[ { "id": 205187, "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-1966", "page_number": 143, "title": "RAS-1966", "content_text": "OLD BRITISH KOWLOON\n\n137\n\n50 The Hong Kong Blue Books for 1904 onwards list Basel Mission out-stations at Shaukiwan on Hong Kong Island and at To Kwa Wan, Sham Shui Po and Kowloon Tong in Kowloon. It is not certain when the Sham Shui Po station was opened as The China Mission Hand Book p. 279 lists two out-stations from Hong Kong but does not give their names. The earlier Blue Books are not much help.\n\n51 Hung Hom, Tai Kok Tsui and Mong Kok Tsui had their docks and in Sessional Papers 1899, p. 482 Tai Kok Tsui is described as \"an industrial area\".\n\n52 This study was hampered by the fact that no early land records appear to have survived for the group of villages described in this article. The only information I have been able to obtain, besides evidence from maps, relates to squatter licenses. A list for 1896, which appears in Sessional Papers 1897, p. 203, includes Ho Man Tin (37), Tai Shik Kwu (1) and Mong Kok (57).\n\nL\n\n+\n\nAddenda\n\nI ought not to leave this subject without mentioning the bad feeling between Hakkas and Cantonese in British Hong Kong which was the legacy of the disturbed times during the Taiping rebellion. Mayers, Dennys and King, the authors of The Treaty Ports of China and Japan (London and Hong Kong, 1867) state that fights between Hakka and Punti were common in British Hong Kong and that many Hakka labourers had come to Hong Kong with vivid memories of ill-treatment in their native place. It seems that these fights were not confined to immigrant labourers with scores to settle. Eitel records that for several days in August 1862 \"the peninsula of Kowloon presented the novel aspect of an animated battle field, as the Punti inhabitants of the neighbouring villages were engaged in a bloody warfare with the Hakka settlers at Tsim Sha Tsui\". A previous engagement, presumably between the same people, occurred in the same place in August 1859 when hostilities lasted two days though \"little damage was done beyond a few knife wounds\". We are told that \"The Hakkas remained masters of the situation\" (Dennys etc. p. 84). At that time, according to this source, the Puntis \"have an intense antipathy to the Hakkas\" (p. 19). It is interesting that this is reflected in the fact that the Canton Coolie Corps which assisted our army in the Second Chinese War 1857-60 was recruited in Hong Kong entirely from among Hakkas. See W. Stanton The Triad Society, Hong Kong, Kelly & Walsh 1900, p. 26.\n\nFurther to the early descriptions of Yau Ma Ti given in the text I have since come across another in Sessional Papers 1888, p. 103, in which it is stated that \"the boatmen and fishermen who have hitherto constituted the residents of Yau Ma Ti are gradually becoming outnumbered by town people and artizans (sic) from Hong Kong who are attracted to Yau Ma Ti by the lower rents charged them for house accommodation\".", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206218, "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-1971", "page_number": 35, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "THE TAIPINGS AT NINGPO\n\n29\n\nNingpo, for a long time had been a difficult city to administer, but the Taiping occupation seems in retrospect to have been an exceptional period. To better appreciate this it is worth considering Ningpo in a somewhat broader perspective. For example, a year and a half before the Taipings took the city, a Jardine Matheson Company agent reported that the Ch'ing officials were unable to control the pirate-infested countryside.41 Three months after the Taipings left Ningpo, the Jardine agent gloomily reported that trade was bad and would remain so until \"a stop was put to the squeezing on the part of the Imperial Authorities.\"42 Six months after the departure of the Taipings, the agent revealed that Ningpo was in the throes of civil chaos. The unpopular tao-t'ai had been forced into hiding following a dispute with men from Frederick Townsend Ward's so-called Ever Victorious Army. The situation was resolved by Captain Dew who actually had to reoccupy the city. Dew and Harvey ignominiously had to search long and hard to find the affrighted Ch'ing official.43 Small wonder then, that the Jardine agent's report of January 1863, speaks of how the country people of Ningpo are now fondly recalling that the Taipings had always paid for what they took.44\n\nJudgment on the victorious expulsion of the Taipings from Ningpo has been varied. Consul Harvey congratulated himself:\n\nFor my part, let me state that it will be a source of great satisfaction and I may add, of pride, in after time to think that I have been placed in a position to use my feeble pen, and to have exercised my humble powers (always within the limits of my official duties) in weakening and undermining, as perseveringly and indefatigably as I have been able, the most gigantic imposture and the most blasphemous structure that ever disgraced ancient or modern pages.45\n\nForeign Secretary Russell, from London, also congratulated Harvey for the \"judgment, courage, and temper, which he displayed on all occasions....\"46 Another influential writer on these events termed Dew's accomplishment \"a brilliant feat of arms.\"47 But the Hong Kong Daily Press, for one, expressed the view of many contemporaries: \"There never was a falser, more unprovoked, or more unjustifiable act than the taking of Ningpo by the allies from the Taipings. It should, in fairness, be recorded to the eternal disgrace of Captain Roderick Dew, of HMS En-", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206225, "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-1971", "page_number": 42, "title": "RAS-1971", "content_text": "36\n\nCHIU LING-YEONG\n\nAfter giving his reader a vivid picture of China in her sleep, Tseng then urged the public to watch closely for China in her awakening. The awakened China, he said, would not be aggressive or dangerous to any of her neighbouring countries. China, after all, was not a land-hungry nation. Hungering for land was only the affair of the European powers. China was under no necessity of finding in other lands outlets for her surplus population. A considerable number of Chinese had, at different times, been forced to leave their homes and try their fortunes in Cuba, Peru, the United States and the British colonies, on account of the Taiping Rebellion. The Chinese emigrated to these countries of their own free will, and their movement and activities had nothing to do with the Chinese Government. The Chinese in these countries, however, unlike the Europeans who had settled in the East, had no political nor territorial ambitions.\n\nReturning to the internal affairs of the awakened China, Tseng stressed:\n\n• Great efforts are being made to fortify her coast and create a strong and efficient navy. China will proceed with her coast defences and the organisation and development of her army and navy, without, for the present, directing her attention whether to the introduction of railways or to any of the subjects of internal economy; the changes which may have to be made when China comes to set her house in order can only profitably be discussed when she feels she has thoroughly overhauled and can rely on the bolts and bars she is now applying to her doors. The general line of China's foreign Policy will be directed to extending and improving her relations with the Treaty Powers, to the amelioration of the condition of her subjects residing in foreign parts, to the placing on a less equivocal footing of the position of her feudatories, as regards the suzerain power, to the revision of the treaties, in a sense more in accordance with the place which China holds as a great Asiatic power\" \"China has decided on exercising a more effective supervision on the acts of her vassal princes and of accepting a hostile movement against these countries or any interference with their affairs will be viewed at Peking as a declaration", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1971.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207361, "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-1975", "page_number": 129, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN MILITARY TALENT\n\n121\n\nallies, for example, occasionally directed their military efforts against, rather than for, the dynasty; and even the Uighurs sometimes became overbearing and troublesome.42 There were, moreover, tensions between barbarian and Chinese officers, as well as conflicts between various competing barbarian commanders. But perhaps the most vivid illustration of the dangers involved in utilizing foreigners was the famous rebellion of the \"mixed-breed\" barbarian, An Lu-shan, which the Uighur heir apparent had helped combat in its early stages. Contemporary observers saw this uprising not as a civil war between the central government and a local \"warlord,\" but rather as a conflict between the Chinese and a barbarian. Chinese historians went so far, in fact, as to maintain that the rebellion occurred \"because An Lu-shan and other barbarians were given important military and political offices.\"43 Whatever the merits of this view, we may safely assume that An did not rate a biography in Li Te-yü's I-yü kuei-chung chuan; and although foreign troops and individual barbarian commanders assisted in the restoration of imperial rule, and helped sustain the Tang dynasty for nearly a century and a half after the revolt, resentment and distrust of barbarians became increasingly evident as neo-Confucianism rose to prominence.\n\nThe Use of Foreigners in Post-T'ang Times\n\nChinese anti-foreignism, already on the rise in the later years of T'ang, received reinforcement from neo-Confucianism, with its emphasis on the superiority of Chinese culture and the closer identification of Confucianism with that culture. At the same time, the stress on civil virtues and the growing importance of the vaunted examination system as a channel for upward mobility led to a general decline in martial spirit.44 Yet even as China turned inward, her ever-present need for foreign military and administrative expertise assured that outsiders would continue to find their way into the Chinese service. This proved true in the Sung, when specially trained \"barbarian troops\" (fan-ping) operated against internal and external enemies, and barbarian commanders (fan-chiang) such as Kuo Yao-shih (a surrendered Liao officer) rendered similar service. Kuo is particularly noteworthy for having led a military force known as the Ever-Victorious Army (Ch'ang-sheng chün) which, in some respects, resembled the contingent with the same designation raised by Frederick Townsend Ward in the latter stages of the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864).45", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207365, "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-1975", "page_number": 133, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN MILITARY TALENT\n\n125\n\nmaterial superiority, and intent not on conforming to Chinese ways, but on changing them. Enjoying the privilege of extraterritoriality and other unequal treaty “rights,” they were closely linked to the policies and practices of their respective home governments, who, after 1860, maintained a diplomatic (and at times military) presence on Chinese soil. These foreign employees were at best unwitting agents of cultural change, and at worst, potential tools of the aggressive Western powers. Their use by the Chinese, therefore, introduced special new problems of responsibility and restraint.\n\nThis was particularly true in light of China’s all-too-obvious military weakness and the new role Western technology was beginning to play in Chinese military affairs. The Manchus, obsessed with internal security, were fearful enough of modern Western weapons in the hands of Chinese (as opposed to Manchu) soldiers. To allow foreigners to train and command Western-armed Chinese troops introduced an additional element of risk. Yet under the exigencies of the massive Taiping Rebellion, the dynasty sanctioned the rise of foreign-trained and foreign-officered Chinese contingents in a desperate effort to stem the threatening rebel tide.63 And despite the changed circumstances of China’s internal and external situation after 1860, Ch’ing policymakers instinctively looked to the past for policy guidelines.\n\nPage 04\n\nAs the first Westerner to hold high military rank in the new situation, the career of Frederick Townsend Ward is worthy of special attention. Like many other barbarian employees in China’s past, this outlaw-adventurer from Salem, Massachusetts owed his position in the Chinese military service to singular circumstances. At a crucial juncture in the Taiping Rebellion, Ward raised a unique, foreign-officered Chinese military force, the Ever-Victorious Army, which proved useful not only as a weapon against the Taipings, but also as a means to limit Western intervention in the Chinese civil war.65 In the course of his brief career, Ward attained the rank of colonel (fu-chiang), and upon his death in 1862 he received high posthumous honors and abundant praise for his loyal service to the dynasty. But during his lifetime, Ward’s behavior was under close and constant scrutiny. So innovative was his position that Chinese officials were reluctant to suggest historical parallels, and it was not until well after his death that the “Yankee adventurer” began to be compared with such noteworthy barbarian employees in the past as Yu Yu and Chin Mi-ti.66", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207377, "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-1975", "page_number": 145, "title": "RAS-1975", "content_text": "EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN MILITARY TALENT\n\n63 See Smith, \"Foreign-Training,” 83-86.\n\n64 Ward and other foreigners in the Chinese military service are studied in depth in Smith, Ward, Gordon and the Ever-Victorious Army.\n\n65 For basic Chinese documentation on Ward's career, see IWSM TC 4: 25-276; 4: 40a; 4; 51b-52; 5: 6b-8b; 5: 33-36b; 5: 51-52; 5: 54; 6: 2a-b; 6: 14b; 6: 17b-18; 6: 19b-20; 6: 30-31; 7; 47b-48b; 9; 3-4.\n\n66 IWSM TC 79: 11.\n\n67 Ibid., TC 4: 25-26; see also John K. Fairbank, \"The Early Treaty System,\" 270.\n\n68 IWSM, TC 5: 33-36b; 5: 51-52; 6: 19b-20; 6: 30a-b.\n\n69 Li Hung-chang, Letters to Friends, 1: 29.\n\n70 Foreign Relations of the United States (1888), part 1, 211-217.\n\n71 IWSM, TC 6: 17.\n\n72 Ibid., TC 9; 3b.\n\n73 Ibid., TC 9: 4.\n\n74 Ching Wu and Chung Ting, eds., Wu Hsu tang-an chung ti T'al-p'ing r'ien-kuo shih-liao hsüan-chi [Selections of historical materials concerning the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in Wu Hsu's archives] (Peking, 1958), 128-129,\n\n75 See Martin Ring, \"The Burgevine Case and Extrality in China, 1863-1866,\" Papers on China 20 (1969). In mid-1863, Prince Kung requested that Burgevine be expunged from the Chinese population register. See IWSM, TC 17: 136 and 20b.\n\n76 Ring, 145-146, 156 note 70.\n\n77 IWSM, TC 10: 46-49.\n\n78 Ibid., TC 10: 50a-b.\n\n79 Ibid., TC 15: 10b-11.\n\n80 I have discussed this combination in Ward, Gordon and the Ever Victorious Army. For some indications of Li's approach, consult J. O. P. Bland, Li Hung-chang (New York, 1917); I. C. Cheng, Chinese Sources for the Taiping Rebellion, 1850-1864 (Hong Kong, 1963), 120-132; Gordon Papers (British Museum), Ad. Mss. 53, 386, Robert Hart to Charles Gordon, October 7, 1863.\n\n81 See, for example, Feng Kuei-fen's Hsien-chih-r'ang chi [Collected essays from the Hall of Manifest Aspirations] (1876), 6: 46.\n\n82 IWSM, TC 22; 3b; 24: 29a-b; 25: 27b-28b; 27: 28-29. On Gordon's return to China in 1880 to assist Li during the so-called Ili Crisis, consult Immanuel C. Y. Hsü, \"Gordon in China, 1880,\" Pacific Historical Review 30.2 (May, 1964).\n\n83 See Kuo T'ing-i, Taiping t'ien-kuo shih-shih jih-chih (A daily record of historical events of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom] (Taipei, 1963), appendix, 165-167.\n\n84 See Smith, \"Foreign-Training\".\n\n85 See Mary Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: The T’ung-Chih Restoration, 1862-1874 (New York, 1967), 216; IWSM, TC 16; 11; 39; 22-29; 70: 38a-b and 41-42b; 85: 39a-b; 87; 31, 34-35.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1975.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207641, "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-1976", "page_number": 29, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "14\n\nRICHARD J. SMITH\n\nforeign military aid reaped few long-term gains. Western officers from \"Chinese\" Gordon to Constantin von Hanneken introduced a measure of modernity to at least a few armies in the late Ch'ing period, but none of these individuals was able to promote more basic institutional reform.10 The effects of Japan's success and China's failure in this regard were far-reaching.\n\nGenerally speaking, China's approach to military reform in the years from 1860 to 1895 may be compared with that of Japan in the years from 1853 to 1868. In each instance, foreign assistance was acquired piecemeal by both the central government and local governments, with no real coordination between the two. Similar rationales were offered, and similar results obtained, although in the case of China the new knowledge and technology acquired was used to bolster rather than to undermine the existing central government.11\n\nA high priority for both pre-Meiji Japan and late Ch'ing China was the training of troops and officers in Western techniques. In each country, the use of foreign military assistance followed similar lines. The training program established for the Bakufu by the French Minister, Leon Roches, at Yokohama during the mid-1860's, for example, may be compared with the central government training program set up by the British Minister, Frederick Bruce, at Tientsin in the early 1860's.12 Similarly, the various foreign-training efforts begun in Chōshu and other han during the 1860's bear a basic resemblance to the post-Taiping training camps established at Shanghai, Canton, Foochow and elsewhere.13 The Japanese even had their own rough equivalent of China's famous Ever-Victorious Army.14 Common problems in these early military improvement programs included language difficulties, foreign rivalries, financial limitations, lack of standardization in arms and training, and foreign meddling.15\n\nChina never overcame these problems. From the 1860's to the early 1890's, a handful of foresighted individuals, most notably Li Hung-chang, undertook a variety of modernizing enterprises aimed at building up China's “wealth and power.” Their efforts succeeded in a limited way, but were severely hindered by obscurantism, official opposition, bureaucratic inertia, and the deliberate policies of the Empress Dowager, Tz'u-hsi, who carefully manipulated political factions in order to maintain and enhance her own power.16", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207746, "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-1976", "page_number": 134, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "NOTES ON FRIENDS AND RELATIVES OF TAIPING LEADERS 119\n\npoint to Feng as the more active leader in the movement's initial phases. An account given of him by a deserter from the Taiping army and a former member of Gützlaff's Chinese Christian Union, published in The Hong Kong Register, 27 September, 1853, states that when he met Feng in Kwangsi, they recognized each other as fellow members of the Union. According to the account, Feng had studied under Gützlaff. I have carefully gone over the rather detailed reports Gützlaff sent back to Germany reporting the activities of the Chinese Christian Union, hoping that he might have mentioned Feng, but I was unable to find him named. Gützlaff, however, does report trips made by his workers into Kwangsi, where they preached and distributed tracts. These reports were published in the Calwer Missionsblatt and Gaihan's Berichte.\n\nWhen Hung Hsiu-ch'uan left Roberts and Canton in the late spring of 1847, he travelled to Kwangsi in search of Feng, arriving there in August. In the Journal of Roberts published in the Southern Baptist Missionary Journal, vol. 2, no. 10 (March 1848), under date of 25 June, 1847, Roberts states that two of his followers were appointed to visit the inquirer Hung in a different province.\n\nSeveral efforts were initiated to bring the families and followers of the Taiping leaders to Kwangsi from Kwangtung, but the plans were frustrated by the authorities. Some were caught and imprisoned, others scattered and fled. The friends and relatives of the leaders of the Taipings were rooted out of their native districts and at the same time cut off from the troops of the Rebellion as it advanced from Kwangsi to Nanking. Some appear to have had branches of their clan settled in Hsin-an District, adjacent to Hong Kong. Many of the people moved in and out of Hong Kong. These movements left traces in the reports and records of the Missions, but they are not complete enough to provide a comprehensive account.\n\nThe various adventures and travels of Hung Jen-kan before he reached Nanking in 1856 are documented in the writings of Jen Yu-wen. For an English language account see his The Taiping Revolutionary Movement (New Haven, 1973). A few additional details are provided by missionary archival sources.\n\nIn 1852, Hung Jen-kan was brought to Hong Kong by a young tailor from Lilong (Li-lang) in Hsin-an District. He was the grandson of a clansman of Hung, who had befriended Jen-kan in his wanderings. The grandson Fung (Hung?) Sen1 had been under", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207760, "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-1976", "page_number": 148, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "NOTES ON FRIENDS AND RELATIVES OF TAIPING LEADERS\n\n133\n\nGützlaff ever met each other in 1848 when Feng returned from Kwangsi and stayed in his native place for a short period to wait for the return of Hung Hsiu-ch'üan. I cannot see how the fable started. It may be that some members of the Union did join the Taiping army and recognized superficially the similarity of the organizations of Feng and Gützlaff with practically the same contents in their teachings, thus misunderstanding the identity of the two groups; and thus, Feng was mistaken for a fellow-member of the Union. All in all, this problem needs further study and intensive research before a conclusive answer can be obtained.\n\n(2) Li Tsin-kau ($£$)\n\nAccording to Hamberg's account, Li Ching-fang (***) was Hung Hsiu-ch'üan's cousin who lived in Lien Hua Tang (##) in Hua-hsien where Hung taught. The Tai P'ing pamphlet T'ai Ping T'ien Jih (***ŋ) identifies him. Hung first studied Liang Fa's pamphlets seriously with him.\n\nW. Oehler, Die Taiping-Bewegung (1923), asserts that Ching-fang was the grandfather of Li Tsin-kau. For certain reasons I believe Ching-fang was more likely the father, as Tsin-kau was seemingly too young to befriend and discuss such serious matters with Hung.\n\nThe late Rev. Chang Chu-ling (✯✯✯) told me a very amusing anecdote about Li Tsin-kau. After establishing his capital in Nanking, Hung Hsiu-ch'üan ordered Tsin-kau to recruit followers in Kwangtung. Tsin-kau failed in this mission but went north personally. When he arrived at Shanghai on the way to Nanking, he heard that the God whom Hung saw in his visions years ago wore a black robe. He thought that God, the True God, should be dressed in white, and therefore what Hung had seen was really the Devil. The result was that he turned back to Hong Kong immediately without attempting to see Hung again. (See my Taiping Tienkuo Chuan-shih, pp54-55, notes pp58-59) This story corroborates with the account Carl Smith found (p. 124), but the call to come to Nanking might be from Hung Jen-kau rather than from Hung Hsiu-ch'üan.\n\n(3) Hung Jen-kau (Shield King †1##)\n\nAt last, the question 'who financed Hung Jen-kau's trip to Nanking?' is solved with Carl Smith's finding that the London", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208206, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1977", "page_number": 245, "title": "RAS-1977", "content_text": "NOTES AND QUERIES\n\n229\n\nConcerning the Taiping leader's relation with Gützlaff's Union, Clarke draws a conclusion which cannot be lightly accepted; i.e. \"it is more likely that Feng Yun-shan visited Gützlaff, and was possibly baptized by him in 1848” (p. 164). It appears that the only seemingly persuasive evidence that he could produce is an \"eyewitness\" who claimed to be a \"deserter\" from the Taiping ranks in Hunan. This man had been a Union member before being dismissed in 1851. He returned to Hong Kong in 1853 announcing publicly that he had joined the Taipings in Hunan and that Feng Yun Shan was pleased to recognize their old acquaintance (p. 165). He was appointed a low officer. Afterwards he deserted and returned to Hong Kong. The Register published his report on 27th September, 1853. (Carl T. Smith refers to the same report but mistakes Kwangsi for Hunan).\n\nIt can be easily shown that the whole report was a fabrication of the poorest quality, for everything he stated therein was false. In the first place, the deserter could never have seen Feng Yun-Shan in Hunan because Feng had died near Chuan-chow in Kwangsi in early June 1852, before the Taiping army entered Hunan. This fact was not known to the outside world until long afterwards, so that it is no wonder he made the false statement.\n\nA critical study of the full document reveals the following mistakes point by point.\n\n(1) Hung Hsiu-ch'üan was crowned Heavenly King ( ) and the new Kingdom was named Tai-Ping-Tien-Kuo (  ) right after the uprising, and Hung was not called Tai-ping wang'. No title of \"Royal Father\" was in use, and the Taiping army could not be identified with “Ming” ( ) which was only used by the Triads.\n\n(2) The Taiping army had not passed through Nan-ning of Kwangsi and Lo-ting of Kwangtung on its northward expedition, but marched directly north from Yung-an through Kweilin to Chuan-chow thereby crossing a mountain path to enter Hunan.\n\n(3) The total enrolment of the Taipings at that time was only some tens of thousands, and not several hundred thousands.\n\n(4) In the lowest echelon of the Taipings' military organizational system, there was no such rank as \"vexillary\" such as he claimed to have been appointed to by Feng, but there were four", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1977.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208314, "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": 38, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "22 \n\nRICHARD J. SMITH \n\nLi's approach to officer education during his tenure as governor-general of Chihli from 1870 to 1895, at the apex of his power, may shed some light on the many problems involved in China's late nineteenth century effort to create a modern officer corps.34 \n\nThroughout his illustrious career up to 1895, Li continually drew upon foreign talent to instruct (and occasionally to lead) his forces.35 But in 1876, he took the unprecedented step of sending Chinese military men abroad for training, entrusting seven petty officers to one of his best German drill instructors, a man named Lehmayer. Li's plan was to employ these men as instructors in the Anhwei Army upon their return to China.36 Li had as early as 1874 inquired into the possibility of sending Chinese students to West Point, and in 1875 had discussed the establishment of a military academy in China with the American general Emory Upton.37 But political difficulties in the United States stood in the way of the first plan, and financial constraints made the second impossible.38 Li's writings in the mid-1870s indicate a full awareness of the value of military academy education, but apparently the need at the time was not sufficiently great to justify the cost of establishing a full-fledged military academy on Chinese soil.39 \n\nOf the seven men sent to study in Germany, two were recalled before completion of their planned three-year program of study because of their frivolous attitude and poor progress. One became sick and died, three successfully completed their infantry training, and one—Wang Te-sheng—stayed on in Germany until 1881, receiving additional specialized instruction in Berlin. Of the seven, only Wang emerged as a prominent figure in the Anhwei Army, heading Li's crack “personal guard unit” (ch'in-ping), and eventually achieving the rank of tsung-ping. Overall, the educational experiment fell far short of complete success, and was marked by numerous problems, including disputes with the German supervisor, language difficulties, and, of course, high costs.40 \n\nAs one of the three regular graduates of the German training program, Cha Lien-piao's experience as an instructor in the Anhwei Army is illuminating. Cha served in Chou Sheng-ch'uan's 10,000-man Sheng-chün—perhaps the best detachment of the Anhwei Army in all of China up to the time of Chou's death in 1885.41 Convinced of the value of Western training and drill from long exposure to foreign instructors in Li's force (dating from the Taiping period),", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208399, "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": 123, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "SIIIWAN POTTERY EXPLORED\n\n107\n\nthe theme of \"restoring rivers and mountains\" to the point of becoming formula, but no one complained.\n\nMai further describes how the Guangdong opera actors practised the martial arts of the Shaolin branch (*) and finally put this art to use when in 1854 their leader, the actor Li Yunmao (***) also known as Wen Mao () led three armies of actors to join the Taiping effort against the Manchus. These armies were destroyed along with the rest of the Taiping army, and in the aftermath, the Qing court issued an order forbidding the performance of Guangdong opera and had the actors' Qiong Hua (hortensia flower) Association Hall (1446) in Fushan burned to the ground.\n\nA gilt wood carved altar in the Ancestral Temple in Fushan, and a Shiwan frieze depicting the story of the Yang Family Generals, preserve in their carvings the significance of these events and their broader implications for a community not under the domination of a foreign Manchu government, but also besieged with Caucasian foreigners pressing for trade and territorial rights.\n\nThe Qing dynasty gilt wood altar carving has double meaning. The carving depicts the story of Tang dynasty Li Yuanba fighting the dragon colt (*£#£#6). On a second level however, the horse represents the unruly foreigners, and Li Yuanba, having the same surname, represents Li Wenmao. Verifying this are two hidden plaques hung above the scene which can only be seen from a crouching position. One reads \"Great Ming Mountains and Rivers\" (11) and the other \"Qiong Hua Hall\" (44), with the middle character Hua (4) substituted as disguise for the similar sounding Hua (*) of the Hortensia Flower (Qiong Hua) Association. Furthermore, according to Mr. Zhang Tao (**), curator of the Ancestral Temple, the characters on these two wood plaques were originally covered with extra slabs of wood and were only discovered while renovation was being done to the temple between 1971 and 1972. (Plate 14).\n\nIn addition to this gilt wood altar scene, a beautiful ceramic frieze depicting the story of the Yang Family Generals, Song dynasty loyalists, is displayed in the rear courtyard of the Ancestral Temple. In addition to this anti-Manchu theme (the Yang family's loyalty to the native Song dynasty during the period of barbarian Yuan conquest, symbolising the loyalty of the Chinese people to the", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 211261, "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-1987", "page_number": 322, "title": "RAS-1987", "content_text": "297\n\nthat guided the administration of the city of Canton during its four year occupation by the Allies, during which he laid the foundations of his knowledge of written and spoken Chinese, he joined the Chinese Maritime Customs at Ningpo. When that city was captured by the Taiping Army, he assisted the Sino-French \"Ever Triumphant Army\" to recapture it, and later commanded it in the operations that led to the recapture of Hangzhou, for which he received high rank and honours from the appreciative Ch'ing government. Contacts made during this time led to employment after the Rebellion, in and outside China, that lasted until his death in France in 1886. His principal achievement was the construction and administration of the Fuzhou Dockyard and its fleet of warships in the face of many difficulties. Ironically, they were destroyed by naval forces of his own nation during the hostilities of 1884-85 between France and China over Vietnam.\n\nGiquel was a rare bird for his times. Apart from his linguistic proficiency and administrative capacities, he was sympathetic towards China at a time when this was not common among his contemporaries. Moreover, he sought ever to combine his duties to his employers, the Chinese, with his loyalties towards his native land, a veritable tightrope which he conscientiously trod throughout his working life. As Dr. Leibo observes, \"A less committed individual might never have attempted such a balancing act”. (Transferring Technology, p. 5). He gave offence to many influential Frenchmen and to his government in 1872 by an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes in which he suggested that the French Concession at Shanghai should be merged with the International Settlement, and criticized French policy towards China in various aspects.\n\nWhy this should be so is hinted at by an English account which indicates how different Giquel must have been from most of his fellows. Even allowing for the fact that this is an English account, written at a time of strong rivalry between the two powers and by one side of an old and mutual antipathy, it speaks for itself:\n\nFrench officers are so quick to take offense (sic) — so quick to obtain satisfaction - so imperious, so impractical, and so totally uncommercial that they are viewed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212027, "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-1989", "page_number": 442, "title": "RAS-1989", "content_text": "417\n\ninterested in modern China or who are interested in the British in Asia. Dr. Atwell has made a significant contribution to our knowledge of how the British administered one small locality and coped with the demands of modern forces. Her work can be used as a guide or spring board for comparison of British colonial policy in other East Asian places, such as Brunei and the Straits Settlements, Hankow, Tientsin and Shanghai, say, with Hong Kong tossed in for good measure.\n\nWEI PEH T'I, Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong\n\nSteven A. Leibo, Transferring Technology to China, Prosper Giquel and the Self-strengthening Movement, China Research Monograph 28, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, Center for Chinese Studies, 1985.\n\nProsper Giquel, edited by Steven A. Leibo, A Journal of the Chinese Civil War 1864. Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1985.\n\nThese two works, one of compilation and assessment based on a doctoral dissertation, the other of translation (with the help of Debbie Weston) and annotation with a lengthy introduction, have a considerable intrinsic interest because they deal with a rather extraordinary man. They have also a degree of relevance, over a century later, for the West's involvement with present day China's modernizing programme.\n\nThey are to be read in conjunction with other modern works on this period of China's self-strengthening efforts, including those listed in Dr. Leibo's introduction to Transferring Technology.\n\nProsper Giquel, a French naval officer, came to China during the Second China War. After service with the Joint Commission that guided the administration of the city of Canton during its four year occupation by the Allies, during which he laid the foundations of his knowledge of written and spoken Chinese, he joined the Chinese Maritime Customs at Ningpo. When that city was captured by the Taiping Army, he assisted the Sino-French \"Ever Triumphant Army” to recapture it, and later commanded it in the operations that led to the recapture of Hangzhou, for which he received high rank and honours from the appreciative Ch'ing government. Contacts made during this time led to employment after the Rebellion, in and outside China, that lasted until his death in France in 1886. His principal achievement was the construction and", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212220, "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-1990", "page_number": 162, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "139\n\nI was in Ningpo when the announcement of the closing of the Burma road was received. It was a severe blow for the Chinese, but I think they appreciated the difficulties of Britain's position and that she had only been compelled by the force of circumstances to accede to the Japanese demand. Nothing could have exceeded the kindness and courtesy shown to me by the merchants and officials whom I met.\n\nNingpo was one of the first five treaty ports, opened to trade in 1842. Early promises had not been fulfilled, and the port, overshadowed by Shanghai, had remained small. Off the mouth of the Ningpo river on the largest island of the Chusan archipelago lay the walled city of Tinghai, occupied by British troops twice for a space of several years between 1840 and 1860. Tinghai at one time was designated, instead of Hongkong, as the place to be ceded to Britain for the repair of vessels. It looks a healthy enough place, built up the slopes of a high hill, yet the troops suffered much from sickness and the stones in the graveyard bear witness to the numbers buried there. The garrison imported some turkeys, to provide variety for the larder. The British troops have long since left, but the climate was favourable to turkeys, and now large flocks descended from the original birds are bred to supply the Christmas market in Shanghai.\n\nIn Ningpo, the graveyard contains the stone monument, first erected outside the East gate of the city, to commemorate the assistance given by Captain Roderick Dew, R.N., and Lieutenant Kenny of the French Navy and their respective ships' companies, in 1862, to the Imperial Chinese troops in expelling the Taiping rebels from the town. It was nearby that the American General Ward, Gordon's predecessor in command of the Ever Victorious army, was killed. But times change. To Dr. Sun Yat Sen and the Kuo Min Tang the Taiping rebels are the glorious forerunners of their own revolution, and it is doubtful whether General Gordon, or the British, are given any credit for having assisted the Imperial Government to quell the rebellion.\n\nThe country round the little Ningpo plain is very beautiful. In previous winters I used to shoot on the shallow lakes which lay amongst the hills to the west. Most sportsmen waited to go after the early morning and evening flights of duck, but I preferred to work along the edge of the hills with my dog for the occasional pheasant. They were not so numerous here as amongst the reedbeds of the Yangtze. Beyond the lakes, the deep waters of Nimrod Sound were", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212417, "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-1990", "page_number": 359, "title": "RAS-1990", "content_text": "336\n\nJonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China, W.W Norton and Company: $29.95; cloth; 876 pages.\n\nJonathan D. Spence in \"The Search for Modern China” endeavours to facilitate an understanding of China. He says, quite rightly, that \"in trying to understand China today we need to know about China in the past\" (pp. xix-xx). That is why Spence begins his narrative in the late 16th century, when China was ruled by its last native dynasty on the eve of the Manchu conquest.\n\nInterestingly, the Yale historian explains that his book is not about modern China. Rather, it is about a centuries-long effort to create such a country, one which is both integrated and receptive, fairly sure of its own identity yet able to join others on equal terms in the quest for new markets, new technologies, new ideas\" (p.xx).\n\nBy this definition, Spence says, China is not today and never has been a modern country.\n\nCertainly, China in the Qing dynasty was far from being **fairly sure of its own identity yet able to join others on equal terms**. As Spence points out, China did not even have a national flag in its 4,000 years of existence, until one was created in the nineteenth century, when it consciously began to acquire what it thought were the attributes of a modern nation.\n\nAs is to be expected, Spence finds numerous parallels in Chinese history. Thus, he likens General Claire Chennault's World War II \"Flying Tigers\" to the foreign mercenary Ever-Victorious Army formed to fight the Taiping rebels; he sees similarities between Great Leap Forward rhetoric and the vision of Hong Xiuquan, the Taiping Heavenly King, and he compares the Shanghai Communique of 1972 with the Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689.\n\nThis does not mean, of course, that China is unchanging. During the Qing dynasty, for example, China spurned British requests for developing trade. Spence quotes the Qianlong emperor's message to George III of England:\n\n\"We have never valued ingenious articles, nor do we have the slightest need of your country's manufactures. Therefore, O king,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1990.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212732, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 41, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "26\n\nname had eventually appeared in the Peking Gazette. In 1871, he added, he was recommended for special honours on account of distinguished services on the field of battle and received the order of merit called Yung Hao with the title of Ying Yung Pa-t'u-lu [i.e. ‘Brigadier-General, the title of Knight Ying of the Order of Pa-t'u-lu, Mesny\"]. Mesny was awarded the Ying-yung for having penetrated a Miao stronghold with a few Chinese riflemen and turned the tide of battle from defeat into victory. In April 1896 Mesny wrote: 'Having lived in Hankow for some years and acquired some notoriety amongst the Chinese there, if not actual fame, the characters Wen-kao 'Eminent', were chosen and given me as a Hao or familiar by my friends.' His Chinese name is Mai Wen-kao or using a transliteration 'Mai-shih-ni [i.e. mai-knee) and his rank, Tsung-ping **General**]. In another autobiographical 'obituary' printed after his death in the Celestial Empire, a Shanghai paper, he described himself as 'I, Wen-kao William Mesny, F.R.G.S., Brevet Lieutenant-General of the Chinese Army; Knight, Ying Yung of the Order of the Pa-t'u-lu..................\n\nMesny noted on one occasion long after he had completed his military service that he had come across a battalion of Kueichou field troops with the men wearing the cuirass-shaped uniform or Pa-t'u-lu vesture, invented by Mesny in 1868 for the An-ting and Ko-i Rifle Brigades. [\"The ancient Manchu Knights of the order of the Pa-t'u-lu wore such vests as uniform when not wearing the metal cuirass, hence its significant name Pa-t'u-lu.']\n\n[NOTE: Liu Ming-ch'uan, Governor of Taiwan 1884-1891, referred to in the text as having met Mesny, initially was a freebooter who, during the Taiping Rebellion supported Li Hung-chang and the Imperial forces, and opposed the Taipings. He was at that stage a fairly lowly officer and is recorded as having received 'the honorary title of military merit, baturu': Later, when more senior he was awarded the much greater award of the Yellow Riding Jacket.]\n\nMesny was awarded the 'flowery plume' [hua-ling ##4] in 1869 together with the brevet rank of colonel after battles with the Miao tribesmen. He was also presented with the Pao-hsing in 1869. He refers to the Pao-hsing #, the Precious Planet [or decoration of the Star of China] implying that it was the same decoration as the Double Dragon Jewelled Star which he also later referred to. It was, he said, instituted after the Taiping Rebellion as a form of reward for foreigners who", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212744, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 53, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "38\n\nHe covered several of his printed pages with descriptions of various groups of attractive 'fairies' who treated him as a great Lord and fussed him with food and attention. He explained that he had wondered who they were and had come to the conclusion that they were well-to-do daughters of officials captured by the Taipings and were part of the Taiping chieftain's retinue.\n\nHe implied at one point that the 'unknown charmer' who had been closely chaperoned by her sister, yet met him daily during his captivity in Nanking to learn English, was one of the daughters of the Taiping ruler Hung Hsiu-ch'üan\". She passed him a note as he was leaving with the Royal Navy rescue party, which, though lengthy and in semi-verse, left no doubt that the maiden, whoever she might have been, was expressing her desire for Mesny to return to marry her. No clue was given why Mesny should believe her to be a daughter of Hung Hsiu-ch'üan, and yet again we are left in the dark with his 'fair admirer' unidentified.\n\nAlthough there was no mention of marriage in this instance, his army commander in Kueichou province in 1870, returning home at the end of the first campaign, had offered to take Mesny back to Hunan with him where he could live en famille. Mesny then went on to say that he told the General that he had been away from his home and family in Jersey for some sixteen years and preferred to return there to get married in his own country rather than in China.\n\nThe priests or monks of the Ch'ien-lin Shan monastery more than once asked him to become a member of their order with a view to becoming eligible as a ruler over the four hundred monks in that monastery. He declined as he said that he had always had an inclination to marry some European lady of education, or to otherwise secure the life companionship of a distinguished European lady writer with whom he might associate as pupil or assistant in her literary career [this was written after he had been married to several Chinese women].\n\nOnly twice in his writings does he ever refer to European women as either attractive or otherwise, and interested in him. One was a young English lady of 'prepossessing appearance and fascinating manners,' who surprised everyone in Hankow by declaring that Mesny, who was unprepared to avail himself at the time as he had set his affections on another lady, 'Lydia,' (a girl at home in Jersey) reciprocated her love in a marvellous manner though they had not met since he was 11 and ...", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212752, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 61, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "46\n\nHis essays on his soldiering days consist of strings of facts and incidents, strong on action but showing little attempt at analysis or motives. He often managed to mingle action scenes with romanticised ones. According to his writings he, at 26, displayed strategic and tactical wisdom which his seniors, experienced Chinese generals greeted with acclaim, or so Mesny would have us believe.\n\nHe lived in exciting times and enjoyed experiences worthy of being recorded for posterity. A case in point is his description of the incidents when twice in a twelve month period he had to call on British gun boats to deliver him from the hands of Chinese captors. The first was the deliverance from the 'Imps' [the Chinese Imperial forces] at the forts below Nanking and the second from the Taiping rebels at Nanking itself. His description of his experiences living with the Taiping rebels, of life in a treaty port and his explanations of, for example, the process of the literary and military degree examinations in China and the organisation of the Tsung-li Yamen [The Chinese Bureau of Foreign Affairs] are fascinating even if some of the material has been copied from other works, and some of the autobiographical episodes seem at times to be exaggerated or 'edited'. An article in The Pilot [July 1946] claimed that Mesny had served under General Gordon during the Taiping rebellion as a lieutenant and, when Gordon returned to England in 1865, Mesny remained on in the Chinese army. This would seem to have been misunderstood folk memory as it is certain that, if such had been the case, Mesny would have described it during his autobiographical essays in the Miscellanies. His love life with Chinese ladies also at times reads like a Mills and Boon novel, but however much we may smile at his amorous memoirs, the military side of his autobiographical essays ring true throughout.\n\nMesny wrote about himself as if he needed the constant repetition to reassure him of his place in society and perhaps history, and was frustrated by the lack of influence he considered his due. In March 1905 Mesny wrote that scarcely a day passed but that he was asked to adjudge of important matters between Chinese and Chinese. He added that he did not always comply though his Chinese rank was sufficient as an excuse to act as a judge. He certainly saw himself as a bridge between Chinese and foreigners, and appeared to have many nodding acquaintances in both societies.\n\nA number of foreign authors describing China as they saw it around the turn of the last century each in turn complimented other writers", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212754, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 63, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "48\n\nIn the end he must have been disappointed at his inability to make and keep a fortune and to have public recognition. He must have felt rejected by the world to which he would have liked to have belonged, an outcast having married a Chinese during an era when it was considered beneath one's dignity to do so, and then having to live with the 'stigma' for the rest of his life of having 'gone native'.\n\nAs with most westerners in China, ending up frustrated at being unable to bridge the gap between themselves and the Chinese, Mesny appears to have resigned himself in his later years to being a westerner who, though still claiming to understand and being able to communicate with them, was one of 'us' and not of 'them', despite the opinion of other Shanghai westerners to the contrary.\n\nLet it not be forgotten that he had fought his way up from poverty and a lack of education to being the writer, editor, and publisher of a magazine which appears to have held its own for several years in a community which would have been comparatively discriminating. Despite being self-educated, he appears to have entertained high hopes of achieving popular esteem through his 'academic' and other achievements. He attempted to write for the edification of others and produced his Miscellany which, though only marginally out of the ordinary, does have some value for its detail of the late Taiping era; the organisation of the Chinese Imperial Army of the day, in particular the provincial forces under Chinese rather than Manchu generals; his contacts with Chinese officialdom and his knowledge of obscure facts about China. Many of the latter, however, were culled from other western sources, and he appears not to have translated much, if anything, from Chinese material.\n\nMesny must have been a difficult man to live with. He was self-made, with a great pride in his achievements offset by his egotism, self-absorption, and his apparent need to denigrate others. He was dependent on his wits, and perhaps his charm, to improvise an alternative existence.\n\nHis obituary appeared in two separate Shanghai English language papers some ten days after his death. Both cover three columns, most of which are taken up with an autobiographical account of his life written shortly before his death. They provide additional biographical detail but fail to answer the many questions which naturally spring to mind.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212773, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 82, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "67\n\nMesny, writing in the first person some thirty years later, was not in any way slow in claiming that he played key roles in the campaign and frequently related how his improvements on the battle plans conceived by the Szechuan Force's senior officers were immediately adopted and were always successful. On the occasion when a general went ahead with his plan without Mesny, which ended in defeat and failure, Mesny made no bones about it; the failure was due to the lack of foresight of the general concerned for not first consulting Mesny!\n\nAlso of significance is the infrequent mention by Mesny of the Manchu Tartars. Considering that China was at this stage still under the rule of the Manchu dynasty, with the main forces of the Imperial Army in Manchu hands, and whose armies consisted to a considerable extent of Manchu bannermen, there is no indication from Mesny of Manchus being involved in the campaigns to suppress the Miao, and his only reference to the Manchus was the sighting of Manchu women in a town on his journey along the Yangtze. Manchu emperors had permitted only Manchus real power and had not allowed Chinese to hold independent commands until Tseng Kuo-fan was given a military command during the Taiping rebellion, in 1852. His army, called the Army of Hunan, won many of its battles leading to other Chinese armies being raised, one of which was the Army of Szechuan into which Mesny was recruited. How much Mesny understood the behind-the-scenes politics in play directing the control of the force in which he served is difficult to assess as, for example, he does not refer to the Manchus at any point. He would have us believe that he was frequently the confidante of Chinese senior military officers; logic, however, suggests that he, a foreigner in his twenties who had had no previous military experience, would be unlikely to be told anything of the more complex struggles and challenges for control and power within his or other Chinese forces.\n\nMesny's position within the Chinese Imperial military, as he described it, was complex. On joining the Szechuan Army Corps at Kuei-yang at the age of 26 in 1868, he was given a commission and brevet rank of Ch'ien-tsung +, which he equated on one page of his Miscellany to a First Class Warrant Officer or Sergeant Major, and on another page with a Company Commander or Captain.\n\nIn early 1870 he was awarded the rank and honour of ts'an-chiang hsien. The 'hsien', according to Hucker in his Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China, is a troublesome term. It is often", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212778, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 87, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "72\n\nbasic elements of the social network and were such obvious facts of life that Chinese took them for granted and did not think of them as in any way unusual.\n\nThe Army of the Hsiang was an important Field Force raised in Hunan, especially in the area of the Hsiang River, a sort of counter-balance to the Huai River Army, raised about the same time for the suppression of the Taiping rebellion in the valley of the Yangtze and elsewhere. The Marquis Tseng Kuo-fan was the C-in-C of the Hsiang-chün consisting of Hunan troops which had at first been designated as the Ch'u-chün or Army of Ch'u, a name derived from the ancient state of Ch'u, which comprised the provinces of Hunan and Hupei, as well as other provinces including the whole or part of Anhui and Honan. The Ch'u-chün was commanded by Tso Tsung-t'ang. The Hsiang Army was divided into several army corps or divisions, each numbering from ten to twenty, or even thirty battalions each of five hundred men. Each corps had a distinct designation or appellation, derived from the locality where it was actually organised or from the name or part of the name of the commander of the particular corps. One corps however, the principal one, was styled the Hsiang-ying from its having been organised in the prefecture of Changsha Fu on the banks of the Hsiang River. When more corps were required, however, the name Hsiang-chün was brought into use as with the Huai-chün, to represent all the corps of each army.”\n\nAlthough Mesny obliquely mentioned a higher command, the Ministry of War in Peking, regrettably he did not offer any information which would explain the subordination and chain of command other than telling us that the commander of the Szechuan Force, General T'ang, took his orders from the Viceroy of Szechuan and obtained supplies and funding, when they were forthcoming, from the Szechuanese provincial authorities in Ch'eng-tu.\n\nThe plan now was for the main body of the Ko-i Brigade to advance and occupy the city of Chung-an [Szu] on the Chung-an River by way of Ta-ngai and Chung-pai (later renamed Chung-sheng), whilst another element of the brigade would advance and occupy Huang-p'ing Hsin-chou [New Town].\n\nThe advance began on 18 March 1869. Several days later Chung-an had been occupied and fortified, as had Huang-p'ing New Town. Chung-an was overlooked by hills and mountains occupied by", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212781, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 90, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "75\n\nof the Szechuan Force under the C-in-C had been badly defeated and had left him in the lurch without support. However, the other half of the fourteen battalions remained in Ch'ing-p'ing Hsien and stood firm, and even recovered much of the abandoned equipment. This was not reported to Kuei-yang and Ch'engtu in Szechuan in time to benefit the C-in-C of the Szechuan Force, the story put about by the commander of the seven battalions who had evacuated Ch'ing-p'ing Hsien being believed and acted upon. The C-in-C, T’ang, was therefore degraded and posted to Szechuan,\n\nThe story, according to Mesny's narrative, ended with the demobilisation of several units of the Szechuan Force, the C-in-C's guards and the Ko-i Brigade in particular, and with Mesny settling into life as an adviser to the new supreme commander of all the Imperial forces in Kueichou, Chou Ta-wu; leaving us in anticipation of the next and successful campaign to suppress the rebel Miao, beginning later the same year, 1871, to be published by Mesny. Regrettably it never seems to have got beyond either Mesny's pencil jottings or good intentions.\n\nThe Organisation of the Szechuan Force\n\nIn his Notes on Chinese Military Services Mesny explained that there were several branches of the Army, the Manchu Banner Corps, the Mongol Banner Corps and the Chinese Banner Corps, each with eight banners. There were also the Chinese militia called Chih-ping; volunteer troops raised during the Taiping Rebellion and on many other occasions of emergency, called Yung-ying or simply Yung i.e. braves [known to Mesny as the Mobile Volunteer Force], and the local train bands\", Tuan-lien [known to Mesny as the Sedentary Volunteer Force]; armed peasants trained in the use of weapons for the defence of their homes in both town and country.\n\nMesny appears to have used notes written during the early 1870s to compile his descriptions of the Chinese Imperial forces and seems not to have taken much advantage of the benefit of hindsight to amend them prior to going to press in 1895. It had proved difficult to differentiate between Mesny's personal knowledge and his accuracy in recording detail, and information he acquired from other non-Chinese sources. Many of his notes on the Manchu Army and the Green Standard Regiments have been taken from Mayers'\n\nPage 90\n\nPage 91", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212782, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 91, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "76\n\nThe Chinese Government, Mayers does not refer to the Lien-chûn Ying. Mesny's ambiguous descriptions are confusing though it would seem that there were four separate bodies, the Banner Forces, the ill-trained Green Standard armies under provincial control, the Disciplined Battalions formed from the Green Standards forces, and the local defence train bands.\n\nThe standing army was divided into two great classes, the Banner Forces, [Ch'i-ping], and the Militia Forces (Chih-ping]. The real Chinese National Army also called Ying-ping generally styled by foreigners as the Green Banner Force [Lu-ch'i Ying'] derived its title from the colour of their triangular standard, green satin with a red satin scalloped border and a golden dragon embroidered in the centre. Each province had a separate army corps under a C-in-C styled Ti-tu Chün-men [one such force was the Kueichou Provincial Force operating alongside the Szechuan Force in which Mesny served]. The forces consisted entirely of Chinese and were, in fact, a part of the local militia. Three centuries ago, wrote Mesny, it was the finest military force in the world: as it was in 1895, he added. The force was beneath criticism.\n\nThe Disciplined Army battalions, the Lien-Chün Ying [troops trained by and after foreign advisers], was a new organisation instituted by Ts'en Yü-ying, formerly Governor of Yunnan, Kueichou, Fukien and subsequently Governor-General of the Yun-kuei provinces. It consisted of detachments from the various Territorial Green Regiments formed into battalions and bearing the same territorial name as the regiment from which they had been detached and of which these detachments actually formed or constituted a fighting or field battalion. The Disciplined Battalions were armed with obsolete rifles but far superior to anything opposed to them in Yunnan or Kueichou. These Disciplined Armies, often referred to as the Anhui and Hunan Armies, were originally privately raised and financed by Tseng Kuo-fan and Li Hung-chang to combat the Taiping rebel armies and were under the personal command of Han Chinese generals. Later, they employed westerners such as Mesny to assist China's programme of 'self-strengthening', primarily in the sphere of armaments.\n\nAlthough Mesny explained that there was a lack of uniformity in organisation throughout the whole of China he went into some detail, and added that each provincial army corps was considered a regular", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212783, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 92, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "77\n\narmy in itself, especially organised to meet the requirements of its own territorial demands or necessities. The various provincial army corps [chün] consisted of two or more territorial divisions called chen besides several [from 3-10] territorial brigades called hsieh. The divisions consisted of several regiments and battalions, both of which were called ying; the regiments were commanded by ts'an-chiang [colonels] or yu-chi [lieutenant-colonels], and battalions by tu-ssu [majors]. Most regiments and battalions were divided into two or more companies, shao; however, a few regiments and battalions were not divided at all, with the officers in each regiment or battalion holding common authority over all portions of the regiment or brigade.\n\nMesny frequently referred to individuals as holding the rank of lieutenant-colonel in one context whilst elsewhere describing them as generals. This was finally clarified in a throwaway line buried in other text when he wrote, 'In China Brigadier-Generals, Colonels and Lieutenant-Colonels in command were all considered to be General officers, that is Chiang-Chün.' General officers, chiang-kuan, in the territorial army were those brigadiers, colonels and lieutenant colonels in command. In field forces the commanders of battalions were also so styled by courtesy irrespective of rank. The same courtesy was extended to the chief of battalion, ying-kuan, in field forces where many of them had only permission to wear a button sometimes of the lowest civil rank and degree.\n\nMesny summarised the order of battle including the Chinese naval forces, with two provinces, Kuangtung and Fukien each having a naval force, and another stationed on the Yangtze. Finally, with the northern steam fleet of iron-clads there was a total of twenty-one army corps, i.e. provincial forces, and four naval corps for the whole Chinese empire. To these had to be added the Tartar Banner forces forming the garrisons of several important towns, Canton, Foochou, Hangchou, Cha-pu, Chinkiang, Nanking, Peking and elsewhere. Also the numerous regular field troops denominated Yung or Lien-chün which had been kept under arms in various parts of the empire since the Taiping Rebellion (which, he added, were a great deal more formidable in numbers as well as effectiveness than the whole of the sedentary garrisons or ordinary chün or army).\n\nIt was not until, literally, the latter days of the first campaign that an overall commander was appointed, with the Szechuan Force commander", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212787, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 96, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "81\n\nin an office which bore the same name and in which there was a staff of clerks etc. It corresponded to all intents and purposes with the western orderly room in which was transacted nearly all the business concerning the force of which it formed a part. Before the Taiping rebellion military secretaries and clerks were all military officers but after it civil service men got the appointments owing to the fact that so few military men could read or write sufficiently well to carry on the correspondence of the force. All offenders against military laws, whether soldiers or civilians, were first of all examined by the military secretariat or a delegate appointed by him. Some viceroys had several such secretaries, each attached to some department with the chief of them styled Tsung-lu Ying-wu-ch'u, i.e., Chief Director of the Army Secretariat. Soldiers in attendance wore the name of the office on their uniforms. In provincial Governors' staff brigades, Fu-piao Ying, warrant officers and NCOs were employed as couriers and runners.\n\nStandards and standard bearers were frequently referred to in Mesny's accounts: each standard being displayed to make known the location of the unit or official represented. A number of the petty unit and formation supporting officials had the character for 'flag' [ch'i] within their title. Examples of these were the Quartermaster in charge of ammunition depots and reserves in a Field Force who displayed a red flag and was known as The Red Flag [Hung-ch'i] and the QM in charge of provisions was the Blue Flag [Lan-ch'i]. These officers were subordinate to the Quartermaster [Chün-chuang] who was responsible for all stores and clothing, and who in turn was subordinate to the Headquarters' Commissary Officer [Liang-t'ai].\n\nCoolies were paid three taels of pure silver per month of thirty days [or forty days for An-hui troops], private soldiers four taels two mace, decurions four taels five mace, orderly officers eight taels, vice commanders of companies twelve taels and one servant, commanders of companies eighteen taels and two servants, vice-commander of a battalion received thirty-two taels and three servants, the commander of a battalion received one hundred and eight taels and forty coolies, besides extras, brigadiers got two hundred taels for each battalion in their brigade besides their battalion pay and perquisites. Mesny continued: the company commanders in the Force in which he served in Kueichou made about double their pay every month in perquisites of all kinds. The battalion commanders made about seven hundred taels a month, but added Mesny, he had heard that the company and battalion commanders", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212788, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 97, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "82\n\nof the Anhui troops made much more. In the Wu-tzu Hunan Army Corps in which Mesny served during the second campaign in Kueichou, twenty battalions were farmed out to their respective chiefs who were each paid monthly two thousand eight hundred and forty taels to find pay and rations for their men. Those chiefs of battalions cleared about one thousand taels a month. The men usually got one tael a month mess money and about thirty catties of rice, for which sixty tael cents was deducted from the men's pay, even when they ate rice that had been obtained by capture from the enemy.\n\nA soldier's uniform consisted of a long shirt worn over his undershirt; a long robe or coat, split before and behind, for riding; a short over coat with a round patch on the breast and shoulders on which was inscribed the name of his division or brigade as well as the name of his regiment and company, also his own name. The riding coat was dark blue with green or red facings, the long coat was grey; he also wore a sash, hat and boots. The price for this outfit was deducted by small instalments from the soldier's regular pay, so that it took one a year or two to get out of debt on the Adjutant's books.\n\nThe Miao Rebels\n\nAccording to Mesny the enemy, during the mid-nineteenth century, consisted of four separate and individual groups.\n\n1. Remnants of the Taiping reformers detached from Shih Ta-kai's Second Army (Hung-ping chün)\n\n2. Two local factions of local rebels\n\nA. Huang-hao The Yellow 'Signals'\n\nB. Pai-hao The White 'Signals'\n\n3. Mohammedan rebels: Hui-fei, called Pai-ch'i- White Flags\n\n4. The Miao-tzu aboriginals Miao-fei (83 different tribes)\n\nThe Szechuan Force had suppressed the first three groups before beginning the campaign to suppress the fourth, the Miao.\n\n83", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212792, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 101, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "86\n\nNOTES\n\nIn one of the notes written by Mesny in his Miscellany, [Volume 4 page 34], he listed the various classes and degrees of military rank in what he terms the Chinese Militia Service. A marshal or general was a T'i-tu Chün-men, a lieutenant-general was a Tsung-ping Kuan, a major-general a Fu-chiang; and a colonel a Ts'an-chiang.\n\n2 Mesny gives various totals for the number of battalions serving with the Szechuan Force and in particular with the Ko-i Brigade, with a grand total of thirty-three battalions in the whole Force. These vary from eight to fifteen and a half operating with the Ko-i Brigade. Presumably the explanation lies in the arrival of new battalions to support the Force from time to time, though we are unable to be certain how many battalions were serving at any one particular moment.\n\nMesny states at the beginning of Volume 1 of his Miscellanies that in 1861 General Ward had organised a disciplined force for the Chinese Government, at first locally styled \"Ward's Force\" and later as the 'Ever-victorious Legion'.\n\n4 Mesny later keeps referring to thirty-five battalions.\n\nThe I-ho-t'uan, the \"Patriotic Train Band\", was the official title of the Boxers, of ill-repute.\n\n6 Mesny too had been a member of a train band, the volunteer force in Hankow between 1863-67, under arms several times during the approach of the Nien-fei rebels, when he wore the uniform of the Queen's Western Rifles [sic].\n\n7 Mesny goes into some detail providing recruitment policy, promotion schemes, ranks and titles, training and duties.\n\nUse of the term Disciplined Force was a contemporary fashion. It later became popular to refer to the Lien-chun Ying as Field Forces.\n\n9\n\nMost of the ranks of unit commanders given by Mesny do not tally with those given by Hucker in his Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China.\n\n10 All commanders of divisions and corps had one or more battalions, regiments or brigades, serving a sort of staff brigade and forming the headquarters of that particular army corps. It was popularly designated the Body Guard Battalion or Regiment.\n\nPresumably Han Chinese rebels such as the Huang-hao or the Pai-hao, the remnants of the Taipings or even the Moslem rebels.\n\n12 This is the same title as the Force previously operating under the command of General Gordon during the Taiping Rebellion. Either Mesny has incorrectly recalled the title of the new Force or the new Force continued to bear the former title.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212796, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 105, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "90\n\nThree Bold Adventurers to fight alongside the Nien rebels. After being captured and carried to Chin-chiang in a cage, he was saved by two British artillery officers serving with the Taiping forces.\n\nThe third time was in Hankow when Mesny took Damström along with him as a heavy-weight. The incident occurred after Mesny 'arrested' the dishonest Chinese merchant who had swindled Dupuis. [These incidents are probably not in temporal order].\n\nDupuis, Jean\n\nA French merchant born ca. 1828, who arrived and lived in Hankow in about 1860. He built up a thriving trade in armaments. Fluent in Chinese, he introduced Mesny to the Szechuanese officials whose invitation to serve with the Szechuan Force changed his life. Mesny remarked that Dupuis was a distinguished explorer and 'conqueror of Tonkin.'\n\nGill, William J: born Bangalore 1843\n\nServed in India after being commissioned into the Royal Engineers. Inherited a fortune and indulged his passion for exploration. One of his travels was through north Szechuan province, where first he travelled alone and then later with Mesny to Burma. He wrote The River of Golden Sand in 1880, and after several other travels, in Tripoli and Afghanistan, he was murdered by Bedouins in 1882.\n\nGiquel, Prosper M. [1835-1886]\n\nA French naval officer who arrived in China during the Second China War. Formerly Commissioner of Imperial Maritime Customs at Ningpo and Hankow. He assisted the Sino-French 'Ever Triumphant Army' that fought alongside Tso Tsung-t'ang's force in Chekiang province to recapture Hangchow and Ningpo, and later commanded the force in operations that led to the recapture of Hangchow, for which he received high rank and honour from the Ch'ing government. His principal achievement was the construction and administration of the Foochow Arsenal in 1866, and dockyard with its fleet of warships. He was the only foreigner besides Gordon to receive the honour of the Yellow Riding Jacket.\n\nPage 105\n\nPage 106", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212797, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 106, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "91\n\nHart, Sir Robert [1835-1911]\n\nKnown as the \"I G” [Inspector-General of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs]. His Bureau was the one financial stay and prop, the negotiable asset, the one honestly administered and creditable branch within the Imperial government. He left the British Consular Service in 1861 to join the Customs Service, appointed I G in 1863.\n\nHill, David [1840-1896]\n\nWesleyan missionary stationed in Hankow until 1867. Died of typhus in Hankow. Hill was not only a witness with Griffith John at the re-marriage of William Mesny's brother's widow to E.G. Wilson in October 1884; he was also guardian with William Mesny to John's children.\n\nHung Hsiu-ch'uan ## [1813-1864] a Hakka\n\nLeader of the Taiping Rebellion: believed himself to be entrusted as the brother of Jesus to lead China and destroy the Manchu regime. [There is an inexplicable reference in Mesny's Miscellanies to a daughter 'of Hung?' wishing Mesny to return to Nanking to marry her]\n\nGordon, C G [1833-1885]\n\nAn English officer in the Royal Engineers who commanded the 'Ever-Victorious Army' against the Taiping rebels. He was appreciated by the Ch'ing Imperial government and was the first foreigner to be awarded the prestigious Yellow Riding Jacket. He later helped advise the Chinese during the Ili uprising in the early 1880s. He died in Khartoum during the Mahdi Uprising.\n\nJohn, Griffith [1831-1912]\n\nMissionary, LMS, Hankow 1861-1912. (Hill: q.v.)\n\nPrince Kung: also known as I-hsin [1832-1898]\n\nSixth son of the Tao Kuang emperor and half brother of the Hsien Feng emperor. Probably one of the most important Ch'ing dynasty officials in foreign affairs.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212800, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 109, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "94\n\n[passport) of Prince Su was printed on page 235 of Volume 4 [18 March 1904] of Mesny's Miscellanies.\n\nTseng Kuo-fan [1811-1872]\n\nA Confucian statesman and general who defeated the Taiping rebels in Nanking and put an end to the rebellion. He was first a militia leader, then a Governor-General of the Two Kiang provinces and finally the Imperial Commissioner for the suppression of the Taiping Rebels. Later he became the Imperial Commissioner ordered to suppress the Nien rebellion. He was Viceroy of Chihli in 1869. His Hunan Army provided the Manchu dynasty with a new lease of life.\n\nTso Tsung-t’ang [1812-1885]\n\nAn official who first came to the notice of his emperor when he was an active and successful military officer during the Taiping Rebellion. He was raised to an earldom and up to 1866 earned renown as an administrator in the provinces of Fukien and Chekiang. With his experience during the Taiping Rebellion he was sent to Shensi and Kansu to suppress the Muslim revolt [1862-1873] and, en route, he helped suppress the Nien rebels. He remained Governor General of Shensi and Kansu for many years and later in 1884 he became Governor of Fukien province during the French attack on Foochow and Keelung in Taiwan. He died in Foochow the following year.\n\nWard F T [1831-1862]\n\nAn American mercenary and founder of the 'Ever-Victorious Army', a Sino-foreign military force which aided the Manchu Ch'ing dynasty suppress the Taiping rebellion. He was killed in battle in September 1862 near Ningpo and was at first succeeded by another American, Burgevine, and then by Charles Gordon [q.v.]. Ward married Miss Yang, the daughter of the official banker Yang Ta-Ki, a Tartar. A magnificent mausoleum was erected over his grave in Sungkiang in 1877.\n\nWylie, Alexander [1815-1887]\n\nA missionary and scholar, editor of the Chinese Recorder.\n\nT", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212802, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 111, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "96\n\nCh'in-ch'ai Ta-ch'en ✯✯E : Imperial High Commissioner, a very senior appointment.\n\nEver Victorious Army ET: A European-officered Chinese force of the Imperial Army raised by the American, Ward, which ultimately, under the command of Colonel Gordon, assisted in putting an end to the Taiping Rebellion.\n\nExpectant... (Ho-ju) ✩A : A prefix indicating that an official was qualified and certified to take up duty in the post named.\n\nFan-t'ai #: A provincial treasurer known to foreigners as the Commissioner of Finance; charged with the fiscal or financial administration of a province.\n\nFormosa: The Portuguese name for the island of Taiwan.\n\nHakkas [Ko-chia] ** : One of the southern Chinese ethnic groups said to have migrated from northern China during the Mongol dynasty, ca the thirteenth century AD.\n\nHan-lin Yuan #: The Chinese National Academy, admission to which was the highest literary honour obtainable by a Chinese scholar.\n\nHo-shang : Buddhist monk or priest.\n\nHongkew : Site of the American Settlement in Shanghai, where Mesny later lived.\n\nHsien : Administrative district.\n\nHuang Ma-kua : The Yellow Riding Jacket. A high award from the emperor to his senior officials.\n\nImperial Maritime Customs: Chinese customs service with a foreign inspectorate largely able to control the collection of duties and taxes without the usual Chinese squeeze [q.v.]. Robert Hart became Inspector General in 1863.\n\nJingal (gingal): The Chinese blunderbuss. It was generally fired from a swivel fixed on a wall or wooden post, but sometimes it was fired with", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212804, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 113, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "98\n\nLikin ✰✰ : [li-chín] An arbitrary tax, originally of one cash per tael 釐金 on all kinds of produce, known to foreigners as the 'tax of one-thousandth', imposed in 1853 with a view to making up the deficiency in the land tax caused by the Taiping and Nien-fei troubles. Hence its common term, a 'war tax'.\n\nLorcha: A vessel having a hull of Chinese build but rigged with European masts and sails, and usually manned by a European captain and a Chinese crew.\n\nMace: The tenth part of a Chinese tael [q.v.] or ounce.\n\nMiao-tzu #7: shoots or sons of the soil: one of the larger of the southern Chinese aboriginal non-Chinese races subjugated by the Chinese, whose revolt in the 1860s lead to Mesny being employed by the Chinese army. This was not their first revolt; they had rebelled against Imperial rule at the end of the eighteenth century when their widespread revolt in Kueichou and Hunan provinces was put down with great difficulty owing to the mountains and forests covering that part of the world.\n\nMixed Courts: Instituted in 1865 in the Shanghai International Settlements [q.v.] for the hearing of cases between Chinese residents in the Settlements, between Chinese and foreign residents, and where foreigners were the defendants, provided always that they were unrepresented by a Consul on the spot. All suits were tried by a Chinese official having the rank of sub-Prefect, with the assistance, in cases where foreigners were concerned, of an assessor of the same nationality.\n\nMuslim Rebellion: the rebellion in the northern Chinese provinces of Shensi and Kansu between 1862 and 1873.\n\nNanking: the major city on the Yangtze and capital of Ming China. The 'Southern Capital', held by the Taipings from 1850 to 1864.\n\nNestorian Christians: The church which first introduced Christianity into China, at the close of the 6th century AD.\n\nNien-fei : [lit. The Twisting Robbers], The official designation of the large bodies of rebels who ravaged the plains of north China for a number of years. They referred to themselves as Nien-Tzu [The Coilers or Twisters] from their peculiar manner of formation in battle. The Nien", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214461, "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": 319, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "286\n\narms Force, and at about this time Ward was strongly praised by Hope,1 the British Admiral who appealed for a large expansion to Ward's force. The eventual force of about 8,000, under a number of foreign officers and several Chinese was, after several very successful battles, named by imperial decree the \"Ever Victorious Army [Ch'ang-sheng Chün].” It was under the overall command of the Governor of Kiangsu province. He was awarded the fourth rank button with peacock feather, though he has also been said to have received the higher imperial award of the Yellow Riding Jacket. At about this time Ward married the daughter of his Shanghai Chinese merchant-patron, Yang Fang. Referred to as Major Ward or General Ward, his rank was immaterial. He was the commander and, in Chinese terminology, commanders in action of forces larger than company level, that is over about one hundred men, were referred to as Chiang-chün, a term translated into English as General.\n\nHe died in Ningpo in September 1862 having been mortally wounded in action at nearby Tz'u-ch'i while reconnoitring by himself and having asked to be buried in the court of the Confucian Temple at Sungkiang, his unthinkable request was granted. He was succeeded for a short time first by another American, Burgevine [of whom more later], and then temporarily by Captain Holland before being finally replaced by Charles Gordon, a British officer in the Royal Engineers. The latter was generally credited by foreigners with the eventual defeat of the Taiping forces. In reality, by the time of Ward's death the corner had already been turned by the much larger Imperial forces under Li Hung-chang, supported by the Ever Victorious Army and other similar small units of foreign led Chinese, and within a short time they, together with British [a brigade of some two and a half thousand men under Brigadier-General Charles Staveley] and French forces, had the Taiping in retreat. Harry Franck, the American traveller of the 1920s, explained probably quite accurately that \"Gordon did the least of the work and won most of the credit for the 'Ever Victorious Army'.\"\n\nFranck retold a legend that \"Ward had planned, in case the Trent affair [during the US civil war] resulted in war with England, to seize British warships and merchantmen in Chinese waters. He had converted his large possessions into cash and negotiable securities, which disappeared when he was killed. An English officer last seen with him was accused of the theft, and there were long proceedings in the U.S. Consular Court in Shanghai.”", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214462, "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": 320, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "287\n\nWard was buried on his old drill-field near the Temple of Confucius just within the walls of the city of Sungkiang [Songjiang: pinyin], the prefectural capital of the area now dominated by Shanghai, and the city around which much of his military service with the Ever Victorious Army took place. Harry Franck2 visited the site in 1923 and wrote that “the Chinese built a temple of remembrance over his grave, similar to those built by Chinese for their famous men over the centuries, though unlike the majority with their gleaming yellow roof tiles his was a pathetic little gray-walled enclosure, covered with ordinary tiles, in an open space inside the West Gate, littered here and there with graves and unburied coffins. It was not imposing yet it was several times more so than the tomb the adventurer would probably have had in Massachusetts. Though the temple was but a single-room building, it had an altar with the spirit tablet of Ward, and all the other features of a Chinese temple, and now and again Chinese still come to burn incense and bow down before their hero of Taiping days. A conspicuous tablet in red and black tells those who know their Chinese that:\n\nAn illustrious man from beyond the seas, he came 6000 li to accomplish great deeds and acquire immortal fame by shedding his noble blood. Because of him Sungkiang will be a happy land for a thousand autumns”.\n\nFranck tells us that the temple was not badly kept, as things went in China. There were some trees and flowers in season, inside the compound, and the whole place has been recently repaired and repainted. Rice-straw and cabbages were drying on everything but the altar itself, and the woman caretaker had gone to market to \"buy things\" leaving her small son locked inside. The only foreign hint about the place was an unfinished stone recently set up by the \"Frederick Ward Post of the American Legion\" of Shanghai. He added that the most touching feature of the whole memorial was the mound of earth, like a common Chinese grave, behind the temple, but within the enclosure, under which Ward's big mastiff was buried. After his master's death, the story goes, the dog refused to take food and went wandering about looking for him until it died of starvation.\n\nSo, having seen an early photograph of the official temple,3 altar and tablet dedicated to Ward in Sungkiang some dozen or so years previously, I was determined to see for myself whether it still existed", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 214466, "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": 324, "title": "RAS-1998", "content_text": "秋\n\nThe altar of the temple-tomb of Frederick Ward, American organizer of the \"Ever Victorious Army\" of Taiping days\n\n291", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1998.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794", "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": 216036, "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": 335, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "269\n\nthe time ripe for an insurrection..\n\nThe rebellion began among the Hakka people in the southern provinces of Guangxi and Guangdong and by 1853 was spreading north and west, led by Hong Xiuquan, a schoolmaster who had picked up a smattering of Christianity. Whilst suffering from an illness he experienced severe hallucinations and saw that his mission was to free the Chinese from Manchu rule. He also convinced himself and others that he was the younger brother of Christ and a son of God sent to save mankind. The Taiping rebels were known colloquially by the Chinese peasants as the Long-haired Rebels, Chang Mao, as they refused to shave the front of their head. [China's Manchu conquerors had ordered that all Chinese males would shave the front half of their head and wear the rest tied into a lengthy queue or 'pigtail'.] Hong Xiuquan's liberated territory was known as the Kingdom of Great Peace, Taiping Tianguo and by 1860 he had more than a quarter of China under his control. Much of the fighting between the Manchu Imperial forces and the Taiping rebel armies took place across Zhejiang province and down the Yangzi, especially around the Taiping capital at Nanjing. With Zhenjiang captured by the Taiping in April 1853 [a mere eleven years after the British had taken the city], their control of the southern bank of the Yangzi was virtually complete. Zhenjiang lay deserted during the Taiping era, being no more than a fort occupied by the Taiping rebels. The pagodas and temples were all destroyed with the usual Taiping iconoclastic fervour, and in many places their stones used as fortifications. The city, surrounded on three sides by a remarkable line of Taiping trenches some ten to eleven miles in length, was besieged several times by the Imperial forces. Each time they were driven off, with the city remaining in Taiping hands until compelled by a failure of supplies the rebels were forced to evacuate it early in 1857. Zhenjiang never fully recovered. The Taiping were finally defeated in 1864 when their capital at Nanjing finally fell to the Imperial forces - assisted by several foreign-led armies of Chinese and western mercenaries, one of which was the Ever-Victorious Army under General Gordon. Rasmussen in 1905 refers to the decayed trench system as 'Gordon's trenches', with some of his guns still to be found sunk deep into the soil of their old embrasures. He added that 'the only reminder now [1905] of the Taiping Rebellion was the thousands of graves covering the countryside, and the ghost-ridden walled city where the whole population had been put to the sword'. Thomas Adkins, the British Consul in Zhenjiang,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216059, "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": 358, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "292\n\nwas buried there beside his first wife in the Zhenjiang cemetery when he died in Changsha a mere two months later. By the late forties, the cemetery had disappeared beneath industrial buildings.\n\nThere was quite a scandal about the Methodist chapel in about 1907 when, during an evening service, the whole congregation started to wriggle and scratch themselves. Many left hurriedly, and the preacher was almost alone when the service ended. It was then discovered that the Chinese caretaker had turned the place into a paying doss-house for coolies and beggars, and every pew was crawling with bedbugs and lice.\n\nMesny's Involvement with Zhenjiang 1863/5\n\nNow to an entirely different slant on activities within Zhenjiang. William Mesny was a Jerseyman who ran away from home in 1854 at the age of 12 and arrived in China in 1860. His autobiographical writings describe scenes from his diverse and exciting career in China from his earliest days as a lowly gaoler in Hong Kong, through his sailing days as a master on a small Yangzi trader, his time as an Imperial Customs Tide-waiter in Hankou, to the peak of his career serving with the Chinese Sichuan Provincial Green Standard army, ending up as a brevet Lieutenant-General. From there on, he was a self-appointed adviser to senior Chinese officials, travelling far and wide throughout China, and ending his days as an impoverished 'poor white' first in Shanghai and towards the end in Hankou, where he died in 1919. Although he had little to do with Zhenjiang itself during his time on the Yangzi, he was involved with others who had.29\n\nMesny, writing about his time on the Yangzi, first as a youth commanding a lorcha and then as a Customs Officer with the Chinese Imperial Customs, explained that on his first trip up the River, the comparatively short journey on from Zhenjiang to Nanjing took five hours with a call at Shi'er Wei, an important salt town on the northern bank of the river. An hour and a half before reaching Nanjing, ships would pass the Third Fort guarding the narrow defile under Guanyin Shan. It was there that in April 1862, Mesny was wounded and captured by a fleet of Imperial gunboats whose role it was to stop supplies of all kinds reaching the Taiping rebels. Mesny was sailing for Hankou from Shanghai with a full legal cargo, but to the Imperial gunboats, the 'Imps' as they were referred to by westerners, all vessels were fair game. Mesny", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 216060, "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": 359, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "293\n\nwas a young man of twenty just starting his lifelong career in China. In his Miscellanies he described how on his arrival at Hankou commanding the sailing lorcha, Hailong Wang [the Dragon King], he was paid off by the owners, the Mc Twins, who offered him a job as superintendent builder of a large hong [company office/warehouse] they intended erecting on the Bund. He accepted - as the Hailong Wang was laid up. However, as he actually wished to return to Shanghai to marry a local maiden, Zhu Wenjing, he took leave and in one statement he claimed that he sailed aboard the Huguang, a new beam-engine paddlewheel river steamer on her maiden voyage.\" In another he explained that he had left Hankou at the end of 1862 in charge of a cargo boat which was captured by the Taipings. This occurred when, having called at Zhenjiang on 1st or 3rd of November 1862 [his accounts vary], he was on his way to Shanghai in charge of a cargo boat, and was captured, with his crew, by the Taiping rebels, midstream, at Fu Shan Zhen. Mesny's colourful description of his time with the Taipings began with him being brought in chains before a senior Taiping who ordered him to ketou [kowtow]. Mesny wrote that he refused and that he only bowed to God. ‘So do we', cried the Taiping, and promptly ordered Mesny's release. Mesny continued his tale describing how the Senior Taiping had dined Mesny and offered him his daughter in marriage and the command of a Taiping vessel with the rank of vice-admiral. In another version elsewhere in his Miscellanies Mesny claimed to have been wounded twice during the capture and was at first badly treated by his captors. But once the Taiping discovered that he could play Chinese tunes on his four-octave flutina, their behaviour entirely altered. On a more credible note he was required to write to his employers in Shanghai demanding 100,000 Spanish Carolus dollars ransom.\n\nMesny was puzzled at the time why various senior Taiping officials should have vied to hold him their captive. It later transpired that at first these officials had not appreciated the power and capabilities of the foreign-led Chinese force [meaning the Ever-Victorious Army] sent against them; and when they did the Taiping officials' first act was to obtain and hold foreigners to prevent the violent wrath of the foreign-led force being brought down on them. One of the foreigners Mesny saw momentarily, also in Taiping hands, was Frank Phillip de la Cour, another Jerseyman, who had been taken whilst shipping arms.\n\nHaving managed to send a secret message to Shanghai that he was", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]