[
    {
        "id": 204651,
        "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-1963",
        "page_number": 132,
        "title": "RAS-1963",
        "content_text": "118\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nthe Yangtse was now open to foreign trade and navigation for almost 1,400 miles from the sea, and access had been gained to the rich and populous province of Szechuen, of which Chungking was the chief port.\n\nThe section of the river between Ichang and Chungking was known as the Upper River, and the first steamer to navigate this section belonged to Archibald Little, whose Y-Ling had been the first steamer to navigate the Middle River. Little was a member of a well-known Shanghai family, and he was the real pioneer of steam navigation on the Upper Yangtse. He had commenced his career as a tea taster for a German firm in Kiukiang in 1859, but soon went into business on his own and was one of the first to appreciate the possibility of trade in Szechuen Province and beyond in Tibet. He settled in Chungking soon after it became a treaty port, and started up several industries connected with wool, bristles, and coal—to mention some of the more prominent, and also engaged in marine insurance, specialising in covering cargoes on the Upper Yangtse.1 The Shanghai Chamber of Commerce had sent two prominent British merchants—Alexander Michie and Robert Francis—up the Yangtse to Chungking as early as 1869, to investigate trade prospects there, but no important developments followed. In 1887 Little made a much more intensive trip from Ichang to Chungking by junk, and formed the opinion that there were great possibilities for trade in Szechuen Province and beyond. The following year he attempted to run a steamer service between Ichang and Chungking with a stern wheeler specially built on the Clyde called the Kuling. Because of a clause in the Chefoo Convention stipulating that foreign steamers could only go to Chungking after Chinese steamers had gone there, the Kuling was not allowed to go beyond Ichang. Little then sold her to the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company, who employed her on the Hankow-Ichang service.\n\nOne of his brothers was a famous editor of the North China Daily News, and another a well-known doctor in Shanghai.\n\n[Robert Swinhoe, British Consul at Amoy was sent up the Yangtse by Sir Rutherford Alcock, British Minister at Peking, in March 1869 to enquire into the trade of the Upper River. He reached Chungking in May of the same year. His account of this journey was published in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society Vol. XL (1870), pp. 268-85. It is accompanied by a folding map of the Upper River from the Tungting Lake to Chungking compiled from the charts made by two survey officers specially sent up the Yangtse for this purpose. Ed.]",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 204654,
        "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-1963",
        "page_number": 135,
        "title": "RAS-1963",
        "content_text": "NAVIGATION ON THE YANGTSE \n\n121 \n\nA mere recital of the dates on which the different ports and sections of the Yangtse were opened to foreign trade gives little idea of the difficulties encountered in establishing regular steamer services on the river. Some of these difficulties were political, some economic, and some technical. Physical factors inclined to divide the river into three sections - Lower, Middle, and Upper. The Lower River was the 600 miles from the mouth to Hankow, navigable for ships of up to 10,000 tons in the high water season, and for ships of about half that size all year round. The Middle River was the 340 miles from Hankow to Ichang, and this was navigable for 3,000 ton ships in the high water season, and for slightly smaller ships all year round. The third section was the Upper River, the 400 miles from Ichang to Chungking, which included the famous Yangtse Gorges. At Chungking the bed of the river is 600 feet above sea level, as compared with 130 feet at Ichang, and it is this fall of 470 feet in 400 miles, 1.17 feet per mile, which is the cause of the strong currents and rapids in this section of the river. Only small, very powerful, and specially designed ships could navigate the Upper River. There are some seventy gorges and rapids on the Upper Yangtse, and at some places the river is only 150 yards wide. It is probably the most dangerous stretch of water in the world, and the Chinese estimated that one in ten of junks going through were seriously damaged, and one in twenty lost, while a thousand lives were lost each year. Judging by the many accidents and near accidents, and the callous disregard of life shown by junk men, this is probably an under-estimate. There is some justification, therefore, for an old Chinese saying that \"it is more difficult to ascend to Szechuen than to heaven\". \n\nDuring the high water season ships of up to 1,400 tons could navigate the Upper Yangtse between Ichang and Chungking, but in the low water season ships of less than half that size could do so. Companies operating on the Upper Yangtse, therefore, had two types of ship, one for the high water and one for the low water season. \n\nThere was a bewildering variety of native craft operating on the different sections of the Yangtse, ranging from the large ocean-going junks which sailed on the Lower River and to coast ports, to the smallest junks on the highest reaches of the river above \n\nPage 135\n\nPage 136",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 204657,
        "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-1963",
        "page_number": 138,
        "title": "RAS-1963",
        "content_text": "124\n\nA. D. BLUB\n\nwith the Middle River steamers for the next stage of Ichang. At Ichang another change was made into the Upper River steamers for the journey through the Gorges to Chungking, where motor launches took over for the final stages to Sui Fu and Chengtu. In the high water season some of the Lower River steamers extended their run to Ichang, and some of the Upper River steamers extended their run to Sui Fu, but Chungking was usually regarded as the upper limit of navigation for all practical purposes.\n\nChungking became internationally famous when it became China's war time capital. Before that it was comparatively unknown to the outside world, although, under various names, a city has occupied the site for some 4,000 years. It is a unique site, a high, rocky bluff on the peninsula formed by the junction of the Yangtse and the Kialing Rivers, nearly 1,400 miles from the mouth of the Yangtse, and in the very heart of China. At this point the normal variation between high and low water seasons is 75 feet, and has been known to reach 100 feet. In the low water season the city is reached by innumerable broad flights of steps leading up from the river, most flights having 240 steps. The transport of goods from the river to the city provided work for an army of porters and ponies. Until 1934 all the water for the city was carried up those steps by coolies who earned the equivalent of a farthing for a load of two heavy wooden buckets.\n\nWhen A. G. Morrison passed through the city in 1894 he estimated the population to be about 200,000. He described the coolies as being hungry and wretched in the midst of plenty, and riddled with malaria and phthisis. Although he estimated that about 40% of the men and 5% of the women were opium smokers, he thought it a law-abiding city. Szechuen is one of the richest provinces in China, and Chungking's exports included silk, hides and skins, bristles, tung oil, musk, rhubarb, and wool, some of these things coming from Tibet.\n\nThe loss of the German steamer Suichsiang in 1900 and a narrow escape of H.M.S. Woodlark in the same year, coupled with the Boxer troubles, postponed the establishment of a regular steamer service between Ichang and Chungking for several years. When this was eventually established in 1908 the honour belonged to a Chinese company, the Szechuen Steam Navigation Company. The formation of this company was largely due to the inspiration",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 204658,
        "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-1963",
        "page_number": 139,
        "title": "RAS-1963",
        "content_text": "NAVIGATION ON THE YANGTSE \n\n125 \n\nand enthusiasm of Captain Cornell Plant who occupies the place of honour next to Archibald Little in the history of Upper Yangtse navigation. Little met Plant in London when the Pioneer was nearing completion, and infected Plant (whose previous experience of river work had been command of a paddle steamer on the Euphrates) with his enthusiasm for the Upper Yangtse. Plant took over the Pioneer and commanded her on her early voyages, and the Upper River fascinated him as it had Little. After the Pioneer was taken over by the Royal Navy, Plant built himself a large houseboat and traded successfully between Ichang and Chungking for several years, studying the Upper River in its varying moods and seasons. In 1907 he persuaded a group of Chinese merchants and officials in Chungking to make a further attempt to establish a regular steamer service, and the Szechuen Steam Navigation was formed, 40% of the capital coming from official sources. Their first ship, the Shuting, was built by Thorneycroft at Southampton under Plant's supervision, and he commanded her on her first voyage in 1908, and for the first five years of her successful operations.16 The Szechuen Steam Navigation Company's Shuting was soon followed by the China Navigation Company's Shutung, and both ships maintained a regular service between Ichang and Chungking, except for the three winter months — January to March — of low water. Both the Shutung and the Shuting were about 115 feet long with a draft of 3 feet, and both towed a float alongside for both passengers and cargo. If the current was too strong at any of the gorges or rapids the steamer went ahead on her own, tied up at the head, and then pulled the float up after her. Sometimes the steamer half steamed and half pulled herself up by her windlass. For this reason the Upper River steamers had very powerful windlasses and capstans, but even with this help there were some rapids it was impossible to overcome without further help. Then gangs of coolies called trackers, were employed, and there were villages at certain places whose sole raison d'être was to supply these trackers. The first steamer to go up the whole distance from Ichang to Chungking solely under her own power was the Szechuen Steam Navigation \n\n10 Plant joined the Chinese Maritime Customs in 1913 as River Inspector for the Upper River, which post he held at his death in Hong Kong in 1921. He is buried in Happy Valley alongside his wife. See his Glimpses of the Yangtse Gorges, 2nd edn., (Kelly and Walsh, 1936) which contains some interesting photographs.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 204663,
        "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-1963",
        "page_number": 144,
        "title": "RAS-1963",
        "content_text": "130\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nAPPENDIX\n\nMain Companies mentioned in this article with ships plying on\n\nthe Yangtse.\n\nSHANGHAI STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY 1862-1877.\n\nFounded by Russell & Co.\n\nCHINA NAVIGATION COMPANY. Founded 1872 by John Swire. Managed by John Swire & Sons of London, and represented in the Far East by Butterfield and Swire. This Company still runs on the China Coast.\n\nCHINA MERCHANTS STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY.\n\nFounded 1873. Chinese owned. It still continues to operate.\n\nINDO-CHINA STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY.\n\nFounded 1881 by Jardine, Matheson & Co. Now operates in the Far East generally with occasional calls at China ports.\n\nNISSHIN KISEN KAISHA. Founded 1907. Japanese owned.\n\nSZECHUEN STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY. Founded 1908. Chinese owned.\n\n1",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1963.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 204929,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1965",
        "page_number": 37,
        "title": "RAS-1965",
        "content_text": "30\n\nSIR JOHN BOWRING\n\npoor in their declining years. Age may also be pleaded in ex-tenuation of crime, and in mitigation of punishment. Imperial decrees sometimes order presents to be given to all indigent old people in the empire. I am not aware of any detailed statistics giving the number of such recipients since a return published in the time of Kanghi (1657). Kienlung (1785) directed that all those claimants whose age exceeded 60, should receive 5 bushels of rice and a piece of linen; those above 80, 10 bushels of rice and two pieces of linen; those above 90, 30 bushels of rice and two pieces of common silk; and those above 100, 50 bushels of rice, and two pieces, one of fine and one of common silk. He ordered all the elders to be enumerated who were at the head of five generations, of whom there were 192, and, \"in gratitude to heaven,\" summoned 3,000 of the oldest men of the empire to receive Imperial presents, which consisted principally of em-broidered purses, and badges bearing the character # shau, meaning Longevity.\n\nThe Kanghi Tables, shewing the numbers who enjoyed the benefit of the Edict are these:\n\n  \n    PROVINCES\n    Above 70 Years\n    Above 80 Years\n    Above 90 Years\n    Above 100 Years\n    TOTALS\n  \n  \n    Chihle\n    11,111\n    535\n    11\n    646\n    \n  \n  \n    Leaoutung\n    244\n    88\n    5\n    \n    337\n  \n  \n    Kansuh\n    41,991\n    9,043\n    250\n    \n    51,284\n  \n  \n    Shantung\n    65,225\n    26,067\n    1,330\n    9\n    92,631\n  \n  \n    Honan\n    8,132\n    3,651\n    451\n    5\n    12,239\n  \n  \n    Keangnan\n    34,088\n    +\n    1,065\n    3\n    35,156\n  \n  \n    Chekeang\n    21,866\n    982\n    \n    \n    22,848\n  \n  \n    Shanse\n    13,382\n    11,582\n    317\n    \n    25,281\n  \n  \n    Hookwang\n    \n    37,354\n    25,544\n    2,850\n    65,752\n  \n  \n    Keangse\n    7,190\n    580\n    +\n    \n    7,770\n  \n  \n    Kwangtung\n    17,369\n    9,415\n    591\n    \n    27,375\n  \n  \n    Kwangse\n    \n    \n    \n    \n    \n  \n  \n    Fuhkeen\n    489\n    114\n    \n    \n    \n  \n  \n    Szechuen\n    10,213\n    5,232\n    369\n    \n    \n  \n  \n    Kweichow\n    176\n    99\n    13\n    \n    \n  \n  \n    Yunnan\n    749\n    94\n    603\n    \n    \n  \n  \n    \n    15,814\n    288\n    843\n    \n    \n  \n  \n    \n    +++\n    \n    \n    \n    \n  \n  \n    TOTALS\n    184,086\n    169,850\n    9,996\n    21\n    373,935",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 204930,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1965",
        "page_number": 38,
        "title": "RAS-1965",
        "content_text": "The Population of China\n\n31\n\nAs these returns bear no proportion to the general population of the country, or to the relative extent of the various provinces, many fortuitous and local circumstances must have caused the obvious incongruities. For example: in the adjacent provinces of Kwangtung and Kwangse, in which the whole mass of population is in the proportion of two to one, the recipients are as 46 to 1, and as regards age, while the proportion of those above 80 is represented at 19 to 1, those above 90 are only a little more than 5 to 1. In all these matters the greater or less co-operation of the local authorities is one of the most important elements in producing a result. Kwangse is extremely mountainous, and bordered on the northwest by the country of the Meaou-tsz, or aborigines, the districts adjoining which are but in a half-reclaimed state, and governed by officers of a character and denomination distinct from those of the Provinces. But it is inexplicable that the province of Pechile, in which Peking is situated, should exhibit so small a proportional return, especially as compared with the adjacent province of Shantung. Hoo Kwang, with a population of 26 millions, has 37,354 indigent persons above 70, while Szechuen, whose population is 21 millions, presents only 176 persons in that category.\n\nI think there is abundant evidence of redundant population pressing more and more heavily upon, and suffering more and more severely from, an inadequate supply of food. Though there are periods when extraordinary harvests enable the Chinese to transport rice, the principal food of the people, from one province to another, — and sometimes even to foreign countries, —— yet of late the importations from foreign countries have been enormous, and China has drawn largely on the Straits, the Philippines, Siam, and other places, to fill up a vast insufficiency in supply. Famine has, notwithstanding, committed dreadful ravages, and the provisions of the Imperial Granaries have been wholly inadequate to provide for the public wants. It is true that cultivation has been greatly interfered with by intestine disorders, and that there has been much destruction by inundations, incendiarism, and other accidental or transitory causes; but without reference to these, I am disposed to believe that there is a greater increase in the numbers of the population than in the home production of food for their use. It must be remembered, too, that while the",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 208473,
        "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": 197,
        "title": "RAS-1978",
        "content_text": "WOODBLOCK PRINTING\n\n181\n\nmethods had been much improved and paper became more economical. Many important works were done in this period. “Tou Pan” (ƒ) or multi-colour printing was also invented. Some of their works are well known to us through the painting manual series of the Ten Bamboo Studio († in Nanking (). Formerly, colour prints were made by first putting different colours on various parts of the woodblock. In the \"Tou Pan\" technique, different blocks were made and colours of different shades were applied on these blocks. Sometimes as many as hundreds of blocks of different sizes were used to make one print. In this way, very complex colour combinations could be achieved. The invention of “Tou Pan” and “embossing” (##) techniques in printing was attributed to Hu Cheng-jen (‡), the owner of the Ten Bamboo Studio, whose Catalogue of the Ten Bamboo Studio Letter-sheet Design and the Calligraphic and Painting Manual are monumental landmarks in the history of art.\n\nOther important works were produced in the early Ch'ing period. One of them was the Mustard Seed Garden Painting Manual († \n4) compiled and printed by a famous painter Wang Kai (± *) for the Studio of the Mustard Seed Garden in Nanking in the years 1679-1701 of the K'ang Hsi period (). The manual was printed in colour by using the same techniques as the Ten Bamboo Studio and was printed together with painting instructions. It has been widely used by painters as a bible of Chinese painting. The manual has been copied and reprinted many times by different painters and publishers during Ch'ing Dynasty. The copies we can obtain in the market are usually photostat printed copies from the reproductions issued in the Late Ch'ing period. The pictures contained in these new copies are no longer as gorgeous as those in the original ones. We can hardly see an original copy as only a few of them are known, and are being treasured by museums and libraries or private collectors.\n\nDuring the past thousand years, book printings were centered in Szechuen, Chekiang, Anwhei and Fukien Provinces where paper was also manufactured. The folk or religious printing work had been widespread all over China, but the noted centres of the production were Yang Liu Ching (##), To Hua Wu (✯✯) and Fatshan (*). Yang Liu Ching is a village on the outskirts of Tientsin city (△) and the people living there have been engaged",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215679,
        "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": 456,
        "title": "RAS-2001",
        "content_text": "408\n\nsee the immense possibilities of trade in Szechuen Province and beyond in Tibet. He became convinced that the only way to develop this was to find a way to bring steamers through the Three Gorges between Ichang and Chunking.\n\nLittle, still of the opinion that the Upper Yangtze could be navigated by steamships, made the passage in a junk from Ichang to Chunking in 1887. En route he carefully surveyed the main areas of risk and, on completion of this 400 mile journey, was even more sure that he was right.\n\nHe raised the money to build \"Kuling,\" a stern-wheeler, built on the Clyde and designed specifically for service on the Upper Yangtze. She was shipped out to Shanghai in pieces and reassembled there. However, when she arrived in Ichang, the Chinese authorities would not let her proceed. Apparently the Chefoo Convention stipulated that Chinese steamers had to be the first to ply this section of the river. (This restriction was abolished after the Sino-Japanese War by the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895.)\n\nIn any event, Little had to abandon this attempt to realise his dream. \"Kuling\" was sold to Chinese owners at a vast profit and traded on the Yangtze up to Ichang for many years, but never beyond.\n\nNot in the least deterred, in 1898, Little built a wooden-hulled, twin screw, steam launch named \"Leechuan.\" Once again he made the passage from Ichang to Chunking. Apart from having to be pulled up the stronger rapids by trackers the trip was a brilliant success. (Trackers were Chinese coolies who lived in villages near the rapids on both banks. Several hundred would be employed to haul vessels up the rapids.) Unfortunately, being only 55 feet long and full of engine, \"Leechuan\" carried no cargo.\n\nHeartened by his achievement with \"Leechuan,\" Little returned to London in 1899 to raise money to build a vessel that could navigate the Three Gorges and carry sufficient cargo to make its service financially viable.\n\nHow Samuel Plant came to China\n\nLittle was successful in raising money to build “Pioneer.\" By the",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2001.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g",
        "rank": 0
    }
]