[ { "id": 215106, "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-2000", "page_number": 202, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "159\n\nMeanwhile, General An's army was facing the threat of yet more foreign forces coming to the aid of the new emperor and the armies of Guo Ziyi. These were mainly Uighur and during the summer of 757 after the two Chinese capitals had been captured by the Uighurs, one of the cities, Luoyang, suffered several days of carnage and plunder. An was assassinated, some say by his son, Qingxu, others by a fellow rebel early in 757, but all agree that he was succeeded by his son who was in his turn murdered by his general, Shi Siming. Shi Siming was also a native of Liuchak, of Turkic descent, who had co-operated with An Lushan in his campaign against the Kitans. After the death of An Qingxu, he proclaimed himself emperor Yingtian Huangdi of the Great Yan dynasty.\n\nIn the east, severe fighting had been going on; but, owing to the valour displayed by the garrisons at Pingyuan and Chang Shan, the progress of the rebels in the direction of Shandong was checked. Nor were they more successful in their attempts to invade the Yangzi region. In the direction of Anhui, they were confronted by the stronghold of Suiyang,\n\nof which we will learn more later; and in the direction of Hubei, their advance was blocked by the city of Nanyang, both of these cities held out stubbornly. Shi Siming was in his turn murdered by his own son, who proclaimed himself emperor and reigned for a matter of months before he too was overthrown and put to death, thereby ending the four-year-old rebel dynasty. The rebellion had lost its impetus and festered on with intermittent battles until 763. Even during the last years, the outcome was far from certain. It was ultimately quelled and the dynasty regained the throne, but not before the emperor and his son and heir had both disappeared from the scene in death. This epic story is well known to all Chinese, having been related down the centuries throughout China by village tea-house storytellers.\n\nNow that we have a picture of the Rebellion, let us focus on the emperor Tang Ming Huang and the eight generals who took part in the suppression of the An Lushan rebellion and have become local, regional, and even nation-wide popular religion cult deities with their images, euhemerized heroes revered on a number of altars. Although images of leaders of various rebellions down the centuries have become popular religion cult deities, no image has been seen on altars of An Lushan.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215113, "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-2000", "page_number": 209, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "166\n\ncommunities outside mainland China, and also local non-Fukienese Chinese in the vicinity of Hangzhou, sometimes individually, alone on an altar or together as a pair.\n\nFrequently confused both by devotees and professional god carvers, the two deities are known to Chaozhou-speaking devotees as the Civil and Military Lords of Peace (Wenwu An Zunwang) or individually, Zhang Xun as Wen'an Zunwang and Xu Yuan as Wu'an Zunwang. They are also known by titles respectively [possibly within Chuanzhou communities only] as Baoyi Zunwang 保儀尊王 and Baoyi Dafu 保儀大夫. Both deities hereafter will be referred to as Zhang and Xu, and in a number of temples an individual, lone deity of either Zhang or Xu is known as the patron of local Zhang or Xu clans.\n\nThe most common story of the two heroes as related by a great number of temple keepers describes how Zhang and Xu were loyalists opposed to the rebel An Lushan. They died heroically defending the provincial city of Suiyang in Henan province in AD 757, which fell to the enemy after a siege of 49 days. Most temple keepers claim that they died by their own hands rather than fall into those of the enemy, though some claim that the heroic defenders were betrayed by cowards after the food gave out.\n\nZhang was born in Henan on either the 10th of the fourth or the 12th or 29th of the fifth lunar months in AD 709 and died with Xu on either the 15th of the second or the 9th of the tenth lunar months in 757. These are now celebrated annually with temple festivals in Zhang's honour.\n\nZhang was the military mandarin in Suiyang and is occasionally referred to in temple records as Zhang Suiyang. He had been employed in military operations in Central Asia before being posted to Suiyang, where his discipline was legendary. In 756, during the rebellion of An Lushan, he fought many battles, was wounded on a number of occasions, and performed prodigies of valour. The climax was reached by his heroic defence of Suiyang against the army of An Lushan's son. He refused to yield and even sacrificed his favourite concubine to no avail. The enemy broke in, and as he scorned to offer allegiance to his conqueror, was immediately put to death. It is said that during the siege", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215114, "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-2000", "page_number": 210, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "167\n\nhis patriotic rage caused him to grind his teeth so that after his death it was found that all but three or four had been worn down to the very gums.\n\nXu was a civil mandarin, the prefect of Suiyang, a native of Yanguang in Gansu province, who was posthumously awarded the title Weixian Wang by the emperor. His festival is celebrated on his birthday, the 29th of the first, or the 2nd of the sixth lunar months. In Mucha near Taipei an image of Xu's consort stands on a rear altar in his temple.\n\nAlthough their images are to be seen in most of their temples together, both on the same altar, in a few places they are also to be seen individually as the lone main deity on an altar. Further complications include both deities noted individually on altars in temples where the temple keepers deny that their particular individual deity is in any way connected with the other deity who is not present.\n\nWhen they are together as joint main deities their images are very similar and cannot easily be identified apart. They are usually portrayed as customary military figures, dressed in armour, sitting on thrones and holding unsheathed swords but without any unique identifying characteristics. In many temples they have a pair of military and civil aides flanking their altars and, in one instance, in Tainan, Zhang has an 'army' represented by six miniature images of military and civil aides on the altar table before his main altar.\n\nAmong the many legends told about these two deities one related in a Chaozhou temple in Bangkok related how the cult came from \"the north” and arrived in Chaoyang, a small city on the coast of Guangdong just south of Swatow [Shantou]. Zhong Ying, a Song dynasty soldier [ca. AD 1200], whilst escorting taxes gathered in Chaozhou to the capital was resting overnight in a temple somewhere in central China when he heard voices of Xu and Zhang, the two deities on the main altar, instructing him to carry their images on his return to Chaozhou to spread their cult into southern China, which he duly did.\n\nAccording to the Chaoyang county annals a force of foreigners [red-haired bandits] attacked Swatow [Shantou] in 1854. They were repulsed by the Chinese defenders when the latter were aided by giant apparitions of Zhang and Xu who, amidst a host of horsemen, came to\n\nPage 210\n\nPage 211", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215115, "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-2000", "page_number": 211, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "168\n\ntheir aid.12 Thus it was that although neither of the two deities had ever set foot in the Chaozhou area during their human existence, yet their divine spirits helped the native Chaozhou people and became their patrons. Chaozhou emigrants to Taiwan bore their cult from their local cult centre at Chaoyang, together with images, over to the new lands where at present there are some ten or so temples dedicated to the pair.\n\nSeveral versions of the tales of their heroism during the siege of Suiyang are related by temple keepers and devotees. Individual stories about Zhang and Xu are well known to Chaozhou devotees, describing how they dug holes to catch rats during the siege, and about Zhang slaughtering his beloved concubine, either to spare her being taken by the enemy or, more morbidly, to be eaten by the starving defenders. Each of the stories highlights their heroism in the face of starvation with no hope of relief from the siege, and their choice of death rather than surrender.\n\nThe two deities are revered together on the main altar in at least five temples in Taiwan. Zhang has some eight temples dedicated to him alone in Taiwan, whilst Xu has a further nine. A further fifteen temples contain one of these two deities under their other titles, with both deities, again under their true names of Xu and Zhang, being noted as the main deity on secondary altars.\n\nA Chuanzhou immigrant named Chen brought an incense pot with him from the cult centre of Baoyi Dafu [Zhang Xun] in Fujian and set it up as a branch temple in Shen Keng village near Taipei. According to temple lore, the deified Zhang Xun proved very efficacious in helping villagers with both good fortune and excellent harvests. Later, as the cult developed, it emerged from dream messages that Baoyi Dafu was also very effective in coping with the ravages of insect pests and, moreover, had won local renown by helping Chinese immigrants overcome the original hill tribesmen.\n\nHowever, in the centre and south of the Taipei Basin, Xu and Zhang together were known by Chuanzhou Fukienese by the single title of Wang Gong 尪公, Wang Yuanshuai 尪元帥 or Wang Wang 王王. Their local legend claims that Wang Gong appeared to a temple keeper in a dream, warning him and the local inhabitants of the San Hsia, Mucha, and Hsintien areas of an intended raid by head-hunting tribesmen from", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215117, "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-2000", "page_number": 213, "title": "RAS-2000", "content_text": "170\n\nThere would appear to be two minor generals also in this story. Several temples in the Chia I and Yunlin coastal strip of Taiwan are dedicated to the Three Princes, San Wangye Zhang, Li and Mo. These were identified in the temples as Zhang Xun with two of his subordinate generals, Li and Mo, both of whom died with him at Suiyang5 One temple keeper related the story of how Mo Ying15, whose real name was Gai TuoE, was one of the generals at the siege of Suiyang with Zhang Xun and his sworn brother, who committed suicide when Zhang was executed and quartered.\n\nTwo further minor soldiers, again generals who served under Zhang and Xu whose images have also been seen on altars in Taiwan and Fujian province beside those of Zhang and Xu, are Lei WanchunS, an image either with a black face with six or seven golden stars on it or with a red face, and Nan JiyunE, an image with a blue face.\n\nNothing is known about General Nan; however, General Lei Wanchun, a native of Hebei province, was a military officer who served under General Zhang Xun in the first half of the 8th century AD, commanding the garrison in the area to the north of Xi'an, within the loop of the Yellow River. During the An Lushan revolt Lei was besieged by rebel forces in Luoyang, the secondary capital of the Tang. He remonstrated with An's forces from the garrison walls accusing them of being traitors to the Tang and remained there even though six rebel arrows had struck him. He continued to exhort the rebels to surrender until his forces were overcome and he died with them. His image usually has six or seven spots on the face where, so it is claimed, the arrows pierced him. During the reign of the Qing Kang Xi emperor a military officer named Zai carried an image of Lei over to Taiwan where his cult developed and he is now revered in some dozen or so temples in and around the central plain of the West coast.\n\nA protective Wangye, a pestilence deity, in Jiali, a town just north of Tainan city, better known as the General of the Lei clan, Lei Fu Jiangjun, is the secondary deity on the altar of a small temple. The history as recorded in the temple explains that the original temple, having been badly damaged by an earthquake in 1862, was rebuilt and enlarged by devotees. During the hard labouring necessary to achieve their aim the spirit of the then main deity, General Lei, having transformed himself into an old man dressed in a feather coat, went", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2000.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215302, "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-2001", "page_number": 79, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "27\n\n'Establishment of Spring' starting on the fifth of February, Gregorian reckoning. A wu day would have been a day which showed a stem-branch combination that contained the character wu. The day of interest here would occur some forty to fifty days after the first day of the Li Chun. So this day would have fallen sometime by mid-March, generally in the second moon, but at varying dates there. This day was called She Ri 'She Day'. It seems likely that it was celebrated according\n\nto the date provided by the official calendar-chronicles from Yingshan Magistracy (in De'an Prefecture), Suiyang Magistracy 陽縣 (in Wuchang Prefecture 武昌府) and Wuchang Magistracy 武昌 (also in Wuchang Prefecture) place the festival in the second moon.3\n\nIt is not so easy to say what the She was in late imperial times in this lake land in Central China. In terms of State rituals there was still an imperial sacrifice in the spring on an altar southwest of the palace in the capital, devoted to She Ji *. Sometimes this two-character name is understood as referring to one deity, sometimes as to a combination of two-She being the god ruling the land and Ji the divine controller of grain crops. There was a hierarchy of provincial, prefectural and magistratial She Ji, who were all part of the imperial official state cult. The imperial offering was the exclusive privilege of the Emperor. Before his sacrifice the altar was covered with earth of five colours - a colorific togetherness which expressed the total universe, and thereby the generative and destructive power of the five activities, wu xing 4. A special stone tablet was erected in the middle. After the ceremony this was taken down and buried in the ground until the next occasion for worship.4\n\nIn some areas in the south, present-day villagers tend to see the She as a chthonic registrar of deaths and births, an earth god who is thus associated with both death and human fecundity. More generally it appears as if the She in many areas of China signified a notion of locality. Both the Imperial cult and the present day Cantonese example may serve us as pointers, but what the demotic ideas about the She, and the She Day, actually were in the area surrounding Lake Dongting a few hundred years ago, is something we must try to glean from the\n\n3 古今圖書集成.1888. VI,1166: 風俗考毯4a; 1120:風俗考2b4b.\n\n4 Bredon & Mitrophanow 1972: 63-64.\n\n5 Aijmer & Ho 2000: 37-41 and Yang 1961: 98-99.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215303, "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-2001", "page_number": 80, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "28\n\nsparse evidence we have from local chronicles.\n\nIn Gong'an Magistracy (in Jingzhou Prefecture) people hoped for rain on the She day as this was a good omen. In the same vein we find a note from Tongshan Magistracy (in Wuchang Prefecture) to the effect that if it rained on the She Day, it was said: 'She Weng yu rain of the Worthy She'. A rustic proverb had it that 'She Gong Mr. She'--and 'She Mu Lady She'--'do not drink old water'. The metaphor here was that the fresh water of the spring rains was drunk by the earth. It is interesting to note that the proverb insists on a female counterpart to the She.\n\nIn Yingshan Magistracy there were si offerings to the She; these were spoken of as qi gu 'prayer for grain'. Similar offerings, but this time described as jiao libations, occurred here in Yingshan on the third day of the third moon, later on in the spring. On the She Day we encounter offerings taking place in Zhongxiang Magistracy, the capital in Anlu Prefecture, and here we get some more detail concerning the rustic population. The chronicler describes how the celebration engaged wu and xi male and female sorcerers-who appeared with drums and singing, thus welcoming the shen spirits. With 'arms joined' they were stamping on the ground, all this being a ge jie ji 'an offering of rhythmic singing'. Everyone drank She wine and shared She meat. The wine was supposed to cure deafness. Sacrificial meats (sheng) and sweet wine (li) are also mentioned from Wuling Magistracy, the capital of Changde Prefecture. From Jiangling Magistracy, the capital of Jingzhou Prefecture, we get a description of She fan 'She food' -which was a mixture of pork and mutton put inside a pumpkin. The magistracy of Suiyang is said to have been a place where four neighbourhoods combined to ji offer to ben jing She shen 'the local She spirit'. People shared out delicacies\n\n6 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1193: 風俗考 3b.\n\n7 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1120: 風俗考 6ab.\n\n8 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1166: 風俗考 4a.\n\n9 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1166: 風俗考 4ab.\n\n10 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1142: 風俗考 2a.\n\n11 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1259: 風俗考 1b.\n\n12 古今圖書集成, 1888. VI, 1193: 風俗考 2a.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215304, "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-2001", "page_number": 81, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "and sacrificial meats (zuo IF) that had been used in the ji sacrifice.13\n\n29\n\nThe oldest source we have is from the Liang dynasty (502-556 AD), a thematically organized chronicle accounting for the customs of the lake land in Central China, called Jing Chu sui shi ji, or Records of the Seasons in Jing and Chu. It is very apparent that this text has had an influence on later scribes. For instance, it is quite clear that the compiler of the record of Suiyang has copied from the old Records the note saying that four neighbourhoods combined to celebrate the She. This description of social organization might not have been very accurate in late Imperial times, nor can we assume that it was anything more than an idealized picture in early medieval China. Perhaps it only means that a vicinage had one centrally located She altar. The Liang source also mentions sacrificial meats and strong wine and in this there may have been more of a true historical continuity through the centuries.14\n\n16\n\nThe chronicler of Wuling magistracy juxtaposes the celebrations of the She with the vernal breaking of the earth in agriculture and the inundation of the fields in the second moon.15 Some names also indicate an agricultural connection: In Yingshan the offerings to the She were called qi gu 'prayers for grain'16 and the day seems to have been known as gu ri—'grain day'. As was noted above, the peasants of Suiyang were on this day forecasting inundations, droughts and tao rice growing in the fields'. There was a saying here: She zhong xin *£*—'to sow the new [crop] at She [time]'. There can be no doubt that the day of the She and its celebrations were connected with the new agricultural season, the breaking of the earth in the spring and the sowing of the rice grains.\n\nIn a sense the Li Chun festival was a precursor of the She Day. The latter was officially calculated on the basis of the occurrence of the former. Both festivals were concerned with the breaking of earth, but it seems clear from this juxtaposition that Li Chun was more 'prospecting' and anticipating—an official recognition of the arrival of\n\n13 古今圖書集成.1888.VI,1120:風俗考4b.\n\n14 On the Jing Chu sui shi ji, see Turban 1971: 3-46.\n\n15 古今圖書集成.1888.VI,1259:風俗考1b.\n\n16 古今圖書集成.1888.VI,1166: 風俗考4a.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215306, "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-2001", "page_number": 83, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "31\n\nShe further on in the year, by the summer solstice, when people in Changsha Prefecture sacrificed to the She and provided the earth god with wine.”\n\nIn some places the She Day was also associated with visits to the graves of the dead. This was so already in the early Liang dynasty in the sixth century when the chronicler notes that there were sheng-meat-offerings to the dead on the She Day.23 A much later account describing Yuanjiang Magistracy in Changde Prefecture tells us that on the She Day and earlier, people suspended paper—possibly ritual paper stripes or paper money—on the graves and swept them. There was a maxim saying: 'For new graves, one should not pass the She; for old graves one suspends [paper] when thirty nights have passed'.24 In Wuchang Magistracy people sacrificed fresh things on the graves on the She Day of the second moon.25 In Suiyang the graves were decorated with twigs and banners on the She Day and there were ji offerings.26\n\nIn an earlier essay27 I have discussed the visit to graves at springtime in the lake area of southern Hubei and northern Hunan. Grave rituals were most prominent in the solar period of Qing Ming and seem to have been one of the cardinal activities in a grand exchange of visits and counter-visits between the dead and their living descendants. This ritual scheme of reciprocity over time was parallel with the agricultural year and integrated into the major structure of the annual progression of festivals. The graves were swept and cleaned, which paralleled the weeding and preparation of the soil in the rice nurseries. There were offerings to the dead of food, generally in some sort of commensality. There was a gift-giving combined with the insertion of bamboo branches with hanging paper money on top of the graves. These bamboos can be seen in the area even today. Gifts corresponded to sowing—the dead and the soil were closely related in iconic symbolism. These visits to the graves and the dead were later rewarded by counter-visits of the ancestors to their living progeny, which occurred on the\n\n22 古今圖書集成. 1888. II, 1142: 山川考 8b.\n\n23 沅江縣志: 1807-19, 卷18, 風俗 2b.\n\n24 古今圖書集成. 1888. VI, 1120: 風俗考 2b.\n\n25 古今圖書集成. 1888. VI, 1120: 風俗考 4b.\n\n26 Aijmer 1979.\n\n27 Aijmer 1964.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215598, "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-2001", "page_number": 375, "title": "RAS-2001", "content_text": "بلد\n\n325\n\nthey listened to his plans to modernise China and how he could raise the capital to assist them succeed in doing so, they always went their own ways, often adapting his plans but - as he stressed - without his guiding hand they were never the success they could have been had he been permitted to supervise them.\n\nIn 1905 he described how back in 1879 he had travelled to Sichuan from Guiyang where he had been trying to persuade the Guizhou Provincial Governor, Chen Yuying, to develop the resources of the province by means of a railway from Guiyang to Yongxian in Guangxi province, connecting that city with Canton by a line of steamers on the Yun and West Rivers. He then spent over six months in Chongqing, again offering to supply funds and plans for building suitable steamers to navigate the upper waters of the Yangzi, through the Gorges as far as Chongqing and beyond to Yibin. He added that he was able to speak with authority on the navigation of the upper Yangzi by steamers, \"but no one would listen to me, and even intelligent foreigners, when consulted on the subject, declared I was a visionary and an imaginator of many impractical plans. Some ten days later in a subsequent issue of his Miscellany he wrote 'Whilst here in Shanghai in November 1875, I offered to superintend the construction of a suitable steam-boat for navigation on the upper Yangzi, as far up as Yibin and Chengdu, but the wise Britishers of those days declared that was an impossibility, because British naval officers had studied the subject and declared it to be impossible. I proved to be a good quarter of a century ahead of the progressive age.' Steam-boats now navigate the Upper Yangzi for all that, though they are not as useful as they might have been, had they been devised and constructed under the guidance of a mastermind!\n\n3\n\nPaul King : In the Chinese Customs Service: Heath and Cranton Ltd : London : 1924.\n\nArchibald John Little : Through the Yang-tse Gorges or Trade and Travel in Western China: Sampson Low, Marston & Co.: London : 1898 [Third and Revised Edition].\n\nFacing p. 288 of Little's book, Through the Yang-tse Gorges or Trade and Travel in Western China.\n\nWilliam Mesny: Mesny's Chinese Miscellany : Shanghai : 1st January\n\nPage 375\n\nPage 376", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216029, "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-2002", "page_number": 328, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "262\n\nWar in 218 AD between two of the Three Kingdoms [San Guo], between Sun Quan of Wu and Liu Bei of Shu, led amongst other things to the capture of the city of Qingzhou. One of Liu Bei's generals, Guan Yu, hurried south to defend the city but was ambushed, captured and decapitated by Sun Quan after he refused to change sides. Guan was later deified as is now the immensely popular deity, the Patron of Uniformed Bodies and is known as the God of Loyalty, Guan Di. Thus, the founder of Zhenjiang had the distinction of slaying the consequent Patron deity of Soldiers, Firemen and Detectives and the second most popular god on Chinese popular religion altars.\n\nIn the first years of the 6th century AD the first emperor of the Liang dynasty, Wu Di, who was renowned for his support of Buddhism and the Buddhist clergy, visited Zhenjiang. He had been visited by a divine monk in a dream who urged Wu Di to institute a great fast in order to rescue all sentient beings from the miseries of their existence. The Emperor ordered a new monastery to be built at Tse Hsin [Zexin], known today as Jin Shan to accommodate the Congress held in AD 507, and for centuries within the monastery there was a building known as the Hall of Liang Wang. This tradition is at odds with the date usually given for the founding of the monastery - AD 317.\n\nOur next story involves a deified hero who had nothing to do with Zhenjiang in life but, for some unknown reason, his cult would appear to have become centralised along the Grand Canal and especially at Zhenjiang. He is a canonised hero of the Tang dynasty, but one of a pair whose images elsewhere appear together on popular religion temple altars. These two euhemerised heroes, Zhang Xun and Xu Yuan, ***, have been seen on altars in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Beijing, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South-east Asia. These two protective deities are known individually as the Venerable King of Peaceful Pacification, Wen'an Zunwang ✰✰ E [Zhang Xun] and the Venerable King of Military Pacification, Wu'an Zunwang ✯✯ [Xu Yuan] though they will\n\n+\n\nbe referred to hereafter simply as Zhang and Xu.\n\nThe most common history of the two heroes as related by a great number of temple keepers describes how Zhang and Xu, loyalists during the reign of Tang Ming Huang, opposed the rebellion led by An Lushan. They died heroically in AD 757 during the civil war defending the provincial city of Suiyang in Henan province which fell to the enemy", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216030, "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-2002", "page_number": 329, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "263\n\nafter a siege of 49 days. Most accounts claim that they died by their own hands rather than fall into those of the enemy.\n\nOur interest lies in Zhang. He was born in Henan in AD 709 and died with Xu on either the 15th of the second or the 9th of the tenth lunar months in 757. Zhang was the military mandarin in Suiyang and is occasionally referred to in temple records as Zhang Suiyang. Before being posted to Suiyang he had been employed in military operations in Central Asia where his discipline was legendary. In 756 during the rebellion of An Lushan he fought many battles, was wounded on a number of occasions and performed prodigies of valour. The climax was reached by his heroic defence of the Henan provincial city of Suiyang against the rebel army commanded by An Lushan's son. Zhang refused to yield and even sacrificed his favourite concubine to no avail. The enemy broke in and as he scorned to owe allegiance to his conqueror was immediately put to death. It is said that during the siege his patriotic rage caused him to grind his teeth so that after his death it was found that all but three or four had been worn down to the very gums.\n\nIn central China the rain and crop deity, the Bodhisattva of the Whole of Heaven, Doutian Pusa or the Marshal of the Whole of Heaven, Doutian Yuanshuai, was believed to be an incarnation of Zhang who, it was said, had intervened to assist the imperial forces during the Taiping wars ca. 1855 and had been awarded the title of Zhangwei. His major local shrine is some distance outside the southern gate of Zhenjiang, a little beyond the shell of a Ming pagoda. There was also a shrine to him in the city's new main street, Ma Lu; another in a village on the road to the Bamboo Grove, and yet another in the village of Doutian Miao where the Imperial battery had been located on the north shore of the Yangzi abreast of Jiao Shan. Annually, during the Fourth lunar month, Zhenjiang was crowded with country folk who came to enjoy the procession of gods being borne through the streets of the city, including the image of Doutian Pusa.\n\nWhen the Tang dynasty collapsed China fell back into feudal kingdoms, one of which was the Xiu dynasty of Nantang. Under their rule the walls of Zhenjiang were repaired. Xiu Lijing succeeded his father in 946 and during his reign he annexed what today is Fujian province and added it to his dominion of Jiangxi, most of Anhui and Jiangsu, thus becoming one of the largest states in China at the time.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216062, "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-2002", "page_number": 361, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "295\n\nregular aside about their breasts and occasionally their naked crotch. He also made much of his affairs with Chinese women and at this point, in 1864 had a 'romantic and intimate interlude' with a young Chinese widow. She did not appear to be short of money and, having sought Mesny's company, accompanied him up river from Zhenjiang to Hankou where they remained until she left to join her in-laws in 1865. He had been away for a fortnight to the cotton growing districts and on his return had been handed a very polite letter from the 'fair charmer' thanking him for all his attentions to her and informing him that she was continuing on to her late husband's home in Hunan there to rear her children and end her days in virtuous widowhood. She ended, wishing him joy and happiness, by saying that the Chinese banker would hand Mesny a little keepsake to be retained by him in everlasting remembrance of their unexpected meeting at Zhenjiang, their romantic adventures and intimacy on the voyage up the Great River, and their separation for ever at Hankou.\n\nMesny's visit to Zhenjiang 1874\n\nAfter he had left military service in 1874 Mesny made frequent and repeated egotistical assertions to prominence and repute within Chinese bureaucracy and commercial circles with his endeavours, so he claimed, concentrated on guiding and promoting what he described as the westernisation and modernisation in China. It is far from clear how he made a living after 1874 though later we read in his Miscellanies that he had obtained lucrative business in Guiyang at one stage; that in 1886 he had an insurance agency in Shanghai; and was also the representative for the Lartigue Railway Construction Company. He must have had many other irons in the fire to enable him to travel so widely and so far within China, of which only a few were described in his Miscellanies.\n\nIn late 1874 he travelled down river to Zhenjiang and then overland through Shandong to Beijing, spending the winter in Jinan. From the dates he gives in his autobiographical notes Mesny must have left his bride fairly soon after their marriage as he travelled through Shantung province on his way to Peking from Chen-kiang' [Mesny does not explain why he was there though almost certainly it would have been no more than a port on his journey from Hankou to Shandong]. In Shandong he visited, amongst other places, the home and burial place of Confucius at", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]