RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d
31

MILITIA, MARKET AND LINEAGE:

CHINESE RESISTANCE TO THE OCCUPATION OF HONG KONG'S NEW TERRITORIES IN 18991

R. G. GROVES*

Introduction

Violence, or the very real possibility of violence, was endemic in southeastern China during the nineteenth century. The provinces of Kwangsi, Kwangtung, and Fukien were notorious to imperial official and foreign observer alike for their varieties of armed conflict. Brine, a British naval officer with contemporary experience of the coastal provinces, described the mid-nineteenth century situation as follows: "the whole history of the period is little else than a continual series of local insurrections, bursting out in all directions. The coast was infested with pirates, who not only caused great injury to the coasting trade, but frequently landed and sacked the villages lying adjacent to the sea. In the two Kwang provinces armed bodies of men moved from town to town, and committed large robberies in open day... the Pekin Gazettes were full of reports from the provincial governors acquainting the emperor with the disorganized state of the country, and complaining of the inadequacy of their troops to quell the interminable revolts." To this catalogue of ills may be added the Opium and Arrow Wars, inter-lineage and clan warfare, ethnic conflict, and major and minor rebellions.

The prevalence of violence was by no means new. Writing of the Hsin-an District of Kwangtung Province, just over a century ago, the German missionary Krone noted: "Hung-mo the founder of the Ming dynasty (1368-1399 A.D.), found it necessary... to appoint an officer with the title ‘Shou-yu-sho'... Protector of the region, in order to protect the population, which was rapidly increasing, against the bands of robbers and vagabonds which infested the district."3 More recently Professor Maurice Freedman, surveying a mass of evidence and arguing that organized violence

* Mr. Groves is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of East Anglia. He conducted field research in the New Territories between 1963-65. His article "The Origins of Two Market Towns in the New Territories" appeared in Aspects of Social Organization in the New Territories (ed. M. Topley) published by the Hong Kong Branch, R.A.S. in 1965.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794
383

MONUMENT

TO THE WESTMORELAND REGIMENT THE 55TH REGIMENT OF FOOT

IN

DINGHAI CITY ON ZHOUSHAN ISLAND

KEITH STEVENS AND JENNIFER WELCH

In October 1998 the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society organised a visit for members to Ningbo [Ningpo] and Zhoushan Island [Chusan Island] off the East coast of China in the archipelago of the same name. The object of the visit to Dinghai, the county capital of the archipelago, was to try and follow the course of the British military campaign there during the First and Second China Wars, the First being the so-called Opium War of 1840-1842 and the Second, the Arrow War of 1856-1860, and see if any monuments to the British victory and subsequent occupation remained. In particular we were looking for the military cemetery and tombstones.

The Chinese guide who met us in Ningbo and who was to accompany us to Dinghai was most doubtful about our mission. We did not think she was even aware that the British Army had been on Zhoushan 150 years ago. However by the time our ferry docked at Dinghai, maps relating to the campaign, which had been brought along with us, had been studied in detail, together with an account by the Reverend Wright.

In Dinghai our first call was at the local museum where we collected the Curator. We were most fortunate in that he was interested in the China Wars, and not only knew the accounts - albeit from the Chinese point of view - but was able to lead us to the sites of action, and to the one remaining monument to the British.

During the two China Wars Zhoushan had its moments of glory in history after which both conflicts gradually faded from both British national and Chinese local memories. Between the 5th of July 1840 when the city of Dinghai fell before a British attack for the first time, and the 5th of June 1846 when the British restored Zhoushan to the Chinese, the island was ruled twice by the British with its claim to fame as the first Chinese territory ever to be occupied and controlled
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2000
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/nk328168n
PROUDFOOT, W.J.: Notes from Biographical Memoir of James Dinwiddie, LL.D, embracing his account of travels in China as a member of Macartney's Embassy, Edward Howell, Liverpool, 1886.

WALEY, A.: The Opium War Through Chinese Eyes, Allen and Unwin, London, 1958.

WONG, J.Y.: Deadly Dreams: Opium and the Arrow War (1856-1860) in China, Cambridge University Press, 1998.

WOODWARD, N.H.: Teas of the World, Collier Macmillan, London, 1980.

This paper was presented at the "International Conference on Lin Zexu, the Opium War and Hong Kong,” held at the Hong Kong Museum of History in December 1998.

Among his many other accomplishments, Dr. S. M. Bard, OBE, ED, is also a historian.

His published works include the following: In Search of the Past: A Guide to the Antiquities of Hong Kong (Urban Council Hong Kong 1988); Traders of Hong Kong: Some Foreign Merchant Houses, 1841-1899 (Urban Council Hong Kong 1993); and Garrison Memorials in Hong Kong: Some Graves and Monuments at Happy Valley (Antiquities and Monuments Office, Hong Kong: Occasional Paper No. 4, 1997).

Some scholars prefer to divide the Wars into the Opium War, 1839-1842, and the Arrow War, 1856-1860.

* A Dutchman, Dr Cornelius Decker, advocated 40-50 cups a day.

Portuguese Princess Catherine is credited with introducing tea to Britain when she married King Charles II.

A story is told of German Radio, during the 2nd World War, which announced that due to shortage of tea in Britain, the British were ready to sue for peace, not having access to their 5-o'clock tea. It only served to amuse the British, for the Germans got the time wrong!
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