[
    {
        "id": 206649,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1972",
        "page_number": 197,
        "title": "RAS-1972",
        "content_text": "THREE CHINESE DEITIES\n\n191\n\nChu Kung with his feet stretched out under the pan and flames leaping up from them boiling the rice and, being frightened, she screamed. Fa Chu Kung transformed himself into a god, flew up the chimney and thus became black on the way.\n\ne. In the An Chi area of Fukien province there was a very large snake which required one youth or maiden to be fed to it annually. Chang (3), a common straw sandal maker, and two men who had been chased from the An Chi area to a cave in Ying Ch'üen, fought and killed the snake after a battle lasting three days. Chang was so exhausted that he turned black. He was deified Fa Chu Kung and the two men who had helped him were deified with him as his foster brothers, for ridding the place of the nightmare.\n\nf. In a Singapore Hainanese temple a variation of e. above tells that Fa Chu Kung met an old man weeping. He told Fa Chu Kung that his grandchild had to be sacrificed to the big snake. Fa Chu Kung told the old man not to worry and went out and strangled the big snake; but, because he was bitten so badly, he turned black, his eyes became staring and he died.\n\ng. Fa Chu Kung was originally called Chang Kung (2) but later, after he had cured the Empress's boils which had been pronounced incurable by all the other physicians and magicians, he was given the title of Shen Chün (#).\n\nh. Fa Chu Kung was an Indian sailor or trader who settled in Fukien and helped the poor and the sick.\n\nThese various tales tell of Fa Chu Kung's ability to do magic, give a reason for his blackness and several explain why he has a snake wrapped round his arm. The snake is reminiscent of other sacrificial stories and may well be a story dating back to one of the early local cultures in Fukien. There is no indication of what era Fa Chu Kung is supposed to have lived—if, of course, he ever did. Temple dates in South East Asia and Taiwan are of little assistance here and the only dating the temple keepers suggested was the usual \"several hundreds of years ago\" or \"during the T'ang or Sung Dynasties\" (650-1100 A.D.).\n\nThere are at least two other major legends of people who use their legs as fuel for the stove. The first, in Ch'üan Chow, is the monk I Po who gave great assistance during the construction of the famous bridge there. He caused great astonishment when, because",
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    {
        "id": 212532,
        "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": 86,
        "title": "RAS-1991",
        "content_text": "66\n\nsucceeding years.\n\nThe significant turnabout of Sino-American cultural relations, especially arts exchanges, came in 1979 when some ten American performing groups came to China for public appearances while some Chinese groups toured the United States. There were also exchanges of arts educators and prominent artists in that year, some of whose tours were sponsored by the Center for United States-China Arts Exchange, an institution established to that end on 1 October, 1978.\n\nA little earlier there had been a little-publicized thaw in 1978, when a Chinese American's Chinese-style paintings were exhibited in Beijing and the China Film Export and Import Corporation (CFEIC) made its first purchase of an American movie, the Convoy, directly from an American company. Subsequently, the CFEIC purchased a film, Future World, and accepted a gift, the Nightmare, in 1979. In 1979 all three movies were shown to the public. The Chinese television stations soon followed suit by buying a 17-episode TV series which, according to the contract, was to be allowed three transmissions in China in the next four years. On the American side, an American company purchased 14 Chinese movies in 1979 in a single deal.\n\nThe rise of Chinese interest in American arts was also demonstrated in another field, the theatre. In December 1979, a play adapted from an American movie Guess Who's Coming to Dinner was staged by the Chinese Youth Theatre in Beijing. The fever over American arts inaugurated in 1979 was increasingly developed in the following two years. In 1980, 13 American performing arts groups appeared on Chinese stages while the number climbed to 22 in 1981, a record which still stands today.\n\nAfter this high-point, the inflow of American culture fluctuated depending on several factors. In 1983 there was a slight increase followed by a downturn in 1984. In 1985 there was again a revival of American cultural influx.\n\nThe first major group of Chinese artists arrived in the United States in 1980, following a major event in the previous year. As appearances of Chinese artists in the States are more difficult to trace, especially for researchers in China, the statistics in this paper can only reflect major artistic events. In this case, the figures show a slight increase generally.",
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    },
    {
        "id": 212555,
        "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": 109,
        "title": "RAS-1991",
        "content_text": "89\n\nThe phenomenon of the American movie diplomacy in China was unique. While exchanges in other fields were shrinking, movie diplomacy developed free from negative effects due to the deteriorating general relationship. Why was this?\n\nStarting from 7 May 1981, the first American film week was conducted in Beijing and four other cities. The movies were old and comparatively dull: a musical entitled Singing in the Rain, a cartoon Snow White and three feature films, including Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. The list shows that all movies reflecting contemporary American life were ruled out. But they were met by interested audiences and the event claimed to be a success. Obviously, the American officials involved in this event might have liked some contemporary films to be included in the list. Nonetheless, these films suited the Chinese officials' appetite. The whole thing was under China's control and there was no imposition of American suggestions on Chinese leaders.\n\nPutting the inflow of foreign culture under the control of the government is a vital policy in China's cultural relations with other countries. Cultural policy in China, as has been pointed out, is very much under the influence of political developments and culture in turn also has a strong impact on politics. So it is important to have a stable and balanced cultural policy, which requires, in this case, control of the influx of Western culture. During the four years from 1981, the CFEIC, China's only agency handling the importation of foreign movies, carried out a rather consistent policy in purchasing American movies, conforming to the requirement of political considerations, the development of Chinese movie making and practical needs.\n\nWhen importing an American movie, exposing the dark side of the capitalist society took high priority in governing the selection of specific movies. This policy was best explained in a review of Nightmare, a gift of an American company, shown in 1979. In a review entitled \"In the Mill of Nightmares\", indicating that American society is a generator of nightmares, the author tells his readers that what is shown in that movie is a general phenomenon in America. In deciding on accepting movies like Alambrista, First Blood and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, this selection of negative images of America can be seen clearly. In fact, this criterion was, and is still, applied to the choice of movies from all Western countries.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 212567,
        "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": 121,
        "title": "RAS-1991",
        "content_text": "101\n\nBIBLIOGRAPHY\n\nBai Hua. \"Kulian.\" (\"Bitter Love.'') Shiyue (October), September 1979.\n\nBarnet, A. Doak and Ralph N. Clough, eds. Modernizing China. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1986.\n\nDietrich, Craig. People's China, a Brief History. Oxford, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1986.\n\nDong, Mei, ed. Zhongmei guanxi ziliao xuanbian: 1971, 7-1981, 7 (Selected Documents Regarding Sino-American Relations: 1971, 7-1981, 7). Beijing: Shishi Press, 1982.\n\nFairbank, John K. Chinabound. New York: Harper and Row, 1982.\n\nGoldstein, Martin E. American Foreign Policy: Drift or Decision. Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1984.\n\nGuangming ribao (Guangming Daily).\n\nGuan, L. “Zai menghuan gongchang li\" (\"In the Mill of Nightmares\"), Renmin ribao (Renmin Daily). 13 January 1980, p. 8.\n\nHinton, Harold C., ed. The People's Republic of China, 1979-1984: A Documentary Survey. Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1986.\n\nHsiung, James C., ed. Beyond China's Independent Foreign Policy. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1985.\n\nHunt, Michael H. The Making of a Special Relationship: The United States and China to 1914. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.\n\nImplementing Accord for Cultural Exchange in 1980 and 1981 under the Cultural Agreement between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Government of the United States of America and the three subsequent accords.\n\nIndex to Newspapers and Periodicals - Philosophy and Social Sciences.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 212676,
        "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": 230,
        "title": "RAS-1991",
        "content_text": "211\n\nare confused with those of the interviewed. But these are more methodological problems which should not be blamed on the students\n\nHighly related to, and probably more appropriate if included in the religion section are the reports on offerings used in religious worship and on yu lan jie (ghost festival). The strength of these two reports is that they have made better use of field investigation to complement library material to reconstruct the historical development of their topics. The students who wrote on yu lan jie, for example, compare the Buddhist and Taoist versions of the festival by attending each of the occasions and plotting the similarities and differences, in terms of the administration, the main rites and the problems faced due to social change. The report on the manufacture of offerings, though grouped with two other reports on “traditional occupations\", comes up with a list of the kinds of incense, candles, and paper goods involved in worship of different deities, as well as a tabulation of the frequencies of domestic worship of selected deities among members of a secondary school, reflecting the pervasiveness of popular religion.\n\nMany of the reports in the book follow a similar line of treatment. They emphasize structural descriptions, delineating specific historical events. How individuals respond to these events and how they conduct themselves in these situations are not known. The report entitled \"The Eighteen-day Nightmare” on the half-hearted and short defence in Hong Kong against Japanese invasion in December 1941, for instance, uses a lot of space listing military maneuvers and explaining their significance. As a report on \"the nightmare\", however, it should be talking more about the lives of different sectors of society during this particular period. Similarly, this is a weakness for two reports that deal with remnants of Qing Dynasty in Hong Kong. One plots the marine defence facilities along the coast of Hong Kong, while the other describes the village schools scattered in different heungs of Yuen Long. The schools and forts were painstakingly visited and their physical layout recorded, but the reports only manage to preserve what existed in the past, and fall short of reliving what happened. If the reports put social actors in their specific historical contexts and let them speak for themselves, they will add life to the historical events, demonstrating the dynamics among social actors as individuals as well as social groups, and paint a more complete picture of the history and culture of Hong Kong.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1991.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 214225,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1998",
        "page_number": 83,
        "title": "RAS-1998",
        "content_text": "46\n\nJones, Russell (1997), Chinese Names, the Traditions Surrounding the Use of Chinese Surnames and Personal Names, Pelanduk Publications.\n\nKao, George (1946), Chinese Wit and Humour, Coward-McCann, New York.\n\nKarlgren, Bernhard (1971), Sound and Symbol in Chinese, Hong Kong University Press.\n\nLee, Lily Xiao Hong and Sue Wiles (1999), Women of the Long March, Allen and Unwin. Edited extract South China Morning Post, 'Saturday Review,' 'Women on the March' 20 February 1999.\n\nLee, Sherry (1999, February 2), 'Reviving the art of Silent Gestures,' Hong Kong Standard, 'Life' supplement.\n\nLexikon der Ägyptologie (1997), 'Humour.'\n\nLin Yutang (1937), The Importance of Living, Reynal & Hitchcock, New York.\n\n(1936), My Country and My People, William Heinemann.\n\nLindsay, Oliver (1978), The Lasting Honour, the Fall of Hong Kong 1941, Hamish Hamilton.\n\nLittle, Jennifer (1998, June 25), 'Chinese Kiwi Comic Gags Racial Stereotypes,' Hong Kong Standard.\n\nLiu, D.H. (1995), 'The Peking Opera,' Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch Journal, Vol. 35.\n\nMathews, Jay and Linda (1983), One Billion, a China Chronicle, Ballantine Books, New York.\n\nMcGregor, Richard (1997, August 22), 'Interpreters' nightmares,' South China Morning Post.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794",
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    },
    {
        "id": 214594,
        "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-1999",
        "page_number": 9,
        "title": "RAS-1999",
        "content_text": "SPECIAL FEATURE\n\nPapers on the Conference Held on 9 December, 2000 to Commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the Reconstitution of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (HKBRAS) - Hong Kong: Forty Years of a Growing City\n\nNOTES AND QUERIES\n\n235\n\nJames Hayes - Feng Shui and Roadworks at Tong Fuk Village, 1958\n\n255\n\nJames Hayes - A Torn Scrap of Paper: Relating to a Money Loan Association, Small Loans, or What?\n\n261\n\nP.H. Hase - Further Tales of the Man the Emperor Decapitated\n\n269\n\nPhotograph Taken on the Occasion of the HKBRAS Visit to the Public Records Office in January, 2000\n\n... 273\n\nD.D. Waters - One of Hong Kong's Many Hillside Temples\n\n275\n\nCrystal Tang - The HKBRAS trip to Vietnam between 30 September and 6 October, 2000\n\n283\n\nJames Hayes - Translations from the Russian, HKBRAS Journal. No 38\n\n291\n\nBOOK REVIEW\n\nGillian Bickley - Hong Kong Invaded! A '97 Nightmare\n\n293\n\nviii",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt",
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    },
    {
        "id": 214766,
        "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-1999",
        "page_number": 181,
        "title": "RAS-1999",
        "content_text": "145\n\nJaps pouring hundreds of shells just over our heads into blocks of houses across the road. Finally the barrage stops and white flags appear from all the houses. The troops have got hold of quantities of beer and are singing to relieve their shattered nerves.\n\nI am too stunned to describe my own feelings but decide to try and escape. The Japs are reputed never to take prisoners. With Junior and three of my men we grab an Austin Seven and decide to make a dash for Aberdeen to try to get a boat. The engine won't start but it's all downhill. By now it's dark and the road is very narrow and tricky. We throw away our arms and get aboard. What a ride, crashing through barbed wire and road blocks in the dark but the old Austin showed her worth and we finally coasted into Aberdeen without seeing any Japs. We go straight to the AIS and get hold of a Chinese boy who says he will try to get us a boat with food and water. Then, to our horror, we discovered that the building had been locked and we could not get out as the Japs were outside. What a disappointment and we had nothing to do except find somewhere to sleep not having had a real one for ten days. My old room was a complete shambles so slept on the floor.\n\nFriday twenty sixth. Woke to a beautiful morning being unnaturally quiet and peaceful so that the last few weeks seemed as a nightmare. We were all under orders for the dockyard. Spent most of the morning smashing up thousands of bottles of beer and spirits for fear the Japs would get drunk and run amok. Got a car and set off for the dockyard passing hundreds of Chinese laden down with loot. On arrival at the dockyard we're told to go to the detention barracks, the men being locked up in the cells and we went to China Command. Had a real wash and shaved off my fortnight's growth of beard. The Colonel was in hospital having received a bullet through the neck, eight of our men were dead, and several missing. We had no kit so I decided to try and get back to the AIS. The only transport I could find was an old dairy farm lorry. Whimpey and Frank came with me. Soon we ran into several thousand Japs marching along the road looking tired and ragged. An officer signalled us to stop made me turn the lorry while troops climbed in the back. He indicated by signs that I was to drive them to HK. The troops seemed baffled by our blue uniforms but were quite friendly. Dropped our load and once more set off for the AIS. Passed hundreds more Japs but after some nasty moments finally reached our destination. Found most of our kit and got safely back.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1999.txt",
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    {
        "id": 214902,
        "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-1999",
        "page_number": 317,
        "title": "RAS-1999",
        "content_text": "293\n\nBOOK REVIEW\n\nGillian Bickley (2201), Hong Kong Invaded! A '97 Nightmare, with a foreword by Arthur Gomes, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 303 pages.\n\nA97NIGHTMARE\n\nIn 1897, a series of anonymous articles appeared in the China Mail. Together they constituted a story entitled The Back Door. This was a fictional account of a successful invasion of Hong Kong by the combined forces of fin-de-siècle aggressors, France and Russia. The inference is that the author was perturbed that Hong Kong's defences at the time were inadequate and so, in an attempt to galvanise the authorities, wrote this \"wake up call.\" Copies of the story ultimately found their way to Whitehall in London.\n\nGillian Bickley\n\nAs the title of the story infers, the superior invading forces entered Hong Kong by way of the south side of Hong Kong Island. There was the bloody Battle of Deepwater Bay, fought in \"the jungle\" around the Golf Club and on the beach. There was shelling of the Peak from the sea and the sea battle of Sulphur Channel. Matters neared their end when the enemy captured the Kowloon Forts and the dynamite and gunpowder stored on Stonecutters' Island were fired. At the last stand, on Stonecutters', the defenders were ultimately annihilated.\n\nThe Back Door evidently arose from the same anxiety that drove Britain's negotiations with China; concluded in 1898 when China granted the ninety-nine year lease of the New Territories, which Britain had requested as a protective buffer against attack.\n\nGillian Bickley discovered a copy of this story some years ago and it evidently fired her imagination, probably because as we all know, Hong Kong was invaded on 8th December, 1941, by the Japanese - also by superior forces - and ultimately capitulated on Christmas day. The Japanese, however, entered Hong Kong from the north, through the New Territories. Had the Japanese, she wonders, read The Back Door?",
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    {
        "id": 214903,
        "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-1999",
        "page_number": 318,
        "title": "RAS-1999",
        "content_text": "294\n\nI don't for one moment think they had. The Japanese invasion of Hong Kong was a \"natural extension\" of their campaign in China in the sense that they had already occupied southern China - across the border from Hong Kong - a considerable time before. Also, although there are innumerable examples to show that invasion from the sea can be a costly business if the beaches are in any way defended, in Hong Kong's case they weren't. A number of gun emplacements had been built on Hong Kong Island before the war but these would not have prevented an invasion at Deepwater Bay. And there certainly weren't any Allied troops around. The Japanese knew all this. I rather suspect that they invaded from the New Territories rather than assault Hong Kong Island at the outset because they believed that if and when they overran Hong Kong Island, the Allied forces would cross to Kowloon and thence to the New Territories and continue to wage guerrilla warfare for months, if not years. The Japanese had every reason to think that conquering the New Territories and Kowloon first would result in the Allied forces retreating to Hong Kong Island - which they did - where they could be \"bottled up\" - which they were.\n\nIn the round, however, this discussion is academic. The hard fact of the matter is that Hong Kong was simply not defendable with the forces available in December 1941. A successful defence would have required a force of enormous size and superbly equipped, supported by comprehensive fortifications. The \"protective buffer\" of the New Territories was never any more than an illusion. These arguments, incidentally, were as valid in 1897 as they were in 1941 and to that extent The Back Door was both disingenuous and unhelpful. September 1897 was evidently what the media refer to as a \"slow news\" month!\n\nHong Kong Invaded! A '97 Nightmare is a 'new, integrated and corrected' edition of The Back Door. Incidentally, although The Back Door was written in 1897, it is hard to avoid the suspicion that Gillian is having a gentle swipe at the momentous event in Hong Kong's history that occurred exactly 100 years later.\n\nThe actual story occupies but 56 pages of Gillian's book, including illustrations by Arthur Hacker. These, incidentally, are a disappointment. They are supposed to be illustrating a serious account of a battle fought to the last, with heroism and heavy loss of life on both sides. One would have thought, therefore, that they would have been",
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    {
        "id": 215928,
        "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-2002",
        "page_number": 227,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "161\n\nTHE MYTH OF UNPREPAREDNESS: THE ORIGINS OF ANTI-JAPANESE RESISTANCE IN PREWAR HONG KONG\n\nANNE OZORIO\n\n[Hon. Ed. - I was initially hesitant to sanction this article because it seemed to me to be significantly under-referenced, even to the extent of \"personal communications.\" It draws significantly upon Hong Kong Eclipse (Endacott and Birch, 1978), which is not acknowledged. Ms Ozorio contends that the referencing is adequate and assures me that, to the best of her knowledge and belief, the article is an accurate resumé of events. In accordance with the general principles of free expression I have left untouched Ms Ozorio's editorial comments on 'colonials,' 'the British,' colonial administration and society, and (Sir) Lindsay Ride.]\n\nHong Kong fell to the Japanese in eighteen days: the wonder was that it took so long. [Hon. Ed. - The doggedness of the resistance and the bravery of the defenders, perhaps? See Lawrence Lai's article in Vol. 39 of the Journal, pp.115-136.] In the cosy, cocooned world of colonial society, the invincibility of Empire was taken for granted. Despite all that was happening in China, many Europeans in Hong Kong just couldn't conceive that any Asiatic might challenge their superiority. There were anecdotes that the Japanese planes bombing China were secretly manned by Germans, since Japanese were night blind. As the colonials sat comfortably mocking them, Japanese waiters, barbers, and menials were listening. Many would appear later, no longer servile, in full dress uniform, revealing their true status as high-ranking intelligence agents. The overwhelming Japanese victory was a shock to those who believed that Empire was unassailable. They assumed automatically, that if they had been caught off balance, then the authorities too must have been unprepared. This, however, is a myth.\n\ni\n\nIn January, 1941, General Ismay declared that there was 'not the slightest chance of holding Hong Kong or relieving it. It is most unwise to increase the loss we shall suffer there. Instead of augmenting the garrison it should be reduced to a symbolic scale.' Defending a city crowded with a million civilians, little air cover, long supply lines and nowhere to retreat but the sea was a logistics nightmare. What may have been unimaginable for the average colonial civilian was clear",
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