[
    {
        "id": 208467,
        "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-1978",
        "page_number": 191,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "WOODBLOCK PRINTING,\n\nAN ESSENTIAL MEDIUM OF\n\nCULTURE INHERITANCE IN CHINESE HISTORY\n\nDAVID H. S. CHAU\n\nIntroduction: the development of writing and inscriptions\n\nIn ancient China, before characters had been developed, events were recorded by knotted cords and notched wooden sticks. Writing proper began from image forms of visible objects or ornaments. The First legendary Emperor Fu Hsi (伏羲) 2953 BC, the Third Emperor Huang Ti (黃帝) 2698 BC, and the Statesman Tsang Chich (倉頡) 2700 BC are the traditional inventors of the \"tadpole characters” (蝌蚪文) and the “bird-track script” (鳥跡文). They observed the animals and birds' tracks and imitated natural forms to create primitive characters and had them carved on stones.\n\nRecent excavations of ancient tombs in China revealed engravings in large quantity of tortoise shells and animal bones. These bones and shells are believed to have been used in the Shang Dynasty (商朝) 1600 BC by the priests or diviners of the court to communicate with the spirits of the dead, and since the dead consulted were mainly ancestors of the rulers, the bones were treated as sacred and were called \"Oracle Bones\" (甲骨). Whenever a prediction was needed --usually something to do with the weather or a battle--the priest or diviner would inscribe the question on a shell or a bone and then have it heated by fire. The bone or shell would become cracked after being burnt. It was believed that the diviner could read the signs showing on these cracks. The prediction was then also inscribed on the bone for record and future reference. The word \"predict\" in Chinese character is Pu (卜), which looks like a crack itself.\n\nInscriptions (銘文) were also found on Shang metallic wares. Most of the items recorded were in commemoration of certain ceremonies in the court or the glories of the battle.\n\nLater on, Chinese developed to use lacquer to record things on bamboo and wooden slips, and had a number of slips strung together to form books.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 211312,
        "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": 28,
        "title": "RAS-1988",
        "content_text": "social, demographic and economic situation of the late Ch'ien-lung and Chia-ch'ing periods led to an intensification of petty piracy as more and more gangs came into being, but not to any transformation of the phenomenon to a large scale or higher level of organization.\n\nThus we must next ask whether the growth in piracy was owing to outside patronage or support as was often the case with piracy throughout the rest of the world. In the first instance, the answer is \"yes\", for the immediate growth of piracy in China can be traced to the Tayson Rebellion in Vietnam and the creation of a privateer fleet by the Quang Trung Emperor (Nguyen Quang Trung). As a result of Tayson patronage, pirates, no longer forced to spend all of their energy on survival, could turn their attention to organization which became larger, more complex, and more permanent.\n\nWhereas pirate gangs of the pre-Tayson era had consisted of a score of men and a couple of vessels, by 1796 associations of a hundred men, and a dozen junks were not uncommon. Hierarchies comprised of patron-client relationships extending two, and sometimes even three, layers gradually appeared, and asylum in Vietnam allowed pirate leaders extraordinary opportunities for getting acquainted and cooperating in joint ventures. In creating privateers, the Tayson legalized piracy and thus radically transformed the status of its underworld practitioners who were instantly elevated from \"scourges of the sea\" to sailors in the king's navy. The result was a significant escalation in the scale of piracy.\n\nHowever, the heyday of the Tayson was short and their dethronement in 1802 left the Chinese pirates bereft once more of either a base or patronage. No longer were their activities regarded as \"legitimate” in any sense of the word and never would they be so again, yet, patronage notwithstanding, the pirates had come under Tayson sponsorship nowhere close to what would ultimately become their maximum growth. Thus, the Tayson era can be viewed as a kind of transition phase which allowed petty pirates to take the first and most crucial step in their own transformation. Yet, the period of the pirates' greatest strength still lay ahead and it came, not while they were allied to the Vietnamese, but rather after they had been forced out on their own into a hostile world in which they were regarded as the proverbial \"enemies of all mankind”.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1988.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q",
        "rank": 0
    }
]