",
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        "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": 107,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "92\n\nLi Hung-chang ## [1823-1901]\n\nHe was one of the outstanding figures in modern Chinese history; a statesman and diplomat. He was Governor of Kiangsu province at the time of the Taiping Rebellion, and again was a major proponent in the self-strengthening movement in Imperial China during the latter years of the Ch'ing dynasty. He was first a soldier who came to notice during the suppression of the Taiping rebellion and later went on to help develop western economic methods to endeavour to lead China into a greater independence from western domination. He emerged from comparative obscurity commanding a few battalions of field troops with the title of Expectant Tao-t'ai of Fukien in 1859 serving under Tseng Kuo-fan (q.v.) and soon rose to fame.\n\nLiu Ming-ch'uan ## [1836-1896]\n\n劉銘傳\n\nSaid to have been a gang leader who murdered a rich villager. When the Taiping rebels threatened his area, he organised a volunteer corps which became famous as a military leader. He was rewarded by being made an official of the first rank and Commander-in-Chief of Chihli at the early age of 29. Under the command of Tseng Kuo-fan, he defeated the Nien rebels. Some time later, in 1884, he was made Governor of Fukien during the France-Chinese war and ordered to garrison Formosa. Liu was defeated in several lesser battles but held Taipei and was probably saved by a French change of policy when they withdrew from Formosa [Taiwan]. Liu was made Governor of Taiwan in 1885 and relinquished his post in 1891, dying in retirement.\n\nLittle, Robert and Archibald\n\nRobert [Bob] was a failed tea merchant who edited the North China Daily News for eighteen years. According to OM Green, he was the best-loved man ever known in the Settlement [Shanghai]. His brother, Archibald Little, who was not so loved according to others, has been credited with designing and taking the first steamship up the Gorges. He made the first attempt in 1888 but, when he got to I-chang, the officials raised a storm of protest and he had to desist; the Chinese Government afterwards buying up his ships. In 1899, he tried again, with a boat called the Pioneer, and got through from I-chang to Chungking in seven days compared with the three or even six weeks it took a junk to be hauled up by trackers on the bank. Archibald's wife, Alicia, founded one of...",
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    {
        "id": 212800,
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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": 109,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "94\n\n[passport) of Prince Su was printed on page 235 of Volume 4 [18 March 1904] of Mesny's Miscellanies.\n\nTseng Kuo-fan [1811-1872]\n\nA Confucian statesman and general who defeated the Taiping rebels in Nanking and put an end to the rebellion. He was first a militia leader, then a Governor-General of the Two Kiang provinces and finally the Imperial Commissioner for the suppression of the Taiping Rebels. Later he became the Imperial Commissioner ordered to suppress the Nien rebellion. He was Viceroy of Chihli in 1869. His Hunan Army provided the Manchu dynasty with a new lease of life.\n\nTso Tsung-t’ang [1812-1885]\n\nAn official who first came to the notice of his emperor when he was an active and successful military officer during the Taiping Rebellion. He was raised to an earldom and up to 1866 earned renown as an administrator in the provinces of Fukien and Chekiang. With his experience during the Taiping Rebellion he was sent to Shensi and Kansu to suppress the Muslim revolt [1862-1873] and, en route, he helped suppress the Nien rebels. He remained Governor General of Shensi and Kansu for many years and later in 1884 he became Governor of Fukien province during the French attack on Foochow and Keelung in Taiwan. He died in Foochow the following year.\n\nWard F T [1831-1862]\n\nAn American mercenary and founder of the 'Ever-Victorious Army', a Sino-foreign military force which aided the Manchu Ch'ing dynasty suppress the Taiping rebellion. He was killed in battle in September 1862 near Ningpo and was at first succeeded by another American, Burgevine, and then by Charles Gordon [q.v.]. Ward married Miss Yang, the daughter of the official banker Yang Ta-Ki, a Tartar. A magnificent mausoleum was erected over his grave in Sungkiang in 1877.\n\nWylie, Alexander [1815-1887]\n\nA missionary and scholar, editor of the Chinese Recorder.\n\nT",
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        "id": 212804,
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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": 113,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "98\n\nLikin ✰✰ : [li-chín] An arbitrary tax, originally of one cash per tael 釐金 on all kinds of produce, known to foreigners as the 'tax of one-thousandth', imposed in 1853 with a view to making up the deficiency in the land tax caused by the Taiping and Nien-fei troubles. Hence its common term, a 'war tax'.\n\nLorcha: A vessel having a hull of Chinese build but rigged with European masts and sails, and usually manned by a European captain and a Chinese crew.\n\nMace: The tenth part of a Chinese tael [q.v.] or ounce.\n\nMiao-tzu #7: shoots or sons of the soil: one of the larger of the southern Chinese aboriginal non-Chinese races subjugated by the Chinese, whose revolt in the 1860s lead to Mesny being employed by the Chinese army. This was not their first revolt; they had rebelled against Imperial rule at the end of the eighteenth century when their widespread revolt in Kueichou and Hunan provinces was put down with great difficulty owing to the mountains and forests covering that part of the world.\n\nMixed Courts: Instituted in 1865 in the Shanghai International Settlements [q.v.] for the hearing of cases between Chinese residents in the Settlements, between Chinese and foreign residents, and where foreigners were the defendants, provided always that they were unrepresented by a Consul on the spot. All suits were tried by a Chinese official having the rank of sub-Prefect, with the assistance, in cases where foreigners were concerned, of an assessor of the same nationality.\n\nMuslim Rebellion: the rebellion in the northern Chinese provinces of Shensi and Kansu between 1862 and 1873.\n\nNanking: the major city on the Yangtze and capital of Ming China. The 'Southern Capital', held by the Taipings from 1850 to 1864.\n\nNestorian Christians: The church which first introduced Christianity into China, at the close of the 6th century AD.\n\nNien-fei : [lit. The Twisting Robbers], The official designation of the large bodies of rebels who ravaged the plains of north China for a number of years. They referred to themselves as Nien-Tzu [The Coilers or Twisters] from their peculiar manner of formation in battle. The Nien",
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    {
        "id": 212805,
        "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": 114,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "99\n\nrebellion [1851-1868], led by Chang Lo-hsing, was a rising of impoverished peasants against the Manchu dynasty in the area to the north of the Huai River. It was defeated by the local Huai Army under Li Hung-chang into whose army many Nien were enlisted for service in the troubles in the North-west.\n\nNingpo: a treaty port on the coast of the eastern province of Chekiang.\n\nPai-lou: an ornamental archway in memory of a deceased person of exceptional chastity, loyalty or filial piety.\n\nSeals [Mandarin]: Every Chinese official of any standing had a seal of office. [all seals, either government, business house (hong) or personal were usually referred to as 'chops' by foreigners]\n\nSedan chairs: Mesny was first carried by two bearers but was upgraded to three shortly afterwards. The emperor alone was entitled to sixteen bearers, princes of the blood eight, and all other officials down to Prefect four, including District Magistrates if in office. Below this grade two was the rule. All tao-t'ai's rode in green chairs carried by four bearers, accompanied on their official visits by a great number of attendants, some of whom were bodyguards, the others bearers of the insignias of office.\n\n'Self-Strengthening': a Chinese term denoting the policy of selective adoption of western technology and institutions between 1860 and 1895. One of the main proponents was Li Hung-chang about whom Mesny wrote many complimentary and other not so complimentary comments.\n\nSquares: pu-tzu: Square badges denoted the nine grades of official ranks in later dynastic China, worn front and back of the official's surcoat. They were some twelve inches square, embroidered in various designs, portraying, for example, a silver pheasant for a civil official grade 5, and a tiger for a grade 4 military official.\n\nSqueeze: applied both as a verb and substantive to peculation of any kind. Originally it was the commission Chinese servants, fully in accordance with Chinese custom, charged their masters on all articles purchased.\n\nTa Ch'ing**: The Great Pure Dynasty: The name of the last Imperial",
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        "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": 116,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "101\n\neach harnessed and stripped to the waist, fighting the torrent.\n\nTreaty ports: Ports opened to foreign trade and residence under what the Chinese have always regarded as 'unequal treaties'.\n\nTsung-li Yamen : The Foreign Affairs Bureau of the late Ch'ing dynasty, established after the capture of Peking in 1860 by the Allied forces. It was the channel of communication between foreign Ministers resident in Peking and the throne.\n\nTsung-tu #: the Viceroy or Governor-General of one or more provinces within which he had the general control of all civil and military affairs and was subject only to the throne.\n\nWai-sing Lottery: lit: examination of names, a kind of sweepstake, once a very popular form of gambling amongst the Cantonese, on the result of the public examination for the second degree. The holder of a successful candidate's name being the winner of a greater or lesser sum according to position on the published list.\n\nWei-yuan A: a delegate staff officer, a special delegate or Expectant Appointee on ad hoc duty.\n\nWhite Lily Sect [Pai-lien Chiao] was a more serious rebellion at the end of the eighteenth century. This secret society, originally founded in opposition to Mongol domination several centuries earlier, had been revived in order to get rid of the alien Manchu rule of the Ch'ing dynasty. It broke out in western Hupei in 1796 and for nearly nine years taxed China's resources to the utmost. Although Mesny was not involved his and their paths crossed on occasion.\n\nYamen : The official and private residence of any 'mandarin', officials who held a seal, a government office.\n\nYing #: usually a battalion but not uncommonly, a force of a number of battalions.",
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