[
    {
        "id": 212836,
        "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": 145,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "130\n\nthe new officer to remove himself and his troops from the village where we were staying immediately. Poor man, he was only obeying his orders and did not know what to do; but he went. After that we were only watched by plain clothes men; but the dismissal of the escort, or prisoner's guard, as it would be called to the natives, showed the natives that we intended to be masters in our house, and helped to break down the fear under which they laboured.\n\nI was sorry to lose the men of the escort: they came from far away Hunan, and were good representatives of the salty peasant stock of a great nation.\n\nExcept on certain main routes used by the Chinese troops the villages in Kokang were not deserted, like many of those we had passed in Yunnan. It is an old story. A British officer, H.P. Davies, who was travelling through these parts in 1895, wrote: 'Our first march only took us back to Na-hsang, the place I had passed through on my way to Tawnio. This village which appeared quite prosperous a month before, we found almost entirely deserted. On enquiry we learned that some Chinese soldiers were expected there soon as escort to the boundary commission. No doubt these worthy villagers had had previous experience of Chinese troops and were determined to hide themselves and their property as much as possible.\n\nTawnio in Burmese, and Malipa in Chinese, is the name of the chief town in south Kokang; Na-hsang is a village across the border on the Chinese side. Here again it is most unfair to blame the Chinese troops. They are expected to move without commissariat and to live off the country; they have no money with which to pay for what they take, so no wonder the people of the villages make themselves scarce.\n\nAt Nancha we came across the makings of a small tragedy. The old headman had two unmarried daughters - his son had been carried off by the Chinese to attend school at Kun-ming, in other words he was a hostage - the elder of whom had bound feet, and the younger not bound. The modern young men would no longer look at any girl with bound feet; that was out of fashion; but until the elder sister was married, the younger, a bright good-looking girl, could not marry. It was a puzzle to which there appeared to be no solution. But the women in these parts are very independent; I heard later that the younger girl had run away from home and married the swain of her choice by just going to live",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 212843,
        "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": 152,
        "title": "RAS-1992",
        "content_text": "137\n\njackass stood tethered near the herdman's hut, on a knoll from which he could proudly survey his young.\n\nAt Lunghtang Jack rejoined us; he had followed the Salween and inspected all the ferries, except those around Kunlong, where the Japanese had established their bridgehead. During the past two years they had on several occasions raided from Kunlong as far north as Tawnio, putting the villages to fire. Kokang south of Tawnio was practically deserted and the mule tracks overgrown; there were no Chinese troops, but the Japanese were watched by standing patrols of the Kokang Defence Force.\n\nThe Salween at this season was low; in long stretches the current ran slow and the river could be crossed; the ferries were marked on the map at places, where tracks led down to the water. The width of the river, of course, varied; in the rapids where the water rushed through it might be no more than 100 feet, elsewhere generally nearer 300 feet. There were no boats; the method of crossing was to cut down a number of bamboos, lash them together, and paddle across. At the northern ferries small parties of Chinese troops watched on our side; the Japanese could be seen on the far side; but after the river left China to turn south, there were no more Chinese troops, and the ferries were watched by unarmed village levies, obviously ineffectively. The Japanese used the same system on their side, and at one ferry Jack had been able to shout over and hold a brief conversation with the two Kachin watchers on the far bank. At certain of the northern ferries shots were frequently exchanged between the Chinese troops, assisted by men of the K.D.F., and the enemy; and sometimes the Japanese would roll a gun up and lob some shells over; at other times it would be a trench mortar. On certain sections of the muletrack it was unwise to move by daylight.\n\nI sent Jack back to Hsintang where we had picked up some useful contacts, mostly thanks to Lopez' earlier work. Opposite Hsintang the Kachin tribes appeared ready to help, and we hoped we would be able to get people through onto the Burma road to watch Japanese movements, and so to facilitate Wingate's operations; if we could at the same time destroy some Japanese dumps so much the better.\n\nWhile at Hsintang I had been visited by one of the staff officers of the Nth division. I had with some difficulty persuaded him to allow our agents to cross the Salween at the ferry, which led most directly to the friendly Kachins and where the Japanese watch was not strict. We had",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x",
        "rank": 0
    }
]