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84 

A. D. BLUE

Hong Kong, than in the 1920's and 30's. The latter period came within the warlord era when the writ of the central government at Peking or Nanking sat very lightly, if at all, on the southern provinces. In 1925 and 1927, however, the Navy sent expeditions into Bias Bay, to destroy—if possible without damage to innocent lives and property—villages known to harbour pirates and pirate junks. The second expedition was undertaken in exasperation after the pirating of the Jardine steamer S.S. Hop Sang in March 1927.4 The official report issued after the expedition claimed that one hundred and thirty stone and mat shed huts were destroyed in the two villages attacked, and forty junks and sampans destroyed. The raid had been no surprise, and definite evidence was found that the villages had been implicated in recent piracies. These raids only caused a temporary lull in the pirates' activities.

The Navy had one notable success in the Irene piracy of October 1927, which illustrates the difficulties with which the Navy and the Hong Kong Government had to contend in their anti-piracy campaign. H.M.S. submarine L4 challenged the China Merchants Steam Navigation Company's Irene when entering Bias Bay without lights and in suspicious circumstances. When she refused to stop, and then ignored a warning shot fired across her bow, a live round was fired which still drew no response. The Irene's captain was navigating under the pirates' supervision, and tried to ring down to stop the engines, but was too late.

The next shot struck the Irene amidships on the waterline, disabling the engines, killing a pirate standing beside the chief engineer, and starting a fire which almost gutted the ship before she sank. L4 went alongside and rescued most of the crew, and 220 of the 248 passengers. Three other warships and the tug Alliance arrived later, but were unable to prevent the Irene from sinking. When L4 arrived at Hong Kong the crew and passengers of Irene were screened by the police, and three men were identified as being pirates. A few days later seven other men were arrested, and all ten eventually hanged, after a sensational attempt to break out of Hong Kong's Victoria Gaol. The China Merchants Steam Navigation Company came under the control of the Chinese Government, and the Irene

4 The only piracy of a Jardine ship in the modern era,
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49

SINO-WESTERN CONTACTS UNDER THE

MONGOL EMPIRE*

Herbert FRANKE

Contacts between Chinese civilization and that of the West, whatever we take "West" to mean in this context, have a long and tortuous history which, for some periods, is still far from sufficiently studied. All historians, however, even the most Europe-centered ones, do agree that these contacts reached a pre-modern, all-time high under the Mongol empires in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and even the most superficial or condensed textbooks of world history have a few words to say about East-West relations following the conquests and campaigns of Chingis Khan. In such books, we frequently encounter the statement that this period facilitated intercourse and exchange because of the so-called Pax Mongolica, "Mongol Peace", when the Mongol domination of East and Central and even great parts of West Asia crystallized into an empire stretching from the Yellow Sea to Southern Russia. Like so many historical tags, this is, however, a statement that loses much of its seemingly uncontrovertible truth when one considers the historical facts. If it is really the task of the historian to reconsider from time to time historical writings and historical dicta, and to debunk history if necessary, then this notion of Pax Mongolica requires qualification.

A historian of China will therefore perhaps ask if cultural contacts and interchange between China and the non-China West were really more frequent and easy under the Mongols in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries than under the Six Dynasties and the T'ang when no Eurasian universal empire like that of the Mongols existed. We know that a great number of travellers, missionaries, and merchants from the Western Regions came to China between the late second and the ninth centuries A.D., and that many non-Chinese cultural elements penetrated East, among them the world religion of Buddhism that became such an important part of Chinese culture. Most of the early Buddhist

Text of the Hume Memorial Lecture delivered at Yale University, February 5th, 1965. The author is Director of the Institute for East Asian Cultural and Linguistics Sciences, University of Munich.
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NOTES AND QUERIES

169

NOTES

I am most grateful to Mr. Yuen Chun-fang, Liaison Officer, Secretariat for Chinese Affairs for help with the interviews which yielded part of the information given above.

1 Reports on the Past and Present State of Her Majesty's Colonial Possessions, 1845 (London, W. Clowes & Sons, for H.M.S.O., 1846) p. 147 and the same for 1846, p. 230.

2 G. R. Sayer, Hong Kong, Birth Adolescence and Coming of Age (Oxford, University Press, 1937) p. 208, quoting from the Canton Press, February 1842.

3 Sayer, p. 91.

4 Sayer, p. 30.

5 A. R. Johnston (H.M. Deputy Superintendent of Trade) "Note on the Island of Hong Kong" first published in the London Geographical Journal Vol. XIV, and reprinted in the Hong Kong Almanack and Directory for 1846.

6 Hong Kong Government Gazette for 28 March 1857 p. 4, Table No. 4.

7 The Last Year in China......by a Field Officer actually employed in that Country. 2nd edition (London, Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1843) p. 75.

8 K. S. MacKenzie, Narrative of the Second Campaign in China (London, R. Bentley, 1842) p. 160.

9 See Hong Kong Administrative Reports for 1934, 1935 and 1936 at pp. Q.86, Q.84 and Q.81 respectively.

10 This information, like any other for which no specific source is quoted, comes from Mr. CHOW Chik-san of Kau Wai, aged 77 and Madam CHAN CHOW Ping of San Wai, aged 81.

11 Rev. W. Lobscheidt, A Few Notices on the Extent of Chinese Education and the Government Schools of Hong Kong (Hong Kong, China Mail office, 1859).

12 See Summary of Report of Squatters Commission 1891-1906, pp. 97-103.

This volume of MSS. is kept in the Library, Colonial Secretariat, Hong Kong.

13 For accounts of Cantonese and Hakka see J. Dyer Ball, Things Chinese (Hong Kong etc., Kelly and Walsh Ltd., 4th edition, 1903) pp. 202, 211 and 323-326.

14 LO Hsiang-lin and others, Hong Kong and its External Communications before 1842 (Hong Kong, Institute of Chinese Culture, 1963) pp. 80-88. This is the English translation of the text, but not the notes, of their work published in Hong Kong in 1959.

15 This information is taken from the accounts given at p. 5 of Prof. Woo Sing-lim's The Prominent Chinese in Hong Kong (Hong Kong, The Five Continents Book Co., 26th year of the Chinese Republic, 1937) published in Chinese and English and at pp. 578-579, under the name CHOW Cheong-ling, of Present Day Impressions of the Far East and Prominent and Progressive Chinese at Home and Abroad, published in London, Shanghai etc. by The Globe Encyclopedia Company, 1917.
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JAMES HAYES

However, despite the foregoing recital of disturbances over the years, many old persons in the Hong Kong region who were born between 1875 and 1900 have told me that their early years were very peaceful. This serves as a reminder not to telescope time and place too readily; and not to confuse occasional excitements with the regular rhythm of rural life. Nor too readily to deduce from them that there was a deterioration in institutions at the local level, as at the centre, in the later 19th century—a point made by Rhoads Murphey in his study of China's modernization.1

POSTSCRIPT

There are two other happenings that must be mentioned in this survey of events. One, the establishment and rise of Hong Kong from 1841 on, and its effect on the surrounding and adjacent territory, I do not intend to treat with here.2 The second, rural depopulation, though it might appear to have some connection with the first, is in fact a separate phenomenon. Linked to over-population, malnutrition and disease, it is important enough to warrant a concluding notice.*

The problem of depopulation early intruded itself into my village studies through the preoccupation with feng-shui noted in many places, so much of it linked to a reported decline in the numbers of local populations. I have encountered this in many villages on Lantau Island3 and in other parts of the old Southern District, in places as far distant from Lantau as Pak Lap on High Island in the Sai Kung District, and Ho Pui with Muk Min Ha in Tsuen Wan. These have also claimed depopulation in the 19th century and after. In the northern New Territories the well-known Tang clan of Kam Tin records a similar loss of population;4 whilst at Lin Ma Hang, a large village on the present Sino-British frontier,5 a stone tablet dated in 1893 was erected to detail the geomantic

1 Murphey: 27-30.

2 The first is well-documented, the second scarcely at all, though discussed in Potter 1968.

3 See JHKBRAS 3, 1963: 143-144; JHKBRAS 9, 1969: 156-158 and Hayes 1967:22-30.

4 Sung in HKN, VII, Dec. 1936:256.

5 See Gazetteer: 214.

Especially as, in Hsin-an, it is not to be linked with devastating Taiping campaigns and official retribution, nor with Hakka-Punti wars on the scale that occurred in some parts of the province,
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photographs and sketches of China campaigns and a tiger's hood head-dress worn by a Boxer in 1900.

—

Up over the Border, in Edinburgh Castle, there is an item of loot from the Second China War: two panels taken from the Temple of Heaven by Ensign C.K.C. Rooke. The note says simplistically that the causes of this war were "very similar to those that caused the First China War, namely maltreatment of Europeans".

The two large panels each bear three smaller panels and they seem to show scenes from court or gentry life. I am sure they would be of interest to scholars who could probably date them easily and perhaps, at the same time, suggest a more appropriate wording for the note.

While in Scotland I visited the museum of the Black Watch, in Perth and, although there is little of China interest, they do have the only picture that I have seen of Sir George Murray - the man after whom Murray Barracks was named. He was Colonel of the Black Watch and the portrait is dated 1825. Murray, a former Quartermaster General under Wellington, never visited Hong Kong but his name also lives on in Murray Road and Murray Building. He and General D'Aguilar's father were good friends and when General D'Aguilar started out in the army it helped to have friends in high places. When D'Aguilar was involved in the building of the new barracks at Hong Kong in the mid-1840s he remembered his father's friend and in gratitude for his assistance to his career named his new construction after him.

Hamilton, near Glasgow, is the home of the Cameronians. This regiment was heavily involved in the First China War and was later garrisoned at Hong Kong. There is a Chinese vase which came home with the regiment and a very good series of large drawings of a later campaign.

Back over the Border in England, my next stop was Carlisle, the home of the successors to the old 55th, which was, like the Cameronians, very prominent in the early history of Hong Kong and the first campaign in China. There is quite a cache of interesting items in the Border Regiment museum in the impressive and ancient castle.
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202

AN IMPERIAL CHINESE BANNER PRESERVED IN KENDAL, ENGLAND

P. BRUCE

A unique memento of the First China War is slowly disintegrating in an English parish church due to lack of money to restore it.*

The war led to the establishment of Hong Kong and one of the British regiments which took part was the 55th (Westmoreland). At the second taking of Chusan, on October 1, 1841, the regiment seized an Imperial Chinese banner. Today it hangs, alongside the disbanded regiment's colours, in a glass case to the left side of the altar of Kendal Parish Church. This banner was the only Imperial Chinese banner seized by British troops during the First China War.

The vicar of Kendal, and the Border Regiment, which includes the old 55th in its genealogy, are well aware of the urgent need for the banner to receive conservation treatment. The problem is, as ever, money. Estimates of the cost of restoring the banner range somewhere around £2,000 and neither the church nor the regiment can offer any immediate hope of it being raised.

The episode in which the flag was taken is described in a verse history of the campaign prepared some years afterwards for the 55th. After 20 years service a soldier named Duell had gained a commission. He was given the honour of bearing the regimental colours that autumn day:

"Ensign Duell holds up our Colour, then falls, shot through the breast.

That morn had seen the ambition of a life fulfilled.

An honour borne but for a day, the day that he was killed. For twenty years or more he had well and faithful served, Winning his way, step by step, to a Commission well deserved. And when his name appeared in the previous night's Gazette, All wished him, health, long life, success, to wear his epaulette;

* See plate 11.
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Revd Justus Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1865), Vol. II, p. 55; Robert K. Douglas, China (London, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2nd Edition, 1887) pp. 280-1; Juliet Bredon and Igor Metrophanow, The Moon Year, A Record of Chinese Customs and Festivals (Shanghai, Kelly and Walsh Ltd, 1927) pp. 314-5.

26

J. W. Hayes, The Hong Kong Region op. cit., p. 210 note 87. A full account of the stakenet fishing is given in my forthcoming article on the coastal and inshore fisheries of Hong Kong Island and adjacent places in the 19th century and earlier, to appear in Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium on Asian Studies, 1986, Vol. I, China, Asian Research Service, GPO Box 2232 Hong Kong.

27

China Mail No. 212, 8 March 1849, Witness No. 23 at the recorded Coroner's Inquest. Possibly also nos. 19 and 22.

20

A large scale map of Little Hong Kong at 80' to 1, in five sheets, showing the Old and New Villages and their fields (1892) is in the PRO of Hong Kong. In 1844 it was stated that the Wong Nai Chung fields measured 75.1 acres (CSO129/9807, p. 277).

1

Illustrated London News, 16 January 1858.

10

Hong Kong Government Gazette, Government Notification 41 of 1860, dated 24 March 1860.

Robert Fortune, Three Years Wanderings in the Northern Provinces of China (London, John Murray, 2nd edition 1847) p.17. He qualifies his remarks slightly, but the substance is as stated. See also his general very favourable verdict on the Chinese people at p. xv.

32

K.S. McKenzie, Narrative of the Second Campaign in China (London, R. Bentley, 1842) p. 160.

33

Captain G.G. Loch, Closing Events of the Campaign in China (London, John Murray, 1843) p. 21.

14

35

McKenzie, op. cit., p. 163.

Dalrymple's Observations on the Southern Coasts of China and the Island of Hainan (London, 1806). After p. 20 in the text. This willingness to trade with strangers continued into the period of hostilities between Britain and China when the local people appear to have been very ready to supply the British forces and the civilian population with food and other necessities. Indeed this extended to such a degree that led Captain Elliott to state in one of his despatches to Lord Ellenborough, Governor-General of India, that the retention of Hong Kong would be "an act of justice and protection to the Native population upon which we have been so long dependent for assistance and supply. Indescribably dreadful instances of the hostility between these people and the Government are within our certain knowledge; and they cannot be abandoned without the most fatal consequences.” Hosea Ballou Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Empire, 3 vols, reprinted by Book World Company, Taipei, Appendix I to Vol. 1, pp. 650-1. See also pp. 241-2 for local provisioning.

34

John Francis Davis. Sketches of China, Partly during an Inland Journey of Four Months between Peking, Nanking and Canton, bound in with Volume III of his A General Description of China and its Inhabitants (London, Charles Knight, New Edition, 1845), p. 12. See also Wright and Allom, op. cit., "The Harbour of Hong Kong" which speaks of the "innate gentleness, and disinterested hospitality, of the farmers and the fishermen of Hong Kong".
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THE BRITISH (PROTESTANT) CEMETERY AT SAN PEDRO, MAKATI, MANILA, PHILIPPINES

DAVID W MAHONEY

101

In the Eternal Lawn section of the Manila Memorial Park at Paranaque, a Southern suburb of the Philippine capital, Manila, in the shade of a Candelnut tree, wafted by the fragrance of a nearby Frangipani, lie all that is left of the British (Protestant) Cemetery of Manila. (See Plates 17 and 18 at rear of this Volume).

As the simple granite memorial stone announces "Here lie the remains of those who were buried in the Protestant Cemetery at San Pedro, Makati between the years 1863-1968”. Well, that's the end of the story, what about the rest?

The first British contact with the Philippines is said to have been the visit of the “SEAHORSE” to Manila in 1644, but trade could not proceed due to a blockade by the Dutch. The first British people started to come to the islands in the early eighteenth century and established trading links selling textiles (chiefly cotton) and buying silver, pearls, skins, leather, tobacco, sugar and even horses. Trade prospered between the Philippines and Mexico and particularly with China — mostly through English merchants so that the Islands were described as an “Anglo-Chinese Colony flying the Spanish flag". As many of those involved in trade also had connections with India, it was inevitable that the country which had been ruled by the Spanish since 1565 would come to the attention of the British military. Sure enough in 1762 an expedition under Col. Draper was launched from Madras and captured Manila after a two-week campaign. (Incidentally, Col. Monson, the Second-in-Command is buried in the South Park St. Cemetery in Calcutta.)

Although this campaign has been written about extensively, it is still worthy of further investigation. — What happened to the graves of the eight hundred or so who were killed, drowned in the landing during a typhoon or died of disease? No physical evidence

David W. Mahoney is a Chartered Surveyor working for Swire Properties Ltd., and has lived in Hong Kong since 1964.
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reports; and even the reports of such associations as the Red Cross and the Paper Hunt Club of Shanghai. There were printed catalogues of pertinent collections in such foreign libraries as the Newberry and John Crerar Libraries of Chicago, the Morrison Library of Hong Kong, the Bibliothek zu Berlin, the universities of Leiden and Upsala, and the Raffles Museum of Singapore. In spite of all this bibliographic wealth, the librarian maintained the Society's tradition of complaining about what was not there:

It still suffers from forgetfulness,

―

not the willing neglect

of authors. Refusals to requests for books are rare, but unfortunately unsolicited presentations are not as numerous as might be wished.2

Use statistics were seldom mentioned in early annual reports, but they became a regular feature in the 1920's. In 1926, for example, 3,124 people used the reading room, and 543 volumes were checked out to members.29

By 1928 a campaign was mounted to raise Tls 100,000 for a new building, and two years later the British government donated the land it had formerly leased to the society, thus enabling the society to borrow funds against it. The British Tobacco Company, Sassoon and Company, and other enterprises made significant contributions. An official of His Majesty's Foreign Office called the society "the one bright spot in Shanghai*." In 1931 the library collection was crated and stored while the old building was torn down and a new one constructed in its place. It reopened in 1934 with the library occupying the second floor. It included a “private office for the librarian and a well-lighted Reading Room. The storage space for books is amply designed to provide for future expansion".3

Yet another recataloguing of the collection took place in 1936 in preparation for the sixth edition of the catalogue. The count was 11,350 titles. That year also saw the beginning of the keeping of an accession book,32

As the political situation in China became more unstable, the library became more heavily used. This was in part owing to the destruction
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A second legend also tells of five scholars, again during the T'ang dynasty, on their way to the capital to take the imperial examinations when they overheard demons plotting to poison a village well with pestilence pills. The villagers themselves would not believe the scholars so the five jumped into the well and polluted it with their corpses. The Jade Emperor was impressed by their self-sacrifice and appointed them Pestilence Wang Yeh. This story was originally specifically told by people from Ch'uanchou in Fukien.

A third legend claimed that five men, Li, Chih, Wu, Chu and Fan became blood brothers in order to serve the man who, after his military campaign, established the T'ang dynasty and became its first emperor, Kao Tsu. The five were appointed to various offices of state, served the country well, and after they died were appointed Celestial Inspectors, known colloquially as Pestilence Princes, Wen Wang (HE).

Two further legends date the origins of the Pestilence Wang Yeh to the Ming, some four hundred and sixty years after the T'ang. The first tells of 36 literati ordered by an early Ming emperor to travel forth beyond the borders of China to tell the world about China's greatness and in particular about the history of the great Tang dynasty. On one of the voyages all 36 were lost in a storm at sea and according to one of the surviving sailors, an auspicious pink cloud drifted over the roaring waves and celestial music was heard as the 36 were borne aloft. The emperor ordered a new ship to be built to be called the Ship of the Wang Yeh into which was placed a tablet for each of the 36 together with a decree personally written by the emperor requiring the officials at every port where the ship docked to welcome and honour the spirits of the dead literati.

Yet another local legend claims that towards the end of the Ming era five literati, Chih, Li, Chu, Hsing and Chin, on their way to invigilate at the local imperial examinations at Ch'uanchou fell ill and died of plague. They lost their lives in the service of the people of the town and have been worshipped ever since as the Five Excellencies (Wu Fu Wang Yeh).

In a popular story teller's tale, the Feng Shen Pang, recorded during the Ming dynasty, Lu Yueh, a Taoist with his four disciples fought for the last of the Shang dynasty against the Chou forces, using germ warfare (pestilence weapons). All five were on the losing side and
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group, headed by the Nestorian patriarch. Although they were not permitted to convert Moslems, Nestorian missionaries were otherwise given a free hand, and by the end of the twelfth century Nestorian churches could be found in Egypt and Cilicia, in Persia and Mesopotamia, in India, Ceylon and Socotra, and in much of Turkestan. All these churches, organised into at least twenty, and possibly as many as thirty, metropolitan provinces, recognised the authority of the Nestorian patriarch or catholicus, who ruled from Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid caliphate.

The Nestorian church enjoyed a final period of expansion under the Mongols. For a while, during campaigns against Moslem enemies, the Mongols saw that Christian support could be valuable to them, and the Nestorians were able to take advantage of the Mongol unification of Asia from the Euphrates to the Sea of Japan to establish themselves in strength in China in the second half of the thirteenth century. The Nestorian church now reached its greatest geographical extent. But appearances were deceptive. As Mongol power waned throughout Asia the vacuum was filled not by Christianity, but by Islam. The Nestorian church in China did not survive the Mongol Yüan dynasty, and in central Asia most Nestorian Christians apostasised in the face of Moslem persecution in the middle years of the fourteenth century. Any surviving communities of Christians were almost certainly either wiped out or converted to Islam during the terrible campaigns of Timur Leng towards the end of the fourteenth century.

Apart from a tiny offshoot in India, the church which dominated Asia in the middle ages survives today only in Kurdistan, uneasily placed astride the borders of the modern states of Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran. Emigration from Kurdistan during the last two centuries has also created a Nestorian diaspora in the United States, Europe, and Australia. The total membership of the Nestorian church was reckoned in 1989 at about 1,770,000.

The Nestorians in China

For more than two hundred years during the T'ang dynasty (618-906), and for a further sixty or seventy years during the Mongol Yüan dynasty (1260-1368), Nestorian Christians could be found in significant numbers in China. The dates are not entirely certain. As far as the T'ang period is concerned, the first officially-recognised Nestorian
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would be discussion of price, a discussion that might often wax hot; but as soon as a bargain was struck all would be smiles again and the parties would separate, each convinced that he had had the better of it. Now the new shops had glass fronts and counters inside between which the customer could walk. The goods were exposed to view and not tucked away in the back, and many of the conservative shop-keepers admitted that the new ways had their advantages; and that even the uncompensated sacrifice of 20 feet depth of shop front, with all the expense it involved in rebuilding, had possibly been worth while, as the widened street attracted more custom.

I managed to borrow a lorry in Nanchang and, with some Chinese friends, took the road, which most of the way follows the Kan river, and headed south for Kukong in Kwangtung Province. The first night we stopped in a wayside temple. We were passing through country which had been devastated during the anti-communist campaigns of 1928 to 1933, before the communists made their famous long march to the North West. Many of the fields were still uncultivated and ruined farmsteads gave evidence of the depletion of the population.

Temples in China are of many kinds. The Chinese are not religious; that is where they differ so from the Indians. The commonest type of temple is the ancestral hall, where the wooden tablets of the village ancestors are housed. The hall, as often as not, is removed a little from the village. It will consist of a first hall, through which you pass to a courtyard, with galleries down either side; beyond lies the second, or main, hall, where the small wooden tablets, each bearing the name in Chinese characters of an ancestor, are set out in rows, generation by generation, one beneath the other, below the single tablet of the founder of the line. The side and back walls may be of hollow brick, cheaply built and usually dilapidated; the curved tiled roofs, moss-grown and even bearing tufts of grass and small bushes, are supported by wooden pillars, sometimes lacquered red, with heavy carved transoms. All around festoons of cobwebs, traceries of dust, and perhaps the rotting heads of last year's Indian corn, stripped of the grain, adorn the broken remains of discarded agricultural implements, except in one corner, where a blackboard and some desks and benches may await the pupils of the local school, if one is lucky. Several benches put together make a better bed, on which to spread a bedroll, than the stone floor.
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on a year by year basis, with events mainly related to performing arts and art exhibitions. In 1980, five performing arts groups visited the United States and two art exhibitions were launched. After a slight decline in activity in 1981, the number rose to eight events in both 1982 and 1983, taking performing arts and art exhibitions together. In the following two years, the numbers of Chinese cultural events continued to rise, though not drastically.

Looking at these statistics, though not complete it is easy to see that there have been up and downs in the 15 years of Sino-American arts exchanges between 1972 and 1986, reflecting domestic political developments in both countries. In China, the years 1972-1978 were politically uncertain. The death of Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong in 1976 and the dismissal of Deng Xiaoping led to new political disorder. After the fall of the Gang of Four in 1976, the country began to concentrate on modernization. Eventually this programme led to a loosening of the controls of Chinese political life.

The relaxation of political control started in late 1978, which was regarded both by the leadership and by a national consensus as a prerequisite to modernization, was followed by the appearance of many posters, unauthorized journals, mimeographed sheets and demonstrations, some of which expressed demands for radical changes and some of which even questioned the authority of the party leadership. This soon caused a political reassessment. Between 1978 and 1988 there were three swings from loosening political control back to more restricted policies, which were marked by reassessments beginning respectively in 1981, 1983 and 1986. Though these reassessments were politically oriented, some of them did centre on cultural issues and all of them affected China's cultural life.

Meanwhile, the Sino-American intimacy of 1979 was cooled by Ronald Reagan's campaign promises to re-establish diplomatic relations with Taiwan. A strong anti-Communist, Reagan introduced into his foreign policy deep ideological prejudices in his initial years in office.

By the second half of 1983, the atmosphere of Sino-American relations began to improve, leading to Premier Zhao Ziyang's visit to the United States in January and President Reagan's tour to China in April of 1984. However, the affinity that existed around 1979 was not regained.

In this paper, I shall try to establish a framework of analysis which
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any newly-opened port for them to be snatched up and at almost any price by Chinese merchants..... until the Chinese purchaser came to close quarters with the English importer, eliminating middlemen at small ports and to transferring operations chiefly to the great emporiums of Hong Kong and Shanghai.'

Hankow was the other city in which, on and off, Mesny spent a dozen or so years and where eventually he died, a city on the north bank of the Yangtze, part of the three-city metropolis now known as Wuhan. It was the major commercial port in central China during the second half of the 19th century, containing British, German, Russian, Japanese and French settlements, known as Concessions. Hankow was opened as a treaty port in 1861, a year before Mesny arrived there and became famous abroad as the start of the annual tea-clipper race back to England.

The province of Kueichou in south-west China, where Mesny also spent a number of years was one of the most backward areas of China. It had been under Chinese rule since the Han at about the time of Christ, but only became a separate province during the Ming, in AD 1413. Waves of Chinese immigration, mainly from neighbouring Szechuan and Hunan provinces, forced the non-Chinese minority tribesmen out of the fertile valleys leading eventually to discontent and finally rebellion. Mesny's story is illuminating in a number of respects. There were always foreigners who took up minor posts with the Chinese bureaucracy, particularly during the modernisation campaigns which took place during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Old photographs exist showing foreigners in, for example, a Chinese arsenal beside foreign machinery or weapons, both as advisers and trainers, but few ever wrote of their experiences. The most interesting part of Mesny's life, however, standing out as a unique experience, was the short period of some five to six years when he served with two provincial forces of the Chinese Imperial Army on active service helping suppress a rising of the Miao, a subjugated minority race in a remote part of southern China. [See Appendix C for a summary of the first campaign against the Miao in which Mesny took part]. Probably the most interesting part of these narratives is the reasonably detailed description of Chinese soldiering during this relatively minor campaign. It is full of anecdotal descriptions of campaigning in central south China against a redoubtable foe, the Miao people, though regrettably Mesny fails to go into detail about such interesting subjects as how he was paid, how patronage worked up to him personally, etc. He does, however, cover a number of themes in his Notes on the
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rendered eminent service to the Imperial cause. The Double Dragon Jewelled Star (Shuang-lung Pao-hsing) was, he repeated, conferred on him in Kueichou during his first campaign in that province (1867-1869). He described it in his second note as consisting of a pure heavy gold [2oz or more] medal rather than a star, about one and a half inches in diameter, with a hole in the centre about half an inch in diameter, filled by a light sapphire globe revolving on a gold pin inserted through it. On one side were two dragons in high relief, on the other, four characters, also in high relief, viz. Ta-Ch'ing Feng-tseng meaning 'a title of honour bestowed by the Ch'ing dynasty'. The jewelled globe in the centre was intended to represent the light blue button and rank of colonel which Mesny then held. Had the medal been conferred by the Emperor, Mesny added, he would have worn it in Europe in 1878 but as it was the gift of a provincial viceroy he did not. Mesny also wrote that he preferred his ordinary Chinese rank and decorations, the Flowery Plume or single-eyed Peacock's Feather and, later, the ordinary order of Pa-t'u-lu with special designation of Ying yung, the Penetrating Knight, awarded to him by the Emperor.

Mayers, again, in The Chinese Government wrote about this minor award;

'Isolated distinctions have indeed been conferred in China on foreigners of various nationalities, principally for services rendered in the command of drilled troops during the Taiping rebellion, and subsequently in the collection of the Customs revenue, which are known, with reference to the European term 'star', by the designation pao-hsing; but as these are bestowed, for the most part, by provincial authorities, and without the sanction of any established rule or recognised statutes, such as are required to constitute what is commonly known as an 'Order', the badges thus conferred can scarcely be regarded as having any real value as authentic marks of distinction.'

Mesny was recommended for 4th Degree civil rank in 1866 which, if it had been awarded, would have entitled him to wear a mandarin square 'wild goose' breast badge. He recorded that the fourth degree civil rank had the right to wear and were distinguished by a dark blue button on their official cap. The embroidered robe, mang pao, had but eight dragons with five claws on each foot. The dress badge worn by civil officers and all ladies of their class and degree bore the semblance of a swan
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works recommended by Pioneer [i.e. Mesny] through Governor Chang Chih-tung of Shansi, are now, or soon will be, in full operation in various parts of China, though with no other advantage to the conceiver of those useful nineteen undertakings than that of having done just so much good, gratis, for the benefit of China and her millions of industrious people, to whom we wish long continued peace, happiness and prosperity." However, whenever China attempted anything which would lead to modernisation, Mesny leapt into print to congratulate whoever was putting the modernisation in train stressing that it was in line with his suggestions of so many years ago. 

In his early days he displayed extraordinary qualities - audacity, determination, adventurousness and a depth of interest in everything he came across; later, however, when in his declining years he had reverted into a petty entrepreneur, he displayed his achievements on his sleeve and at times waved them above his head just in case they might be overlooked. His rank as a brevet Lieutenant General1 in the Chinese Imperial army with the award of the Pa-r'u-lu and the peacock's feather is stressed right to the end of his life. He is an FRGS and a FR Hist S; and in the very last years of his life he even records in his curriculum vitae as one of his qualifications his membership of the Royal Asiatic Society, North China Branch, into which he was elected as late as 1914 when he was 72. This despite having written for the Journal back in 1891 and his son having been elected in 1911. An outstanding question regrettably remains unanswered. Well we might ask why Mesny was promoted brevet Lieutenant General in 1886, so many years after he had completed his active military service in 1874? Balleine may have the answer. He wrote that Mesny volunteered for active service in 1883: whereupon he was sent to Yunnan, and in 1884 to Foochou. In 1885 he was in charge of two arsenals in Canton and the following year was promoted i.e. whilst still working at the arsenals. 

Mesny explained that officers as junior as Lieutenant Colonel, when in command of troops, were referred to by the honorific title of General. Mesny began his service in 1868 as a company commander rising to brevet Colonel in 1869 and technically in command of troops, though as he himself does not make this point, we can assume that he was never referred to as 'general'. In 1873 he was promoted to Major-General during the latter days of the second Kueichou campaign when, though he again does not say so, he would have been referred to as 'general'. 

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taken advantage of, possibly due to the cost of reproduction in his Miscellany though more likely because he did not possess a camera during his travels.

[2] Campaigning in Western China. Regrettably, despite a note in the Miscellany to the effect that he would be writing more, possibly the most interesting part, the second Kueichou campaign, he only completed the first campaign.

[3] Mesny's Itinerary - from Canton to Kashgaria which was later renamed Mesny's Journeys through China (from Canton to Turkestan). This was never completed. Mesny wrote in the Miscellany that he had written an account of his journey from Canton through Kuangsi in 1879 for the London Daily News. "This very influential and highly respectable journal did not consider my poor contribution sufficiently interesting to insert it in its widely read columns, so the useful information then written by me practically remained unpublished owing to my lack of funds until 1896 when I wrote up some of it in Mesny's Chinese Miscellany."

[4] Varieties of Food in China [in which Mesny covers plain and exotic food and menus, eating etiquette, banquets and the production of foodstuffs such as tou-fu]

[5] Progress in China [editorial essays explaining how China kept missing opportunities, and how it would have been different and better if his advice had been taken]

[6] How I made my Fortune by an Old China Hand ['who is even now neither too old to row nor too heavy to ride']

[7] Notes on Tibet; Mongolia; Kueichou and the Miao-tzu [and in several other places he again described Miao customs and tribal differences]; Yunnan and its Trade Routes; and Kuangsi and the West River
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rendered as brevet rank, which Mesny did. 'Ts'an-chiang is an assistant regional commander [tsung-ping kuan], rank 3a in the Chinese forces called the Green Banner. However, according to Brunnert and Hagelstrom, [Present Day Political Organisation of China [1911], translated from the Russian], it equated to Lieutenant Colonel. Mesny lists it as 'Colonel, the lowest grade of general.

By the latter days of the second Kueichou campaign he appears to have been promoted to the rank of Major-General, and some twelve years later was awarded the rank of Brevet Lieutenant-General, bearing the title for the remainder of his life. As he is portrayed in foreign-style uniform in a photograph in the Miscellany and yet occasionally refers to himself wearing Chinese attire with his Chinese buttons of rank, it is far from clear whether these were genuine ranks or honorary ones awarded to an attached civilian. It is noteworthy that he never refers to himself wearing a mandarin square [the chest badge], though he does mention his cap button. His uniform as an instructor in the army of Tso Tsung-tang consisted of a cap of the French kepi pattern, ornamented with the Chinese coat of arms [two dragons struggling for a burning globe], with a coat and trousers of dark blue navy cloth, ‘nicely braided front, back and sleeves.

Mesny explained that between 1868-1871 for two or more years he was in one corps of fifteen2 battalions styled the Ko-i Ch'üan-chün [brigade], part of the Shu-chün, the Szechuan Army Corps; and another for four years with a corps styled Wu-tzu Ch'üan-chün741, also in Kueichou, i.e. from 1871-1874. The latter corps was also in the original Hsiang-chün, [the Hunan Army]. Regrettably this confuses his story rather than clarifying it, as we do not know when he served with the Hsiang-chün unless he means the Wu-tzu corps which in another part of his Miscellany he noted to have been part of the Hunan Force.

As far as can be ascertained from the jigsaw pieces he has supplied us with, Mesny, when he was with the Szechuan Army Corps in the first campaign in Kueichou province from 1868-1871, and again during the second campaign from 1871-1876 with the Wu-tzu Hunan Army Corps, almost certainly served with one of the new provincial armies which he refers to in his Miscellany as Disciplined Army Battalions.3 At no point does he actually say so in so many words, but bearing in mind the grades he gave for the ranks and styles of the senior officers in his Force and as he was particularly scathing about the proficiency of the
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Terminology

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Button : The knobs used by the Manchu dynasty to indicate rank, worn on top of caps. They were either transparent or opaque and, depending on rank, red, blue, white or plain gold.

Cash: the only coin cast in Imperial China prior to modernisation in the early twentieth century; a crude copper disk each with a square hole in the centre for convenience in carrying a large quantity, hence the expression ‘strings of cash'. Cash, like taels [see below] lacked uniformity in value, and strings, normally a thousand cash, often were composed of 700 pieces or even 1100 according to the regulations prevailing in the locality at the time. Giles claimed that the name was derived from Caixa, the Moorish name for the coin found at Malacca by the Portuguese in AD 1511.

Ch'al-kuan : Orderly Officers. These were men of all ranks, risen from the lowest grades, and were the operative staff of any commander.

Chai-tzu #7: a common term for a stockade or more commonly in southern Chinese rural areas, the village outer stockade.

Chen-t'ai #✩ : General of Division and an Area Commander

Chiang-chün #: General, a rank in the Chinese Imperial army used for commanders of reasonably substantial bodies of men be they regular forces or forces recruited for a specific campaign. Mesny explained that any commander lieutenant-colonel and above was referred to as general, and provided a good example with General Hsieh, the adopted son of General Liu, a major commander in the Szechuan force in which Mesny served. Hsieh was only 22 at the time of the campaign, some four years younger than Mesny. He had been the orderly to General Liu and had been adopted by him as his son after Hsieh had carried Liu off the battlefield, saving his life. General Hsieh's command in the Kueichou campaign consisted of the Left-wing Regiment and its second battalion; he could therefore be a regimental commander equating to a full colonel or brigadier at the most in western parlance. Another example is the "solitary battalion' under command of General Ho Te-wu, the Chung-tzu Ying, with Ying being a 'force of a number of battalions' or ‘a lone battalion'.
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reporting has still not been up to desired standards Doubts over the performance of some non-party-member journalists are hinted as the cause of the unachieved standards (Zhongguo Xunwen Nianjian, 1985–99)

16 Training Journalists into self-conscious mouthpieces of party and people is a principle laid down by the education authorities (Zhongguo Xinwen Nianjian 1986 8) The New China News Agency has carried out a campaign on political-ideological background of press cadres to promote a sense of responsibility in them towards the evolutionary targets of the Party, so that they would concur with central party policies, and act as mouthpieces of the Party (Zhongguo Xinwen Nianjian 1987 5)

Although recently, advertisements do appear in the various provincial as well as nationwide papers and also on television etc, the small amount of them in comparison to the gigantic media labour machinery and the low price charged to users suggest that a large proportion of the revenue must come from the producers themselves

In fact, many scholars have argued and confirmed that sport closely portrays real life Sport is closely related with the social order, and if sports does not represent the real social order, it represents idealized versions of that order, and as such it takes on for them an aura of the sacred" (Hargreaves, 1982 33) Sport has the potential to expand our knowledge of a form of human behaviour that spans the gap between the playful, spontaneous, and expressive and the formal, institutionalized, bureaucratic, and work-like dimensions of life. [Also, it helps disclose] several layers of reality and thus has the potential to further our understanding of this segment of society (Snyder & Spreitzer, 1983. Epilogue)

19 The author exemplified these functions by citing evidence from international sporting events Taiwan gained a place in international affairs by getting the Little League Baseball world title. The Commonwealth Games, the Pan-American Games all strengthened regional ties and national identities Since those who have achieved something displayed dominance, nations are seen striving to become the best International propaganda could be launched by emphasizing the success a nation has achieved. The Chinese Ping Pong diplomacy and the African boycott in 1976 Olympics are two diverse branches of sport policies that shoulder political errands Sports as international events could pose as a stage for nations to show their ideologies. The massacre of Mexican students, the Israeli massacre are good examples Politicians could reinforce their humanity and reduce their distance with commoners by relating themselves to sports, an activity widely practised among people

20 Although sports events appear to be without the political circle, they are actually not Sports is closely related with politics Political battles are often transcended to the sport arena But sport is not inherently political, [rather] it becomes [so] because of its utility as a widely observed medium for ideological expression' (Figler, 1981. 229) As such, sports events as data for the present study could avoid losing argumentative power for face, a social-psychological matter, to political considerations while still maintaining a glimpse of the total life conditions

21 The second largest paper, Gongren Ribao has a total distribution of 808,821,000 (average 2,221,700 per issue) in 1986, less than half of those for People's Daily All figures quoted here are released in the 1987 Zhongguo Xinwen Nianjian
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There was a gap of nearly twenty years between the first and second China Wars. It would have been expected that, in this period, the Chinese would have updated their arsenals and have been able to defend themselves more effectively. Whilst, as already seen, this was done to a degree, they were not able to overcome all the problems. The biggest problem was probably the attitude of those in charge, which is so often difficult to alter in any institution, particularly the armed forces. Hence, in the second war the story was much the same, although the batteries at the Pei Ho river were able to repel the European navies and delay the end of the war by a year.

In conclusion it can be seen that not only did the Chinese suffer a great disadvantage in the technology of their weaponry, but they also were behind in training and discipline, factors which turn brave men into efficient troops. Obviously there is more than fighting to any war, and political, economic and social factors all have an influence on events. However, in order to gain a full insight into the wars between China and the Western powers, it is necessary to understand the military aspects. Fortunately the military men, like so many Victorian travellers, have left records of their experiences. This paper draws on some of those records and aims to put them in context with the development of weapon technology that was taking place at the time. The range of weapons being used by the two sides spanned centuries of development and their coming together is, in itself, a fascinating story.

NOTES

1 Keith Stewart Mackenzie, Narrative of the Second Campaign in China, London 1842, p. 92 notes "the Tartars making a most determined resistance, standing by their guns till the sailors cut them down, hand to hand."

2 Captain Granville G. Loch R.N., The Closing Events of the Campaign in China: The Operations in the Yang-Tze-Kiang and Treaty of Nanking, London 1843. P. 107. Loch is horrified by "old men, women and children, cutting each other's throats, and drowning themselves by the dozen."

3 Loch R.N., op. cit., p. 113.

4 Mackenzie, op. cit., p. 62 notes "for both (Admiral) Kwan and his second in command, fell by bayonet wounds received in their breasts, whilst gallantly
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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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Essays and Notes (London, John Murray, 1865)

[same] China, During the War and Since the Peace (London, Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 2 vols., 1852)

Captain Arthur Cunynghame, An Aide-de-Camp's Recollections of Service in China (London, 2 vols, 1844)

K.S. Mackenzie, Narrative of the Second Campaign in China (London, 1842)

Granville G. Loch, The Closing Events of the Campaign in China (London, 1843)

Alexander Murray [Lt. In the 18th Regt. (Royal Irish)], Doings in China (London, 1843)

Lord Robert Jocelyn, Six Months with the Chinese Expedition (London, 1841)

“A Field Officer", The Last Year in China (London, 1843)

Armine S.H. Mountain, Memoirs and Letters (London, 1857)
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