[
    {
        "id": 213876,
        "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": 228,
        "title": "RAS-1996",
        "content_text": "202\n\nstate through the mandarinate and extended downward. Dependence on the favour of aristocratic protection found in Europe was represented in China by dependence on the favour of personified officialdom from the central extending all the way down to the localities. Accordingly, the rivalry within central officialdom would extend downward to their protégés in the local regions. The Cantonese experience can illustrate this point.\n\nAs such \"reform-minded\" officials such as Li Hongzhang and Zhang Zhidong were competing for national influence, their protégés recruited in the provinces were also competing among themselves. After the opening of Shanghai and Tianjin, increasing numbers of men from Ningpo and Zhejiang were appointed compradores of western firms or advisors to the reform-minded officials. Even within the Cantonese group, some were more influential than others.\n\nIn terms of national influence, those Cantonese engaged in economic reforms always gained the upper hand from those engaged in legal reforms. As shall be seen, for those Cantonese engaged in economic reform (from Tang Jingxing to his nephew Tang Shaoyi, and through him to Liang Shiyi), they eventually advanced to positions in Beijing and monopolized the influential Board of Communications, which commanded huge economic resources in steamships, railways, mining and telegraph. This group of Cantonese was known as the Communications Clique. Their interests were vested in a China united under the central control of Beijing. This partly explains why Liang Shiyi and his clique were willing to finance Yuan Shikai's government after 1911, as well as his monarchical movement in 1916.\n\nThose Cantonese advisors such as Wu Tingfang and Ho Kai (He Qi) who were engaged in legal and diplomatic reforms, had not established their power base in Beijing and so eventually they based their influence in south China. After all, they were appointed Legislative Councillors in Hong Kong, the highest political posts that the Hong Kong Chinese could expect. They were sympathetic to the revolutionary activities in south China. As shall be seen, they sided with Guangdong in reform, in revolution, and in independence. Remarkably, both the Communications Clique and the \"legal-reform group\" turned out to be political patrons for competing groups of Cantonese merchants in Hong Kong.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1996.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216033,
        "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": 332,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "266\n\nand on as far as the coast of Africa bringing back treasures which included the first giraffe. These expeditions would have sailed past Zhenjiang and must have been a sight to behold.\n\nToday Zhenjiang is twinned with Tempe, near Phoenix in Arizona. Presumably there is a common factor linking these two places but whatever it might be has escaped me.\n\nHostile incursions up the Yangzi\n\nDown the centuries many raids by Japanese pirates on the eastern Chinese seaboard, some large scale but mostly small, led to the permanent awareness and terror amongst the Chinese along the coastline. The Yangzi estuary was not spared and on a number of occasions they even penetrated up River as far as Zhenjiang. Having been beaten off during the 12th century they reappeared in force during the early 13th century, and in 1419 they were beaten decisively and piracy stopped for a while. The Japanese were again defeated in 1542 by Yu Dayu, however, they reappeared in force in the Yangzi in 1550 capturing Zhenjiang before going on to threaten Nanjing. For three months they plundered the Zhenjiang area before retiring with their booty. For many a year the hills around the city each had beacons ready to fire to warn of impending Japanese attacks. - and by the end of the 14th century their depredations were recurring annually.\n\nA major incursion up the Yangzi was made in 1629 by a naval force despatched by Zheng Zhilong, the father of Zheng Chenggong, better known to foreigners as Koxinga and Taiwan's most famous hero. Koxinga was a child of destiny, a seagoing warlord who opposed and fought the newly-established Manchu Qing dynasty on the mainland from his base in Taiwan. He finally established a new mini-dynasty which ruled Taiwan for some twenty or so years. His father, Zheng Zhilong [1604-1661], had been a notorious Xiamen [Amoy] Chinese pirate chief who had made a fortune through his trading and piracy, raiding the shipping and settlements of south China with his fleet of pirate raiders and trading junks. The Ming authorities, to tame him, allowed themselves to accept his offer of service and were forced into making him an admiral and a marquis in charge of the suppression of piracy - and thus drew his teeth.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    }
]