[
    {
        "id": 211262,
        "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": 323,
        "title": "RAS-1987",
        "content_text": "298\n\nby the Chinese with great dread and by foreigners with apprehension. . . \n\n(Transferring Technology, p. 69)\n\nIn truth, Giquel must have been greatly valued by the Chinese in particular, though the books show that this was at the expense of being thought too pro-Chinese by the French authorities, and even by trusted subordinates.\n\nThe book is full of such interesting and illuminating passages, either from Giquel's own pen, those of contemporaries, or from Dr. Leibo's hand. Another useful observation, this time coming from the Imperial Commissioner charged with overseeing the Dockyard project, has for us today an oddly familiar ring to it. Commissioner Shen Baozhen was pessimistic about the continuing success of the dockyard under solely Chinese direction, and to Giquel's recital of favorable signs for continued progress answered, \"Certainly, but what if Li [Viceroy Li Hongzhang] disappears? What will become of all this?” (Transferring Technology, p. 125). In other words, personalities were apparently as crucial then as they are today, in China's modernization programmes.\n\nShen's faith in Giquel was absolute. Dr. Leibo quotes from a Chinese language source which indicates that he informed Li Hongzhang at this time that his confidence in him was such that he would stake his entire career on Giquel's loyalty to China. If Giquel ever did anything to harm China, Shen promised to terminate his own public career. (ibid. p. 126).\n\nOf the two works, I found the first to be the more satisfying. It is detailed and well-organised, and uses French sources hitherto unutilized by historians. The man and his times emerge clearly, and his difficulties and dilemmas shine through the text. Relationships with high Chinese officials, as well as with European colleagues and would-be rivals, and with the French and other higher authorities are happily covered in sufficient detail to make them both interesting and illuminating, thanks to the varied sources used by Dr. Leibo.\n\nThe other is just as absorbing, especially the diary itself, but I found Dr. Leibo's Introduction less satisfying than the fuller account.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1987.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 212029,
        "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": 444,
        "title": "RAS-1989",
        "content_text": "419\n\npessimistic about the continuing success of the dockyard under solely Chinese direction, and to Giquel's recital of favorable signs for continued progress answered, “Certainly, but what if Li [Viceroy Li Hongzhang] disappears? What will become of all this?” (Transferring Technology, p. 125). In other words, personalities were apparently as crucial then as they are today in China's modernization programmes.\n\nShen's faith in Giquel was absolute. Dr. Leibo quotes from a Chinese language source which indicates that he informed Li Hongzhang at this time that his confidence in him was such that he would stake his entire career on Giquel's loyalty to China. If Giquel ever did anything to harm China, Shen promised to terminate his own public career [ibid. p. 126].\n\nOf the two works, I found the first to be the more satisfying. It is detailed and well-organized, and uses French sources hitherto not utilized by historians. The man and his times emerge clearly, and his difficulties and dilemmas shine through the text. Relationships with high Chinese officials, as well as with European colleagues and would-be rivals, and with the French and other higher authorities, are happily covered in sufficient detail to make them both interesting and illuminating, thanks to the varied sources used by Dr. Leibo.\n\nThe other is just as absorbing, especially the diary itself, but I found Dr. Leibo's Introduction less satisfying than the fuller account given in the book-length study. Personally, being interested in military matters, I would have liked to have had more information on the recruitment, organization and officering of the \"Ever Triumphant Army\". If not in this account, where else? It is too shadowy a body for my liking. Nor is there enough about Giquel in the Introduction, and unlike me, many readers may not have the other book to hand for reference. This handicap sometimes applies in reverse, since there are no maps in Transferring Technology, and the useful section in the Diary giving biographical vignettes only appears in that work. Finally, in neither work are we told anything about Giquel's wife and children, and the Giquel family, although the 1864 Diary and other papers came from his grand-daughter's home.\n\nNotwithstanding these observations, readers will find much of interest in these fascinating works which relate to a man who clearly had much to offer, did his best, and assuredly deserves to be better known and",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1989.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213877,
        "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-1996",
        "page_number": 229,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "203\n\nBy the 1890s, however, these patronage networks developed by the western affairs movement underwent very drastic changes. Many of the “reform-minded\" officials in China had passed away due to old age.\n\nThe most serious blow came in 1895 with China's defeat in the Sino-Japanese War. This destroyed the credibility of the western affairs movement. With the downfall of Li Hongzhang, the basis of political patronage began to diversify.\n\nAs for Li Hongzhang, after having been disgraced, he was assigned by Beijing to be the Viceroy of such peripheral provinces as Guangdong and Guangxi. It is where the first attempt to make south China independent came into play.\n\nIn 1900, the issue of the Boxer Uprising divided the viceroys into two factions. The viceroys of the northern provinces followed Beijing and declared war on the foreigners. The viceroys of the southern provinces, led by Li Hongzhang, declared themselves neutral.\n\nHo Kai, a former member of Li Hongzhang's think tank, and then the Legislative Councillor of Hong Kong, was the agent in a deal between Sun Yat-sen, the Hong Kong Governor, and Li Hongzhang to establish a proposed independent government in the South. He sought the Governor's assistance to persuade, even with military coercion, Li Hongzhang to declare Guangdong independent. The Governor, anticipating that China was about to be partitioned, was anxious to find ways to protect British interests in Southern China. Without committing himself, Li was said to have reacted favourably. In addition, it is recorded that Li Hongzhang wrote to Sun Yat-sen inviting him to Canton for a \"parley\".\n\nAt this juncture, Beijing offered Li Hongzhang attractive high-level posts in northern China. He was called to Beijing to tidy up the political chaos after the Boxers. The rumour that Li was about to leave for the North evoked great fear among the Chinese in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Telegraph reported that to stop Li from leaving, the merchants threatened to \"lie in front of the wheels of his carriage\".\n\nThe Governor of Hong Kong, through the Consul in Canton, urged Li to reconsider his decision. Politely refusing this advice, Li inquired whether he could be granted an interview when he passed through.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216068,
        "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": 367,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "301\n\ngaol on Amoy Road, at the end of the Kueichou Road, and he probably occupied a cell that had previously been prepared to receive me.\n\nMesny was commanded to appear before Her Britannic Majesty's Supreme Court for China and Japan in Shanghai on the 8th day of October 1891 to give material evidence and testify what he knew concerning the charge that Charles Henry Allen Welch Mason of Shanghai on or about the 13th inst. did have in his possession or under his control five pounds or thereabouts of an explosive substance under circumstances that gave reasonable suspicion that he did not have it in his possession for a lawful purpose. He attended as requested with the result that Mason got nine months imprisonment, at Shanghai and to be deported from China for ever thereafter or something like that. Thus it happened, added Mesny, 'that this biter was bitten.'\n\nMesny added that he had suffered ever since from the evil effects of this monstrous attempt to involve him in a treasonable plot. 'I have never been able to obtain employment from the Chinese Government since those days and many of my Chinese friends have cut me dead under the impression that I must have been guilty of some collusion with Mason in some inexplicable manner.\n\nThus in 1892 when I called on Earl Li Hongzhang at Tianjin he accused me of being the head centre of all the Gelao Hui men in China.\n\n'Last winter [noted as 1892 but printed a number years later] I was in Nanjing and in a fair way of getting a good command when Zai Jun, the Daotai of Shanghai, I believe, telegraphed to the Viceroy to beware of me as I was a dangerous character, the friend of Mason, the plotter. My own wife has told me hundreds of times that she is in dread of the awful fate that awaits me on this account and has begged me to grant her a letter of divorce and let her take the children away, she has worried the life out of me during the past few months with this clamour for a divorce and I believe that she is being incited thereto by designing people who take advantage of her weakness of mind to thus annoy me, and when they have got my wife away from me by divorce she ceases to be British [i.e. post-1898], then will they do to her what they do not dare to do now, and probably kill my children.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    }
]