RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p NOTES AND QUERIES 281 disturbances were under control to rescind the proclamation invoking emergency powers as soon as the Chinese New Year celebrations were over. But conditions in the colony had not yet fully returned to normal and various wild rumours continued to be put into circulation, including the story that when May arrived the enlarged garrison would make an attack on China and annex further areas of Guangdong north of the New Territories. However, no-one was expecting any serious trouble on the morning of 4th July when the elite of the colony turned out to welcome the new governor. The ship bringing Sir Henry May from Fiji arrived off Kowloon point early in the morning and at 10 a.m. Sir Henry crossed the harbour in the government launch to Blake Pier where he was greeted with a salute of 17 guns. He inspected the guard of honour and met the members of the Executive and Legislative Councils, all of whom were well-known to him. Among them was Sir Kai Ho Kai, the senior member of the Legislative Council, who had just received his knighthood, the first ever given to a Chinese in Hong Kong. Sir Kai had strong connections with the reform movement in China, but he had loyally supported the British administration in the measures taken to deal with violence in the colony, and the knighthood was his reward for this as well as for his long career of public service. The next part of the ceremonial was the procession to the City Hall. Sir Henry and Lady May took their seats side by side in two sedan chairs, each carried by eight coolies. The chairs were escorted by eight Indian constables, four on the right of Sir Henry's chair marching two paces apart, and four on the left of Lady May's chair. Behind them was a European police sergeant, and he was followed by four more chairs carrying the four daughters of the new governor. The route to the City Hall was lined by soldiers stationed at intervals of three paces on either side of the road. As the procession left Blake Pier and passed along Pedder Street towards Des Voeux Road a Chinese dressed in European clothes was seen to push his way through the crowd around the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p NOTES AND QUERIES 283 and also complained about a recent ordinance, passed in April, which had prohibited the use of Chinese copper coins as legal tender in Hong Kong, which he claimed was an interference with the new republican government in Guangdong. After he had made this statement, he was committed for trial at the Criminal Sessions two weeks later. The case was heard there before the Chief Justice, Sir Rees Davies. Li was charged with firing a revolver with the intent to kill and murder His Excellency the Governor. There was an alternative charge of intent to do the Governor grievous bodily harm. Li promptly pleaded guilty to both charges. The Attorney General briefly outlined the facts of the case, and the statement Li had made in the magistrate's court was repeated. No evidence was offered as to Li's background or his state of mind. In passing sentence, the Chief Justice said: 'You have pleaded guilty to a most dastardly crime. The motives which you put forward at the police court relate to conditions which have no foundation whatsoever in fact, and they do not in the least palliate your crime'. Li was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour.7 May reported the outcome of the trial to London, enclosing a medical certificate by a prison doctor that Li was of sound mind. He added the suggestion that the prisoner's statement had been mistranslated and that he was complaining about the compulsory repatriation of Chinese labourers from South Africa (Fei Chau) and not about mistreatment of Chinese in Fiji. He concluded: 'It seems quite clear that the attempt upon me was not connected with any political plot. It seems to have been the act of a man who, if not mad, must be of weak intellect'.8 On the day after the trial, an editorial in the South China Morning Post expressed the hope that this sentence would prove a salutary lesson and deterrent to other criminals. Too much leniency had been shown by the courts, said the editor, and this sentence should put a stop to the recent wave of crime and disorder. Similar views were expressed by the other English-language newspapers. The China Mail thought that the only redeeming feature of the regrettable affair was 'the genuine ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 80 legendary first Huang Yeren, and who was also eventually referred to as Huang Yeren. This individual, Huang Li, was a prefectural governor at Zhengzhou (present day Huizhou) toward the end of the reign of Dayou (928-943) during the short-lived Southern Han dynasty (918-971)." Evidently he had retired to Luofu after becoming disenchanted with the regime which he served. The sources relate that he met a Taoist who taught him the art of making cinnabar. Towards the end of the reign of Shaoxing (1131-1162), he was by imperial edict granted the title of Dazhen (the one who obtained immortal status). He is thought to have ascended to heaven near the end of the Song dynasty." He is also credited with several healings. The memory of Huang Li as a separate figure in the literary sources has been preserved, and evidently there is still a temple or shrine to Huang Li in Dongguan county." But the figure of Huang Yeren at Luofu now includes elements of both the original Huang Yeren and the later Huang (or Wang)20 Li. 21 The veneration of Huang Yeren at Mt. Luofu seems to have a very long history. The poet Su Dongpo in the 11th century A.D. in a letter to a Taoist friend mentions that he had heard of Huang Yeren at Mt. Luofu." The great Guangdong poet Qu Dajun (1630-1696) in his encyclopedic Guangdong Xinyu (New accounts of Guangdong) devotes an entire page to Huang Yeren. Huang, he writes, was the most frequently seen of all the saints of the mountain. A small shrine to him (in the hills to the west of the Chongxu Guan) was, he reports, in ruins." The writer Tan Cui, who traveled widely in Guangdong during the reign of Qianlong (1736-1796), noted the presence of a small shrine or temple to Huang Yeren in the 18th century.23 When the main temple on the mountain was destroyed in 1802, the nearby shrine to Huang Yeren evidently suffered the same fate. The present temple, the Chongxu Guan, was built shortly afterwards." This temple has recently been restored and renovated (1985/86). It appears that prior to the restoration, a statue of Huang Yeren stood in the same room as the statue of Ge Hong." This statue has disappeared. (The statue beside Ge Hong is now that of his wife, Bao Gu, famous practitioner of acupuncture). However, there is now (as of early 1987) a separate room for the worship of “Huang Daxian", containing a new statue of the god. We were told that it Page 105 Page 106 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 315 piracy problem in the late Ming, the Coastal Evacuation and its aftermath. In 1662, to deny Ming loyalists supply and support, the Qing government ordered the coastal population of Xin'an county, among others, to evacuate inland (see Ng 1983:26-28). Many died. They were only allowed to return in 1669, thanks to the petitions of the Governor of Guangdong Wong Loi-Yam and the Governor-General Jau Yau-Tak. It is to be expected that the population became smaller in the period just after the evacuation. Many new lineages had migrated into the area in this period (Siu 1984:5-6). These newcomers would have been a threat to those who had settled long before the evacuation. Some of the “locals” had probably also learnt from the previous experience the need to get organized. Others would have to follow suit if they did not want to be dominated by large power groups. Students of the region see the Evacuation (1662-1669) as a turning point in its history. Watson (1985:25), for example, pointed out, "Many of south [Xin'an] temples, and large corporate descent groups trace their beginning to this period”. The construction of temples and ancestral halls, she suggested, were steps to strengthen the organizational framework and power of the dominant lineages. 12 The ancestral hall for Ching-Lok's segment, as I have noted above, was probably first built before this period. In Kam Tin a few other ancestral halls and the Jau and Wong Temple were erected in this period. Before this period, therefore, some of the Dangs in Kam Tin had ancestral halls and some had none. From early in this period every one "belonged” to at least one ancestral hall. One of them, the Mau-Ging Tong, was obviously different in nature from the earlier Ching-Lok ancestral hall. It encompassed the three junior branches of the lineage. An inscription for the rebuilding of the Mau Ging Tong included in the Si Gim Tong genealogy acknowledged that it was built subsequent to the Ching-lok ancestral hall, in the Kangxi period (1662-1735). Another ancestral hall, Loi-Sing tong, was also built in this period, in 1701, for the brother of Ching-Lok, as noted above. All of the Dangs of Kam Tin belong to one of these three ancestral halls. Even then, there is no common ancestral hall for all the Dangs of Kam Tin. The Gwun-Yam temple at the site of the present Ling-Wan Ji monastery, to which I shall return later, may have been important to Kam Tin as a whole since very early days. The Jau and Wong Temple built in 1685 dedicated to two officials, and its associated decennial jiu festival also provided all the Dangs of Kam Tin with a unified symbol of identity. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 43 groups which Pi Yuan (Bi Yuan) formed in Shensi in the late 1770s, and the group Juan Yuan (Ruan Yuan) formed at the Hsueh-hai t’ang in Canton in the first decades of the 19th century. The (Bi and Ruan) circles were more active in publication: Pi Yuan underwrote the publication of many monographs and critical editions, and Juan Yuan was responsible for the 1400 volume compilation of classical commentary entitled Huang-Ch'ing ching-chieh (Qing period commentaries on the classics). Wang Jun Yi of the People's University recognized how important this form of patronage was to the development of scholarship and learning during the mid-Qing period. Under the leadership of the central government, officials enthusiastically supported scholars' research. Xu Qian xue, Bi Yuan, Ruan Yuan, for example, had on their staffs a large number of scholars. They established academies and compiled books. Their activities of collecting books, compiling books, checking texts against ancient editions, and printing books, made it fashionable to collect and create books. Under these circumstances, scholarship and learning developed during the mid-Qing era. Ruan Yuan had inherited the tradition of scholarly patronage from the Zhu Brothers and Bi Yuan. When Ruan Yuan first went to Peking to take the metropolitan examination in 1786, he was taken into the Zhu circle. His first important official assignment was director of studies in Shandong 1793-95 when Bi Yuan was governor. As Ruan Yuan's official career spanned half a century, in such areas as Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou, his patronage was widespread. Since his interests were all-embracing and his ability to identify quality of scholarship more than adequate, he managed to leave works in all major areas of learning of that time. Importance of Ruan Yuan as a scholar and patron of learning as seen by 20th century scholars Although Ruan Yuan's contributions to mid-Qing scholarship and learning have been recognized by 20th century scholars, a comprehensive study of the scholars around him is yet to be made. Qian Mu... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 46 shi lue, 16 juan. 17 History and Statecraft: Chou ren zhuan, 46 juan, started between 1797 and 1799 but not completed and printed until 1810, was the first effort of any Chinese scholar to put in chronological order summaries of the lives and works of 242 Chinese and 38 non-Chinese astronomers and mathematicians, thus providing materials that made possible a systematic history of mathematics and its related field, astronomy, as well. Ruan Yuan also wrote biographies of scholars, including those who were not officials and therefore would not have been included in official compilations, in Guo shi ru lin zhuan and Guo shi wen yuan zhuan, 1810. Discourse on contemporary administrative issues included Liang Guang yen fa zhi (Salt administration in Guangdong and Guangxi), Hai yun kao, 2 juan (sea transport), 1805, Hai tang zhi, 30 juan (Coastal Gazetteer of Haining), and an essay putting forth his suggestions on the most efficient way to transport tribute grain, Liang chuan liang mi jie fa shuo, composed while he was director of grain transport. Historical Geography: In addition to encouraging other scholars to compile provincial and local gazetteers, Ruan Yuan himself compiled two provincial gazetteers, Guang dong tong zhi, 334 juan in 1818-1822, and Yun nan tong zhi gao, 216 juan, in 1835, when he was governor-general in the respective provinces. Bibliography: As a scholar, Ruan Yuan relished in collecting books. He made sure that cataloguing of well-known collections, such as that of the Fang Family in Ningbo, was brought up to date, in Tian yi ge shu cang shu mu, 4 juan, 1804. He established libraries that included Classical as well as contemporary works in the Lingyin Monastery (Hangzhou) and the Jiaoshan Monastery off Zhenjiang, and compiled catalogues for the collections. As director of studies in Shandong, he drew up a list of books for young students to peruse, Shan dong xue zheng Ruan Yuntai shi tong sheng shu mu, 1 juan. 20 Literature and Other Collectanea: Ruan Yuan collected and published works of literally thousands of poets, including women and other social minorities, whose work would not have otherwise survived. Liang Zhe you xuan lu, for instance, contained 9,241 poems by 3,133 poets from Zhejiang, including 381 poems by 183 women poets, and 314 poems by 117 monks and priests, together with biographical notes of the poets. His own essays and poems are also published in Yan jing shi ji, 54 juan, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 53 Jiang Fan (1761-1831) was one of the scholars from Yangzhou who followed Ruan Yuan all their lives. After losing his fortune and library in a drought that devastated Yangzhou 1785-86, he worked for a number of major officials on their personal staff, including Grand Secretary Wang Jie (1725-1805) and Ruan Yuan. At the recommendation of Ruan Yuan, who was then Director of Grain Transport, Jiang was appointed to the Lizheng Academy as Director in 1813. He followed Ruan Yuan to Canton as tutor to Ruan Fu (b. 1802), who, alone among Ruan Yuan's children, had entertained any pretension as a classical scholar. While at Canton, Jiang edited the Guangdong tongzhi 1819-1822 under Ruan Yuan's aegis. Ruan Yuan published Jiang's major work, Hanxue shicheng ji. Jiao Xun (1763-1820) was another scholar from the Yangzhou area. He was considered to be a major force of the mid-Qing era in Classics, history, astronomy, mathematics, phonetics, etymology, and geography. He was a close personal friend of Ruan Yuan and worked as Ruan's personal secretary in the early days of Ruan Yuan's official career. A record of anti-piracy campaigns in Zhejiang 1799-1809 was compiled by Jiao and printed as Yingzhou shu ji. Jiao also worked on Chouren zhuan. He was recorded to have been paid 1,000 taels to compile the Yangzhou fu zhi [Local gazetteer of Yangzhou]. With this money, he was able to purchase land and build a house. His own works, mostly printed by Ruan Yuan, included Bei hu xiao zhi [Local history of Bei hu, a community north of Yangzhou], Li tang xue suan ji (Jiao Xun's mathematical studies), and Diao gu lou ji [Studies from Diao gu lou], comprising three major treatises on the Classics. Hung Yixuan (1770-1815) was an example of those scholars whose personality and inclination had made it difficult for them to fit into the trials and tribulations of official life. One of three brothers all known for their intellectual achievements, which embraced astronomy, history, the Classics, and geography, Hung first came to the attention of Ruan Yuan in Hangzhou in 1796 or 1797. As Governor-General at Canton, Ruan Yuan rescued Hung from office by appointing him to his personal staff to work with Feng Dengfu on epigraphical notes they were compiling on Zhejiang. Ling Tingkan (1757-1809) had made his home in Yangzhou, where he had become a close friend of Ruan Yuan. A jinshi of 1790, Ling had ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j Appendix 1 59 Chronology of Ruan Yuan's Government Appointments 1789-1838 Appointment Location Rank Dates Hanlin Bachelor Beijing 1789/5 Proof Reader (Wu Ying Dian) Beijing 1789/5 Compiler Second Class Beijing 7A 1790/3 Imperial Diarist Beijing 1790/2 Supervisor of Instruction Beijing 4A 1791/3 Chief Supervisor of Instruction Beijing 3A 1791/11 Director of Studies (Shandong) Jinan 2B 1793/6 Director of Studies (Zhejiang) Hangzhou 2B 1795-1798 Vice President (Board of Rites) Beijing 2A 1798-1799 Acting Vice President (Board of War) Beijing 2A 1799/2 Vice President (Board of Revenue) Beijing 2A 1799/4 Assistant Examiner of Metropolitan Examination Beijing 1799 Acting Vice President (Board of Rites) Beijing 2A 1799/7 Governor of Zhejiang Hangzhou 2B 1799-1805 Vice President (Board of Revenue) Beijing 2A 1807 Vice President (Board of War) Beijing 2A 1807 Governor of Zhejiang Hangzhou 2B 1807-1809 Compiler Second Class (Hanlin Academy) Beijing 7A 1809/10 Sub-expositor (Hanlin Academy) Beijing 4B 1810/5 Imperial Diarist Beijing 1810/10 Revisor (State Historiographer's Office) Beijing 1810/11 Supervisor of Instruction Beijing 4A 1811/9 Sub-Chancellor of Grand Secretariat Beijing 2B 1812/1 Vice President (Board of Rites) Beijing 2A 1812/1 Vice President (Board of Works) Beijing 2A 1812/5 Director-General of Grain Transport Huaian 1812-1814 Governor of Jiangxi Nanchang 2B 1814-1816 Governor of Henan Kaifeng 2B 1816/8 Governor-General of Hu Guang Wuchang 2A 1817/10 Governor-General of Guangdong & Guangxi Canton 2A 1817-1826 38 3 3 3833 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 203 By 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. The 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. As 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. In 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. Ho 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". At 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". The 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. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 205 different parts of China As the Manchu government was drumming up a "commercial war" between Chinese and foreign enterprises, overseas Chinese merchants were targeted by Beijing as a source of wealth for new industries. In Hong Kong, the first groups of Hong Kong Chinese to respond to this reform were a group of newly returned migrants of Siyi and Xiangshan origins. They returned from America and Australia, where exclusion policies against Chinese immigrants had been implemented during the 1890s. Once settled in Hong Kong, they found themselves left outside the established leadership hierarchy in the colony (the Legislative Council-Tung Wah circle). They had to vest their interests in other institutions They looked northward and, immediately, they saw hope in China, where the late Qing reforms offered them ample chances for political and economic advancement. The Governor recalled with contempt the composition of the Siyi Chamber. [It is] composed of Californian and Australian coolies, artisans who though [they] could often talk fair English, could not write their names in any language Thanks to this rhetoric of "commercial war", these overseas returned migrants penetrated into south China. They formed themselves into regional chambers of commerce and through which they raised capital for such large-scale investments as railways, public utilities and land reclamation in Guangdong. Among others, these enterprises included a Siyi Steamship Company, a Sunning (of Siyi) Railway Company and two companies, with respectively 500,000 and 580,000 silver taels in capital, for “port-building” against Portuguese Macao and British Hong Kong. With the approval of the Qing government, these two port-building companies initiated two large-scale port and market development schemes in Siyi and Xiangshan which were intended to recover benefits lost to Hong Kong and Macau. The channel that these merchants went through was the following, the chambers of commerce submitted petitions to the Commissioner of Industrial Promotion and thence to the Bureau of Commerce in Beijing Conservative in design, this late Qing reform led to revolutionary consequences. Among these policies of centralization was Beijing's attempt to nationalize economic resources in the provinces. It was the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 206 policy of railway nationalization that sparked off very strong provincial resistance. Numerous Railway Protection Societies were formed in different provinces, and one by one, they declared the provinces independent from Beijing. The 1911 Revolution and its Aftermath In Guangdong, the Railway Protection Society was formed in Hong Kong and chaired by Li Yutang, the chairman of the Siyi Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. In a dispatch to the Colonial Office, the Governor noted that since the revolution, the Siyi Chamber had "principally ruled Canton.” It is recorded that in a meeting in the Siyi Chamber of Commerce of Hong Kong, Wu Hanmin was elected as the new Governor-General for Guangdong. Li Yutang, chairman of the Siyi Chamber, as well as that of the Railway Protection society, was appointed as the Provincial Treasurer of Guangdong. His son, his two brothers and his son-in-law also held posts in the Canton Government. They formed themselves into a bank of Canton, but registered it in Hong Kong. Aside from this, the Siyi men formed themselves into a "Thirty-Men Subscription Team”. With certificates granted by the Canton Revolutionary Government, they set up a Subscription Bureau in Hong Kong. One member of this group, a Yang Xian recalled years later that: the uprising was a success without any single help of a soldier or army... because of the assistance of the Hong Kong merchants... we subscribed, within half a day, an amount of 40,000 and had it transported to Canton immediately. Originally, the Canton government promised to return $2 for any $1 subscribed... but we [with patriotism] adjusted it to $1.50 for $1 only. To back up the unsecured currency issued through the Bank of Canton by the Canton Revolutionary Government, the Siyi Chamber established a "Canton and Hong Kong Financial Company" to redeem the unsecured currency in August 1912. Through the Registrar-General of Companies, the Governor warned the Hong Kong merchants of the "financial unsoundness of the scheme" ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 209 members of the Alumni Association. All of them had at one time or another worked as compradores for foreign firms; the two Eurasian families, Ho Tung and Lo Changzhao (E) had almost monopolized the compradoral posts of Jardines and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank up to the 1940s. Liu Zhubo, He and Lo's sons were at one time or another appointed Legislative Councillors of the Colony. When the First World War broke out in Europe, these three partners contributed a huge sum of money to the British Government for the purchase of an aeroplane. The plane, as requested by the donors, was named "Da You Bank of Hong Kong". The wealth of this western-educated group did not derive from the joint-stock company. They owned their own native bank despite the fact that they were compradores in western firms. It seems likely that this was an attempt to avoid the disclosure of financial accounts as required by the company ordinance. As these Eurasian families monopolized the compradoral posts of many of the foreign firms, including the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, it is highly likely that capital was transferred between their accounts in the compradore offices and those in their private businesses. As they had exclusive access to capital, they did not rely on a capital market in the same way as the overseas returning migrants did, though we cannot tell whether this capital market was governed by the invisible hand of the economy or the invisible hand of political intimidation, as the governor suggested. Following the example of the Siyi men, Hong Kong-born, western-educated groups participated in the political arena in China. In 1913, the Governor reported to the Colonial Office that "several leading Chinese" in Hong Kong had informed him that they would welcome the reorganization of the administration of the Canton Province under "tactful and conscientious British supervision." According to Liu Zhubo's proposal, a loan of 25,000,000 taels was to be raised in Hong Kong to redeem unsecured currency in Canton. In return, Liu requested of the Beijing Government the privilege of establishing a central bank in Guangdong "with a monopoly of the Provincial Government business". To guarantee the smooth functioning of this arrangement, Liu suggested "inviting the Government of Hong Kong". ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 212 the return of Chen Jiongming from the neighbouring province of Fujian. Chen was the Governor-General of Guangdong in 1912 and 1913. After the failed "Second Revolution" in 1913 against Yuan, he escaped to Malaysia (while Sun to Japan) and developed his own anti-Yuan organization independent of Sun's party in Japan. When the Canton Government was established in 1917, nominally under Sun Yat-sen, he returned to Canton only to find that the guest armies had real control over the province. As a result, he gathered a small troop of soldiers made up of native Cantonese and moved to Fujian in early 1918, where he strengthened its fighting potential. Chen Jiongming's return was financially supported by a group of Chinese bankers, who were affiliated with Liu Zhubo, in Hong Kong. They advanced to Chen Jiongming an amount of $200,000 and promised to pay the Guangxi troops a “give-way fee”, if the armies retreated to their home provinces. The fighting could not wait for bargains, as in late October Chen Jiongming's army had forced its way into Canton. The Guangxi guest armies obtained the "overdue army expenditure" through a different means. The guest armies retreated westward to Guangxi, looting all the way home. The return of the Cantonese troops under Chen Jiongming was welcomed by the Cantonese. The atmosphere in Canton, as reviewed in the newspapers, was that Chen Jiongming should be the Provincial Governor. Funds for a new government were promised by the merchants. At this juncture, on November 25, Sun Yat-sen and his key supporters left Shanghai and triumphantly returned to Canton. He prepared to assume power again. After all, Chen was Sun's subordinate in 1913 and 1917. The situation Sun found on his return to Canton was not to his liking. Sun was made Director and Minister of the Interior in the restored government. Wu Tingfang was made Minister of Foreign Affairs. But Chen Jiongming had been planning for the future in Canton, and his list of titles was impressive. Chen was the Minister of War, Governor of Guangdong, Commander in Chief of the Guangdong Army, and High Inspecting Commissioner of Guangdong and Guangxi. In January of 1921, Sun summoned all available parliamentarians to a meeting in Canton. There was no quorum, but they voted anyway. At the end, the Parliament elected Dr. Sun Provisional President of China. Chen Jiongming was in no hurry to act, nor was he ready to listen to Sun. In an interview with the British Consul, Sun described his ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 213 relationship with Chen - they "did not see eye to eye... [they] thrashed out their differences round the Council table which... they thumped." To arrange the finance of the new Government, Sun decided to reorganize the province's currency. The new policy was a total abolition of the existing currency and the introduction of a brand new currency under a new government bank. Originally, the new bank was to have had a reserve of $10,000,000, but it turned out that the Canton government could only put up 30% of the original amount. As a government bank, it had the right to issue new currency, to control the treasury and the salt gabelle in Guangdong. The crucial thing it lacked, as shall be seen, was credit worthiness. The merchant's prediction proved correct. In response, the chambers of Commerce wrote a joint letter to Sun, stating that "to cancel the existing currency (issued by the Bank of China in Canton) was equivalent to an act of sentencing them to the death penalty." Ending the letter, the chambers warned the government that "if the creditability of the Government was shattered [by this incident], the new notes issued by the Provincial Bank of Guangdong may suffer too." The brand new currency issued by the new government bank, amounting to $1,500,000, depreciated sharply once it began circulation. It was in March 1921 that Chen Jiongming secretly approached "the leading Chinese merchants in Hong Kong," requesting them to form into an advisory council for the Guangdong Government, which was responsible for giving advice on the "administration of the province in relation to civil and financial matters." ** Coinciding with Chen's move, it was Liu Zhubo who submitted a confidential report to the Governor of Hong Kong on a scheme to finance a new government in Canton - "the object of the proposed organization was to finance Chen Ch'iung-ming (Chen Jiongming) and enable him to sever [his] connection with Sun Yat-sen." According to Liu Zhubo's proposal, this new Canton government was to be modelled "after the form of government of Hong Kong" under the supervision of the Cantonese merchants. In Liu's words: The Political ship of Canton - officiated, manned and navigated as it now is - is bound to strike rock... what the Chinese merchants in Hong Kong and Canton should do, and do at once, is to prepare and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 214 equip another ship for their own salvage purposes Liu emphasised that all the influential Cantonese merchants agreed with him - "at the request of 100 odd men in Hong Kong", a merchant's society was formed “to protect their properties and industries in Canton". "For these men cannot afford to sit tight and see their interests seriously impaired by unscrupulous or theory-laden politicians.” The Governor was obviously impressed by the scheme. He passed the scheme immediately to the British Consul in Canton, and thence to the British Consul in Beijing. He also informed London that Liu Zhubo was requested by Chen Jiongming to organize an Advisory Committee for the Canton Government. This committee was modelled after the Legislative Council in Hong Kong and would “possess the power of the executive Council" for the new Canton government. For this proposed co-operation, Liu Zhubo planned a three-day trip to Canton in March 1921. On this trip, he submitted a six-page report to the Governor of Hong Kong. During his stay in Canton, Liu recorded that - while Sun Yat-sen and Wu Tangfing gave him little attention, it was General Chen Jiongming who, according to Liu, "accompanied me whenever I went". While "the veteran Doctor Wu discoursed on spiritualism... the redoubtable Doctor Sun gave a dissertation... on what appeared to be a form of communism", it was General Chen that discussed in secrecy with Liu on the scheme of a proposed new government. The meeting ended with the agreement that Liu's son would be appointed member of the Executive Council for the new government "so things could be done in his name". Liu Zhubo, as well as the Governor of Hong Kong, however, doubted the leadership qualities of Chen Jiongming who was "neither by birth nor by temperament fit to be the representative of Kwangtung (Guangdong)". When the Governor suggested Liang Shiyi, the "ablest Cantonese of whom I [he] had recognized", Liu replied that "he was aiming at far greater things than a provincial Governorship". Unsatisfactory as Chen Jiongming's leadership quality was, Liu Zhubo went to great lengths in his report to impress the Governor that all the important merchants in Canton were "inducing" him not to drop Page 240 Page 241 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 216 If Generalissmo Sun can give us, the renmin [the people], supervisory power [over the government], we the people will maintain the situation. After all, all the generalissmo needs is just several millions. Anticipating Sun's return to power in 1923, the Siyi men from Hong Kong announced that they could raise several billion dollars for the new government if the following two conditions were granted: 1. Every one dollar lent to Sun should be paid back by two dollars. The financial departments of the Canton government were to be managed by the Siyi companies. 2. The Siyi men should have a say over the appointment of the future Provincial Governor of Guangdong. Desperate for money, Sun accepted these conditions. Having resumed his power in Canton, Sun fulfilled his promises by giving the important posts of Provincial Governor, Ministry of Finance, and Commissioner of Salt Transport to the Siyi men. Under these Siyi men, a Guangzhou Guanchan Gengjiju, literally, the Guangzhou Registration Bureau for Government Properties, was established for the registration of immovable properties in Canton City. Accordingly, all properties controlled by lineage, temple, and guild hall were declared public properties until "red deeds" (land deeds issued by the Qing government) were produced. Financial rewards were given to those who reported to the Office any unknown Guanchan (government property) or Gongchan (public property) kept in private hands. Under the pretext of land classification and deed examination, thousands of sites and buildings held by private hands were confiscated and sold under the office of Guangdongsheng Guanchan Qinglichu (**Guangdong Province Government Property Clearance Office**), literally, the Guangzhou Government Property Clearance Office under the control of a Siyi director. The major duty was to sell "public property" and "government property" in Canton to private owners. By subjecting everything to inspection and registration and requiring heavy fees on every act, at least $120,000,000 was collected by the Municipal Government. From 1923 to 1925, every tax rate in Guangdong was doubled and some quadrupled, besides already having the addition of hundreds of new imposts. The China ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 369 ANOTHER DILEMMA FOR TODAY'S YOUTH IN CHINA Keith Stevens and Jennifer Welch During a recent RAS [HK BR] tour of the Museum of the Humen People's Resistance against the British in the Opium War [1840-1842] at Humen [Bocca Tigris], a small town about sixty miles south-east of Canton on the east coast of the Pearl River, we entered the old temple dedicated to the Northern Emperor [Bei Di] in the grounds of the Museum. The main altars of the temple were not in any way unusual in that it had the central altar with the image of the Northern Emperor, Bei Di, and two flanking side altars, one dedicated to Lü Dongbin, the doctor in the group of the Eight Immortals and the second dedicated to Guan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy. However, there were two further glass cabinets, identical with the form of the main altar, one on either side wall. Against the wall, stage left, was an image of Lin Zexu, the Imperial Commissioner despatched by the Emperor to Guangdong province in 1839 with instructions to stamp out the opium trade. His destruction of the stocks of opium held by British, American and other foreign traders led to the so-called Opium War [in British parlance, the First China War]. The cabinet against the temple wall, stage right, contained three images of Chinese officials involved in the War. They were Admiral Guan; The Governor of the Two Guangs and a General Chen who, captured by the British, is now remembered as the prisoner taken by his captives, together with his loyal horse, to Hong Kong where he died. Before both side cabinets, which had baldachin and silken hangings in front of the altar tables bearing honorifics as do temple altars virtually everywhere, were altar tables with red spirit tablets bearing their honorific titles, as well as offerings of fruit, bottles of wine and incense pots. What proved so interesting was the indecision manifest amongst Chinese visitors who, having not hesitated to bow and offer incense before the images of the three main deities, Bei Di, Lü Dongbin and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 52 1101. Though well known for his poetry, he was a celebrated scholar-statesman who has been deified by popular acclaim. However, though not recorded as such, it would be unlikely for him not to have been deified by posthumous imperial decree, an honour coming into vogue at that time. He was born in Meixian in Sichuan province and died in Changzhou in Fujian shortly after being permitted to leave exile on Hainan island. His father was a distinguished scholar, and owing to his father's long absences from home, Su received most of his education from his mother. At the age of 21, he entered the state examinations and headed the list of competitors. He rose in public office and was prominent among the strenuous opponents of the political economist, Wang Anshi. His first fall from grace in 1079 was from ministerial office when he was downgraded to be Governor of Hangzhou Fu. In 1086, at the start of a new reign, he was restored to favour but again incurred imperial displeasure, this time being exiled, first to Huizhou in Guangdong and finally to the semi-barbarous island of Hainan in 1097 where he was appointed to the petty office of sub-prefect of Yaizhou. During his exile, having complained that Hainan was wild and its "frontier" people, settlers from the mainland, without culture, he took a genuine interest in their welfare as well as the welfare of the original non-Chinese inhabitants. He was permitted to return from banishment in ca. 1100 and died shortly after. He spent the four years of his exile in Hainan in Wenchang, in the north-east of the island, and was the first great name in Chinese history connected intimately with Hainan. His memorial temple in Haikou in Hainan island is now a museum. Within the grounds of the temple is the spring which he is said to have had dug during a severe drought. d] Zhu Chuping was a magistrate in Hainan who had preceded Su Shi in the post as magistrate by some twenty years. 3: Major Hainanese Deities noted in all Hainanese communities These are uniquely Hainanese Gods 13 a] Images of the Marquis of Wenzhou, Wenzhou Houwang I have been seen only on altars in temples founded and run by ethnic Hainanese. According to devotees, he is uniquely worshipped ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 427 D.C. Bray, Hong Kong Metamorphosis, Hong Kong University Press, 2001, pp 245. index, plates. Denis Bray was born in Hong Kong, and entered the Hong Kong Government in 1950 as a Cadet Officer, retiring in 1985 as Secretary for Home Affairs and Deputy to the Governor: since his retirement, he has continued to live in Hong Kong. Given this history, he is uniquely qualified to speak about the development of Hong Kong in recent decades. His book, however, is not a history. It is a series of reminiscences. Many parts of his career are passed over. He does not produce any deep analyses of events; nor does he philosophise on what it was that inspired and motivated him. He merely describes those events which, looking back, he remembers with affection and continuing interest. The book opens with one of the best and sunniest descriptions of a happy childhood that I have read for many years. His home in Foshan, in the centre of Guangdong Province, where his father ran a missionary hospital, his holidays in Hong Kong, his schooling in North China, and the journeys to and fro, are all remembered and described well. His family's return to England as war approached, his education at Cambridge, and his discovery of rowing, follow, in an almost equally beguiling account. This was first given as a lecture to HKBRAS, as is handsomely stated in the book. The central half of the book relates scenes from his early career in Hong Kong before he reached the level of Secretary for Home Affairs with a seat on the Legislative and Executive Councils. Few personal details intrude, apart from occasional glimpses of Denis on his dinghy, or, later, his yacht. What we see is Denis the administrator, and what a splendid glimpse he gives of a classic Colonial Service administrator of the best type! He notes that a Colonial Service officer could be assumed to 'be used to championing the interests of the people where he was working against the tendency of London to give more importance to the interests of Britain' (p. 171), and, again, ‘everyone knew that our job was to look out for the ordinary citizen' (p. 138). Time and again, Denis describes situations where hide-bound bureaucrats, anxious only to "play it by the book,” and to maximise Government income, were creating unfairness for ordinary people. Denis, once and again, comes up with some scheme to eliminate the unfairness, often by bending the rules, or introducing some extra-legal administrative procedure, which ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 32 could see, and it seemed as if it were one vast garden'." Parkinson, Trade in the Eastern Seas (1937) writes: "When the whole [EIC] China fleet was collected there, twelve or sixteen of the largest merchantmen in the world, together with the country ships, the spectacle must have been magnificent." He records that sometimes the Viceroy at Canton would come down to visit the fleet. The ships would be decked to receive the great man, with yards manned and officers in full dress.12 Canton Canton was, and is, the capital of the Guangdong Province. One of the larger and richer cities of the Chinese Empire, and dating back to pre-Han times, it had long been a major sea port for overseas trade, notably in the Tang Dynasty when it had a significant Arab and Muslim population. During the turmoil which accompanied the change of dynasty from Ming to Qing, it upheld the Ming, endured an eleven-month siege in 1650, and suffered a wholesale massacre of its inhabitants. However, it recovered, and by the mid-nineteenth century was credited with a population of around one million persons. It was renowned for its manufactories, carried on by human industry, without the aid of machinery, particularly in silk and cloth, women and children included, whilst trade - international and regional trade - was described as being 'the great business of life'.13 Canton was a walled city (actually two walled cities in one, the Old and the New) with major suburbs along the Pearl River, and to the West.14 As befitted its status, it contained the yamens (office-residences) of many senior government officials, including those of the governor-general of the two linked provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi, the governor of Guangdong, the Canton prefect, two county magistrates, the Tartar general, the provincial naval commander, and the like, as well as those officials with charge of other, specialised concerns, and (of special status, since he was responsible directly to Beijing) the Hoppo or Superintendent of Maritime Customs, who oversaw the foreign trade and its accruing revenue. The Foreign Factories (British, French, Swedish, Spanish, Danish and Dutch) of the river suburb were so-called from their being the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 The Hoppo lived in the City, along with the Viceroy, the Governor of Guangdong, and other high provincial officials. Their relations had for long crystallised into an arrangement that ensured access to private gain from the trade as parts of one administration, in contrast to the competing rivalries of earlier times. This was in part to provide for mutual protection against interference and accusation from Beijing officials. The Hoppo's and other officials' treatment of foreign merchants The language used by these officials in their communications with the traders and the EIC's Select Committee - as instanced by Dr. Gutzlaff, a most useful contemporary source of information on the times - was invariably haughty and patronising, in keeping with the accepted modes of address towards inferiors of all kinds, and did nothing to ease relationships. Gutzlaff also mentions the 'governmental proclamations, detailing the infamous conduct of barbarians, [which] have been repeatedly posted up at Canton,' imbuing the minds of the people with strong antipathy against such worthless barbarians, and discouraging them from having anything to do with foreigners. "The writer has often heard the natives rehearse these accusations with self-congratulation at their own superiority." This sort of thing was an irritant, as were the restrictions on the movement of foreign merchants whilst in residence at the Factories, mentioned above. Far more vexing were their other complaints against the Canton System, which were listed by Morse as including the heavy taxation/impositions levied on the trade; the monopoly system of the Co-hong; the uncertainty of recovery of debts due from Chinese merchants; the diversion of the Consoo Fund (provided from the trade to cover such debts) to government use and presents to officials; and the prohibition on their making representations to any official save through the Co-hong. To all such complaints must be added the descriptions of the general venality of the administration, the Hoppo and other senior officials included, and indeed of the whole Canton System, as described in this paper. ================================================================================