RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v 108 A. D. BLUE provided that the river be opened to foreign shipping. This commenced the modern or more correctly the European history of the river. By the terms of the Treaty of Tientsin three ports on the river were opened to foreign shipping and trade - Chinkiang, Kiukiang, and Hankow, Hankow, by far the largest and most important of the three, was six hundred miles from the mouth of the river. The Franco-Chinese Treaty, signed at the same time, provided for the opening of Nanking. At that time, however, and for a further six years, Nanking was occupied by the Taiping rebels, and no attempt was made to trade there, and it was not until 1899 that the Chinese Maritime Customs opened a station there. When the Treaty of Tientsin was signed in 1858 most of the Lower Yangtse was in a disturbed state because of the Taiping Rebellion, and a great part of the river was under rebel control. In these circumstances, therefore, it was not expected that the river would be opened to foreign trade until the restoration of Imperial authority. Lord Elgin, the British Plenipotentiary, however, was unwilling to wait for this, and persuaded the Chinese authorities to allow him to make a voyage up the river. His expedition consisted of the frigates Retribution and Furious, and three small gunboats, Cruiser, Lee, and Dove. After being fired on by the rebels at two places, Hankow was reached on 6th December 1858, the first time it had been visited by a foreign ship. Lord Elgin went ashore at several places on the river, and made short excursions into the country. He found the people to have no sympathy with the rebels, and thought they welcomed the prospect of foreign trade. He also thought them reasonably prosperous and contented, and not too heavily taxed. At Hankow he found coal and iron, the latter in abundance, also considerable quantities of imported cotton and woollen goods; but he formed the opinion that British manufacturers would have to exert themselves to supplant native goods. It was a pleasing fallacy, he wrote, to imagine that it was only the malign influence of intriguing mandarins which caused the Chinese to prefer native to foreign goods. James Matheson, one of the founders of Jardine, Matheson and Company, frankly admitted on several occasions the superiority of Chinese nankeens over Manchester cotton goods. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v NAVIGATION ON THE YANGTSE 109 The Imperial forces had very little success against the Taipings in the next two years, and although it had been stipulated that the three ports on the river were not to be opened until they were defeated, a second naval expedition left Shanghai early in 1861 to establish consular posts at Chinkiang, Kiukiang, and Hankow. This expedition went up 158 miles beyond Hankow before turning back. Shortly after the return of this expedition the river was opened to foreign trade. There is some ambiguity about Western policy during the Taiping Rebellion. It seems to have been regarded with sympathy in the early stages, when it was looked on as a reforming movement with Christian affiliations; and many foreigners welcomed the prospect of a change from the corrupt and reactionary Manchu régime. The British, American, and French governments, therefore, adopted a policy of neutrality in the early stages of the conflict. Later on, however, a marked change took place, which was not entirely due to the excesses committed by the rebels. Commercial considerations undoubtedly played some part. The Treaty of Tientsin had legalised the opium trade, but the Taipings were against opium and alcohol, and banned this trade in the territory under their control. They also made it clear that under their rule foreign trade would not be carried on in the one-sided manner so favourable to the foreign merchants. The Treaty of Tientsin again had stipulated that foreign ships could not navigate the Yangtse until peace was restored. Because of these and other reasons, the Western Powers abandoned their policy of neutrality. The rebels were looked on and referred to as firebrands and extremists, and the Manchu government as a peaceful and stabilising element, and steps were taken to help the latter. These included supplying the government forces with arms and ammunition — including the new Lee Enfield rifle, not yet used in Europe — allowing foreign steamers to transport government troops, and supplying officers to train and lead them.* As a result Nanking was captured in 1864, and the last vestiges of the rebellion were stamped out by 1866. In 1862 the Scotland, a steamer belonging to Lindsay and Company of Shanghai was the first ocean-going merchant ship to go to Hankow, and thus opened the interior of China to direct * Gordon was the most famous of these officers. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1963 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/4m90m091v NAVIGATION ON THE YANGTSE 111 cities, which together constitute Wuhan, as 8,000,000—almost certainly a great exaggeration.3 Lord Elgin, some fifteen years later during the Taiping Rebellion, thought it to be about 1,000,000, and that it would have been about 2,000,000 before the rebellion. It must, therefore, have been a more important city than either Canton or Shanghai at that time. Like those cities, it was the centre of a network of waterways which connected it with a great area of the surrounding country. In the first few years after the opening of the river Hankow resembled a boom town in the American West. Fortunes were made and lost in a few months, and passages from Shanghai were at a premium, up to £100 being paid for the trip. This initial boom was followed by the inevitable collapse, in this case intensified by the depression in the cotton market when the American Civil War came to an end, and a fall in tea prices which came at the same time. Trade on the river had been damned up for years by the Taipings, so that a boom following the opening of the river was only natural. By 1862 there were twenty steamers running regularly on the river, and there was such a demand for steamers that, as one writer described it, “everything which could burn coal was employed at high freights". The freight on light goods from Shanghai to Hankow was as high as £6 per ton for a voyage lasting only three or four days. The first European ships on the river were small schooners, shallow draft paddle steamers, and lorchas.* The pioneer river steamer, as distinguished from warships and ocean-going steamers, was the American Firedart, which had been designed originally for the Canton River. She was soon followed by others specially designed for the Yangtse, and within a short time after the opening of the river, there were regular services between Shanghai and Hankow, The early years of foreign trade on the Yangtse coincided with the last years of near American supremacy in shipping and shipbuilding, and the first British steamers to run on the river were built in America. Although the majority of foreign trading firms in the treaty ports at that time were British, the Americans were very serious competitors in the field of shipping. The * According to recent census figures the population of Wuhan is now 2,200,000. • A sailing ship with a European hull but Chinese type of rig. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r PENG CHAU 89 coastal and riverine areas of Kwangtung were always receiving the unwelcome attention of pirates and robber gangs, right up to the end of the nineteenth century and well into the present one. The Taiping rebellion occupied the middle years of the century and, though it does not seem to have caused much bloodshed in the San On district, the large-scale struggle between Hakkas and Puntis in the parts of the province west of the Delta must have increased mutual antipathy between the two groups elsewhere. The Opium War and the War of 1857-60 saw increased foreign activity in Hong Kong waters. There were therefore both internal and external dangers to be expected on a small island settlement like Peng Chau at this time. Internally there was probably less trouble than there was potential. There are no recollections of fighting between the various groups of settlers on the island, though the Hoklos, who are generally credited with a more turbulent disposition than the Cantonese and Hakkas, perhaps in most cases having fewer possessions to make them cautious, sometimes fought among themselves.51 The Cantonese shops in the main street were ever fearful of robbery and violence and until ten years ago one could see the last of the protective gates known as ... There were three of them, barred every night, one at each end of Wing On Street and a third at the entrance to a large lane which left the main street at right angles and led to the Hakka settlement. Within living memory one or more watchmen were employed at night by the Kaifong and collected contributions from shops according to their size. These night defences were erected as much to keep out bandits and robbers coming from the sea as thieves or dissatisfied elements from within the island. There was, as Mr. CHUNG recalls, a small military post on the island in the late nineteenth century, but this would scarcely deter would-be assailants, especially if they were numerous and well-armed, and there can be little doubt that the first farmers and shopkeepers lived in genuine fear of such assaults. There are sufficient instances of violence from neighbouring places at various times to show that such fears were fully justified3½ and an isolated town like Peng Chau would have offered better prospects for pillage than a lonely village of farmers. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1964 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r 143 PRESENTATIONS AND ADDITIONS TO THE LIBRARY Cheng, J. C. Chinese Sources for the Taiping Rebellion 1850-1864. Hong Kong, 1963, From Hong Kong University Press. Cohen, Paul A. "Some Sources of Anti-Missionary Sentiment During the Late Ch'ing". (Reprinted from the Journal of the China Society, Vol. 2.) Michigan. From the Centre of Chinese Studies, Michigan. Crump, James I. Edited by. Occasional Papers, No. 2. (Centre of Chinese Studies, Michigan.) Michigan, 1963. Exchange. Endacott, G. B. A Biographical Sketch-book of Early Hong Kong. Singapore, 1962. Forke, Alfred. Translated by. Lun-heng. Parts I-II. (Reprint, 2nd edition.) New York, 1962. From Paragon Book Gallery. Henderson, Norman K. Educational Developments and Research with Special Reference to Hong Kong. (Hong Kong Council for Educational Research No. 1) Hong Kong, 1963. From Hong Kong University Press. Henderson, Norman K. Statistical Research Methods in Education and Psychology. Hong Kong, 1964. From Hong Kong University Press. Hsüeh, Chun-tu. "A Review Article: The Years of Triumph.” (Reprinted from the China Quarterly, July-September 1962.) London, 1962. From Chun-tu Hsüeh. Hunter, W. C. Journal of the occurrences at Canton during the cessation of trade at Canton in 1839. Manuscript in Boston Athenaeum, U.S.A. (Microfilm copy.) From E. W. Ellsworth. Kirby, E. Stuart. Edited by. Contemporary China: Economic and Social Studies: Documents; Chronology; Bibliography 1961-1962. Volume 5, Hong Kong, 1963. From Hong Kong University Press. Mackey, Sean. Edited by. Symposium on the Design of High Buildings. Hong Kong, 1963 From Hong Kong University Press. Maulvi, Imam Ma Tat Ng. Edited by. Prayer Ceremony. (English, Chinese and Arabic.) Hong Kong, 1962. From L. A. Khan ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653 PIRACY ON THE CHINA COAST 71 Piracy was firmly rooted along the South China coast. Then, during the First China War, many junks were allowed to act as armed privateers, and when the war was over, became pirates rather than return to peaceful trade. Hong Kong and its neighbouring islands had always been centres of piracy, or the home of fishermen ambitious to earn a dishonest dollar or two from piracy. The new British colony must have appeared like manna from Heaven to these people, and the colony's first years were marked by an increase in piracy. There was a similar increase in piracy around Singapore at the same time. The founding of Singapore in 1819 had resulted in a great increase in native trade in the area, and this suffered severely from attacks by well-armed Chinese junks, which sometimes attacked European ships. Captain James Brooke with his sea Dyaks played a big part in suppressing piracy in these waters.1 The period between the First and Second China Wars is one of the most confusing in Chinese history. On one hand is the founding of a British colony at Hong Kong, the opening of the treaty ports, and the inception of regular shipping services along the coast; while on the other is the persistence of lawlessness and piracy. In the background is the increasing weakness of the Manchu Dynasty, and during the last years of the period, the Taiping Rebellion. When the East India Company controlled the China trade, there was little need for naval protection in Chinese waters, and the Cantonese were traditionally opposed to the Royal Navy. The large and well-armed East Indiamen and "Country" ships were perfectly capable of fighting their way past the pirates who infested the Canton River delta, as were smaller, but faster and equally well-armed opium clippers. In spite of Chinese objections, however, British warships visited Canton on several occasions. Anson called in the Centurion in 1741, on the famous voyage on which he captured the Manila galleon, and Cook in 1779 with the Resolution and Discovery after his three-year cruise in the Pacific. Cook's ships were careened, refitted, and provisioned at Canton, the East India Company advancing the money in return for bills on the Admiralty in London. 1 The first white Rajah of Sarawak. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 REGIONAL APPROACH TO CHINESE HISTORY 11 Thirdly, historians have tended to think of recent Chinese history largely in terms of the "impact of the West", forgetting that for most Chinese the foreigner and his activities were of little real importance. They may have been important to Peking and to some members of the bureaucracy in certain areas of the empire, but the barbarian and his doings could not have loomed large in the day-to-day life of the average Chinese villager or even the average Chinese official. Yet most studies of nineteenth-century Chinese history have been concerned with the Opium Wars, the "scramble for concessions", the Boxer Uprising, the impact of Western thought on Chinese intellectual history. Even the Taiping Rebellion has been thought of largely in terms of its Christian origins and its impact on Sino-Western relations and little has been done, until recently, to treat it as a Chinese phenomenon, which ultimately it was. But what relevance did all this have for the fisherman in his junk off Lantau or the peasant farmer in Szechuan? If there is any validity to the above comments about distortions in Chinese history, it may be that a useful corrective device would be a regional approach to Chinese history. We might be able to gain a better insight into the life and times of nineteenth-century China, for example, by limiting the scope of our studies to cohesive geographic and cultural areas. This would tend to neutralize the all-China, or north-China bias. It would put the impact of the West in its proper perspective. Above all, it might provide answers to the questions raised at the very beginning of this paper: for the person living at a given place and at a given time, what was really “going on”? As an experiment, I have chosen the Hong Kong-Macao-Canton area of south China. This has the advantage of being comparatively small and relatively homogeneous in terms of language, culture, and economic base. Its people were aware of their regional cohesiveness, especially in comparison to outside-province people, though even within this area there were racial and linguistic differences. I have limited my study, more or less, to the first half of the nineteenth century. Politically, the area approximated the territory included in the hsien,3 or districts, which occupied both sides of the Canton River estuary. The districts constituted about two-thirds of the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 122 JAMES HAYES permitted to settle there, and stringent measures will be taken to prevent its becoming as heretofore a resort for thieves and outlaws, who are hereby warned that they will be proceeded against with severity if they attempt to conceal themselves within the above-mentioned limits **6 Who were these people? Most of the inhabitants of Old Kowloon at this time were Hakkas, whereas the earlier inhabitants of the flatter and more fertile areas of the peninsula, especially round Kowloon City, not far beyond the northern boundary of British territory, were Cantonese. The major Cantonese settlements in the area south of the Kowloon hills date back to the Yuan Dynasty (1280-1368) and even before, whereas the Hakka settlers of the southern part of the Kowloon peninsula are of much more recent origin. Most of them appear to have come into the area in the first half of the 19th century, especially after 1841. Several factors can be said to have operated in bringing Hakkas into the area in the middle years of the 19th century. In the first place, there appears to have been a continuing movement of Hakkas early in the century, seeking to settle on new land. Then, after 1841, there was the attraction of nearby Hong Kong with its opportunities for work, and perhaps wealth. The development of Victoria, the capital city, brought a demand for granite and this was readily available in the rocky outcrops of Kowloon, from which it could conveniently be transported across the harbour to the new building sites. In 1871 there were no less than eighty-one stone quarries in Kowloon more than for the whole of Hong Kong island. Quarrying is traditionally work in which Hakkas engage: they pride themselves on their strength and ability to engage in such strenuous labour.10 Thirdly, the prolonged unrest of the Taiping Rebellion forced many individuals and even whole families to leave their homes and settle in British territory." One of the more picturesque settlers in Ho Man Tin Village in the 1860s was a Hakka who had allegedly been one of the Taiping generals and rejoiced in the nickname "Seven Legged Heavenly Flying Tiger". A contemporary observer who had spent nearly thirty years in South China described these people as follows: 12 Parties of tramps, called Hakkas or ‘guests' roamed over Kwangtung province squatting on vacant places along the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1966 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811 OLD BRITISH KOWLOON 137 50 The Hong Kong Blue Books for 1904 onwards list Basel Mission out-stations at Shaukiwan on Hong Kong Island and at To Kwa Wan, Sham Shui Po and Kowloon Tong in Kowloon. It is not certain when the Sham Shui Po station was opened as The China Mission Hand Book p. 279 lists two out-stations from Hong Kong but does not give their names. The earlier Blue Books are not much help. 51 Hung Hom, Tai Kok Tsui and Mong Kok Tsui had their docks and in Sessional Papers 1899, p. 482 Tai Kok Tsui is described as "an industrial area". 52 This study was hampered by the fact that no early land records appear to have survived for the group of villages described in this article. The only information I have been able to obtain, besides evidence from maps, relates to squatter licenses. A list for 1896, which appears in Sessional Papers 1897, p. 203, includes Ho Man Tin (37), Tai Shik Kwu (1) and Mong Kok (57). L + Addenda I ought not to leave this subject without mentioning the bad feeling between Hakkas and Cantonese in British Hong Kong which was the legacy of the disturbed times during the Taiping rebellion. Mayers, Dennys and King, the authors of The Treaty Ports of China and Japan (London and Hong Kong, 1867) state that fights between Hakka and Punti were common in British Hong Kong and that many Hakka labourers had come to Hong Kong with vivid memories of ill-treatment in their native place. It seems that these fights were not confined to immigrant labourers with scores to settle. Eitel records that for several days in August 1862 "the peninsula of Kowloon presented the novel aspect of an animated battle field, as the Punti inhabitants of the neighbouring villages were engaged in a bloody warfare with the Hakka settlers at Tsim Sha Tsui". A previous engagement, presumably between the same people, occurred in the same place in August 1859 when hostilities lasted two days though "little damage was done beyond a few knife wounds". We are told that "The Hakkas remained masters of the situation" (Dennys etc. p. 84). At that time, according to this source, the Puntis "have an intense antipathy to the Hakkas" (p. 19). It is interesting that this is reflected in the fact that the Canton Coolie Corps which assisted our army in the Second Chinese War 1857-60 was recruited in Hong Kong entirely from among Hakkas. See W. Stanton The Triad Society, Hong Kong, Kelly & Walsh 1900, p. 26. Further to the early descriptions of Yau Ma Ti given in the text I have since come across another in Sessional Papers 1888, p. 103, in which it is stated that "the boatmen and fishermen who have hitherto constituted the residents of Yau Ma Ti are gradually becoming outnumbered by town people and artizans (sic) from Hong Kong who are attracted to Yau Ma Ti by the lower rents charged them for house accommodation". ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1968 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d THE LIBRARY 181 BREDON, Juliet. Sir Robert Hart: the romance of a great career, told by his niece. London, Hutchinson, 1909. BUCK, Peter H. Explorers of the Pacific: European and American discoveries in Polynesia, by Te Rangi Hiroa (Peter H. Buck). Honolulu, Bernice P. Bishop Museum, 1953. BUSHELL, Stephen W. Chinese art. 2nd ed. London, H.M.S.O., 1909 reprinted 1924. (Victoria and Albert Museum handbooks) 2 vols. CAHILL, James. Chinese painting. [Lausanne] Skira, 1960. CARL, Katharine A. With the Empress Dowager. New York, Century, 1905. CARNÉ, Louis de. Travels in Indo-China and the Chinese Empire: with a notice of the author by the Count de Carné. Translated from the French. London, Chapman and Hall, 1872. CHAI, Fei, and others. Indigo prints of China. Peking, Foreign Languages Press, 1956. CHENG, J. C. Chinese sources for the Taiping Rebellion, 1850-1864. Hong Kong, University Press, 1963. CHU, Hsi (AO Kia-li (†): livre des rites domestiques chinois de Tchou-hi, traduit pour la première fois avec commentaires by C. de Harlez. Paris, Leroux, 1889. CLAUDEL, Paul. Chine. Photographies d'Hélène Hoppenot. [Genève] Skira, 1946. CLAVELL, James. Tai-pan: a novel of Hong Kong. London, Michael Joseph, 1966. COATES, Austin. Prelude to Hongkong. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d MILITIA, MARKET AND LINEAGE 33 British at Canton, and second, the Taiping Rebellion. Imperial resources were now strained to the limit and the paramilitary associations of the Kwangtung hinterland became an essential if volatile and unpredictable adjunct to government strategy. Contingents of gentry-organized militia contributed, with government encouragement and varying degrees of success, to the defence of Canton on several occasions and were largely responsible for the suppression of the mid-century Red Turban revolt.? The existence of such composite militia forces raises many interesting problems. For the moment they may be subsumed under two general questions. How were these militia forces organized? Can they be related to what is known of other, enduring aspects of social organization in rural Kwangtung? These questions are central to this article, as they are to Wakeman's study of the militia movement in Kwangtung province between 1839–1861. His analysis will be discussed in conjunction with the smaller, but in some respects similar, resistance movement which sought to prevent the British occupation of Hong Kong's New Territories in 1899. However, before turning to these events, it is necessary to consider two other recent contributions to the study of Chinese society. Theoretical Considerations Skinner has suggested that "anthropological work on Chinese society, by focussing attention almost exclusively on the village, has with few exceptions distorted the reality of the rural social structure. Insofar as the Chinese peasant can be said to live in a self-contained world, that world is not the village but the standard marketing community. The effective social field of the peasant... is delimited not by the narrow horizons of his village but rather by the boundaries of his standard marketing area.” For present purposes the central elements of Skinner's thesis are: (i) that the patterned economic activities of a predominantly peasant and agrarian society are discernible in the spatial distribution of its markets; (ii) that the markets, in terms of their different functions, can be conceptually ordered in a hierarchy; and (iii) that the overall system of differentiated marketing activities is integrated by a series of co-ordinated periodic market schedules. The resulting typology is: minor market, standard market, intermediate ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d MILITIA, MARKET AND LINEAGE 59 part of further studies of militia, both within Kwangtung Province and elsewhere in China. It is possible that the approach to militia used in this article could be applied to other, more significant, military organizations as they existed in nineteenth century China. For example, recent studies of the regional armies of Tseng Kuo-fan and Li Hung-chang indicate that they were, initially, amalgamations of local militia forces.78 A more detailed analysis of these militia could contribute to a greater understanding of the particularistic relationships which appear to have been important in maintaining regional armies as viable organizations over relatively long periods of time. NOTES This article is based upon research in Hong Kong between 1963 and 1965. I am grateful for the financial support provided by the London-Cornell Project for East and South-East Asian Studies. A number of colleagues have commented upon the subject matter of the article during its various stages of preparation. I would particularly like to thank the following for their advice: Dr. Christopher Turner, Dr. George C. Bond, Mr. James Hayes, Professor Maurice Freedman, and Professor Göran Aijmer. A draft of the paper was read to the Sociology Seminar, School of Social Studies, University of East Anglia. I am grateful to my colleagues in this context for their comments. Place names will be rendered according to A Gazetteer of Place Names in Hong Kong, Kowloon, and the New Territories, Hong Kong Government Printer, Hong Kong, n.d., but published 1960. 2 Brine, Lindesay. The Taeping Rebellion in China: A Narrative of its Rise and Progress. London, 1862, pp. 11-12. 3 Krone, [R]. “A Notice of the Sanon District", Article V, Transactions of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, pt. VI, Hong Kong, 1859, p. 71. 4 Freedman, Maurice. Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung. London, 1966, p. 115. 5 The Governor of Hong Kong, commenting upon robbery and piracy during the year 1903, said: "they are the most common offences in the Southern provinces ... the Provincial Authorities do not attempt to deal with such cases until some village is reported as being specially notorious as harbouring robbers, when, if the authorities do not consider them too strong, a force is sent out and as many as possible arrested or the village destroyed." Papers Laid Before the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, 1903, Hong Kong, 1904, pp. 348 ff. Freedman, op. cit., p. 112, quotes an account of such an expedition which took place in "about 1870" and resulted in the beheading of more than a thousand people. 6 Hsiao Kung-chuan, Rural China, Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century, Seattle, 1960, p. 503. 7 For a detailed account of these events, see: Wakeman, Jr., Frederic, Strangers at the Gate: Social Disorder in South China, 1839-1861. Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1969 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/9g553n20d BOOK REVIEWS 171 tung. On the military side these events included two assaults on Canton itself, nearly four years of military occupation of the city (5.1.1858 - 21.10.1861) and various punitive expeditions on the Canton river and inside the province. On the civil and diplomatic side were the sequence of events connected with the question of entry to Canton, which the British held to have been promised them under the terms of the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. This culminated in the triumph of the Canton Viceroy in 1849 who was able to defer entry still further on the grounds of the rooted opposition of the gentry and people of the province to this step by their officials — though deferment was also due to Bonham's conviction that the real key to Canton lay not by warlike action there as in the North. These years also saw economic crises at Canton occasioned, among other factors, by the opening of four other treaty ports under the Nanking Treaty, and a wave of growing lawlessness across the province culminating in the great disorders of the 1850s in the wake of the Taiping rebellion. Mr. Wakeman's theme is the re-emergence of local militia in the early 1840's to assist in repelling the British forces and their continuance through the later years of the entry question (1846-49); the part they played in local defence against the Red Turban and other rebels, pirates and banditti in the early 1850s; their efforts against the British attack in 1857-58 and, under secret orders from Peking, in the guerilla struggle against the British in Canton in the first period of the occupation, until diplomatic agreement in the North led to their being told to desist. He traces the ebb and flow in official attitudes to the local militia from encouragement to discouragement, from enthusiasm to apprehension. He describes, too, the methods by which the militia were raised and financed and shows how they were a two-edged weapon to Government and people alike. Mr. Wakeman also traces the rise and wane of anti-foreign attitudes in Kwantung during this period and the paradoxical change from bitter enmity to a realisation, at least in Canton and its surrounds, that British troops were a guarantee against a multitude of threats from lawless elements. The treatment is masterly and authoritative, being based on a wide variety of sources in English and Chinese; the book is compelling and the narrative moves smoothly. In this review I shall confine my remarks mainly to the militia. First of all I wish to comment briefly on the use of the English ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 LORD ELGIN AND THE TAIPINGS 33 of the river ports is contingent on the suppression of the rebellion."40 Thus the record of Elgin's own visit through Taiping territory adequately lays to rest any notion that he might have been harboring an alternative policy of dealing with the Taipings. Without question, his angry remark was merely rhetorical, entirely lacking substance. He was frustrated with Manchu behavior, both in his own repeated experiences with them, and with their poor handling of the Taiping resurgence of 1860.41 Yet Elgin had done nothing to cultivate the political alternative that Taiping China posed. Nor would he ever do so. NOTES 1 Elgin referred to a "Chinese" government as an alternative to the Manchus. This presumably meant the Taipings who were the only viable such alternative readily at hand. See, for example, Immanuel C. Y. Hsü, China's Entrance into the Family of Nations: The Diplomatic Phase 1858-1880, Cambridge; Harvard University Press, 1960, p. 104. 2 See Stephen Uhalley, Jr., "A New Look at the Diplomatic Missions of 1853-54 to Taiping-held Nanking," The Chung Chi Journal, Volume 6 (May 1967), 171-190. For the best general English-language history of the Taiping movement as a whole, see Franz Michael, The Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents, Vol. I, Seattle and London; University of Washington Press, 1966. Unfortunately the fine work of Jen Yu-wen, the foremost Chinese authority on the Taipings, is for the most part unavailable in English translation; although a concise English edition of his narrative history of the Taipings is in preparation, 3 Elgin to Malmesbury, No. 228, Shanghai, January 5, 1859, "Papers Respecting Lord Elgin's Special Mission to China and Japan, 1857-1859," 1859, Parliamentary Papers or Blue Book (BB), IX, 444. 4 Ibid. 5 Laurence Oliphant, Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan, London, 1860, Vol. II, 310. 6 Elgin to Malmesbury, No. 228, p. 444. 7 Oliphant, II, 361-362. 8 Elgin to Malmesbury, No. 228, p. 444. 9 Oliphant, II, 314. 10 "A Cruise up the Yangtze in 1858-59," Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (May 1860), 704-705. 11 It was of an event during this exchange that Oliphant later wrote: "A large crowd had collected outside the gate, chiefly composed of rebel soldiers watching the proceedings. We sent them a ten-inch shell just to give them some idea of our armament." Ibid., p. 318. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 34 STEPHEN UHALLEY, JR., 12 Elgin to Malmesbury, No. 231, Inclosure No. 1, Shanghai, January 6, 1859, BB, IX, 454. 13 Ibid., Inclosure No. 2, p. 455. 14 Elgin to Malmesbury, No. 228, p. 445. 15 Ibid., Inclosure 1, p. 447. ** 16 Wade, in adjoining sentences, says that "The prices put upon the articles we named were not exorbitant and, "This part of our errand done we took our leave, glad to escape from the pressure of this most disorderly mob, and the offensive atmosphere they created." Ibid., p. 448. 17 Oliphant, II, 361. 18 Elgin to Malmesbury, No. 228, p. 445, 19 Oliphant, II, 362-364. 20 Elgin to Malmesbury, No. 228, p. 446. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid., Inclosure No. 2, pp. 448-449. 23 Ibid., Inclosure No. 4, p. 450. 24 Lindsay Brine, The Taeping Rebellion in China, London, 1862, pp. 226-228. Despite his reputation for relatively dispassionate reporting Brine makes similar omissions in discussing other episodes as well. In discussing the visit at Wu Hu he uses only passages from Oliphant that reflected poorly on the Taipings without mentioning that the Taipings graciously complied with the request for supplies - pp. 223-226. Regarding the bombardment of Anking, Brine does not mention that the Imperialists were attacking the city simultaneously -- pp. 220-221. 25 Only the surname of the Taiping leader is given in Wade's account, which is the basis of the other versions of this visit, That it was Li Ch'un-fa is a surmise concurred in by Jen Yu-wen in personal conversation with the writer. As a lieutenant of Li Hsiu-ch'eng it is likely that Li Ch'un-fa was well-disposed toward foreigners, as indeed, he seems to have been depicted in Wade's own account. 26 Elgin to Malmesbury, No. 228, Inclosure No. 5, pp. 450-452, 27 Ibid., p. 451. 28 Elgin to Malmesbury, No. 232, Inclosure of Elgin to Seymour, Shanghai, January 6, 1859, BB, IX, 455. 29 This poem was not included in the Blue Book collection of documents, but was subsequently translated and printed in Oliphant, II, 334-341, and in Brine, pp. 229-236. It will soon be made available once again among Franz Michael's documents of the Taipings to be published in the near future. The Chinese text, which should be consulted, for the English translation is inconsistent, is found in Jen Yu-wen, T'ai-p'ing Tien kuo tien-chih t'ung-kao (TPTKTCTK), Vol. II, 881-883. 30 We learn of the use of this specific form of address from Chester Cheng's recording of the cover letter in his book on Taiping documentary materials in the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, Cheng does not mention the important poem itself - Chester Cheng, Chinese Sources for the Taiping Rebellion 1850-1864, Hong Kong, 1963, p. 150. It is possible that the word shang was used as an honorific in place of the more usual kuei, a word that may have been proscribed by the Taipings because of its phonetic similarity to kuei meaning devil. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1970 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241 LORD ELGIN AND THE TAIPINGS 31 Elgin to Malmesbury, No. 228, Inclosure No. 3, p. 449. 32 Elgin to Clarendon, No. 139, Shanghai, April 9, 1858, BB, IX, 260. 33 Elgin to Malmesbury, No. 228, p. 445. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid., pp. 442-443. 38 Ibid., p. 442. 39 Brine, p. 268. 40 Hsü, China's Entrance, p. 78, citing Reed to Cass, November 5, 1858, China: Dispatches, Vol. 17, Doc. 35. It should be noted, however, that this is indirect evidence, but given by a contemporary who was generally co-operative with Elgin. 41 See John S. Gregory, "British Intervention Against the Taiping Rebellion," Journal of Asian Studies, XIX, No. 1 (November 1959), 12-13. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 22 STEPHEN UHALLEY, JR. In Ningpo itself, the preparations were underway. British officials persuaded all missionaries of British nationality to withdraw from the city, a step which Consul Harvey indicated would "simplify considerably our future relations with the Taipings at Ningpo."14 British naval Captain Corbett concurred, reasoning that in the event of any difficulty with the Taipings the missionaries would otherwise "prove a source of great embarrassment to us."15 It is a matter of record that many of the missionaries who did comply and therefore lived apart from the Taipings during the duration of their occupation did come to share the negative or hostile attitude toward the insurgents.16 As the British intervention policy developed, an anti-Taiping propaganda campaign mounted. One of the most interesting and telling samples of this effort was the reporting of Consul Harvey. His dispatch of March 20, 1862, is perhaps the best example.17 Completely in contradiction to the report of the already noted China Overland Trade Report of less than a month earlier, Harvey declared that although three months had elapsed since the Taiping takeover they had still to take a single step in the direction of good government. Curiously, he repeatedly stressed his lack of bias and dispassionate judgment. He even conceded that “personally I have received every mark of courtesy and proper regard from the Tae-ping Chiefs; and further, I have found in official dealings with them a rough and blunt sort of honesty quite unexpected and surprising, after years of public intercourse with the Imperial mandarins.” But despite such lack of bias, repeatedly emphasized, and such acknowledgment of Taiping honesty and courtesy, Harvey went on to say: "Nevertheless, the Taepings with their frank demeanour and bluff energy have a fume of blood and a look of carnage about them, from which I, for one, recoil with horror." Harvey noted that the occupation of the Taipings, termed an "experiment", had produced "exactly what was expected - ruin, desolation, and the annihilation of every vital principle in all that surrounds the presence, or lies under the bane, of the Taepings." Still underlining, undoubtedly, his lack of bias, Harvey noted: "I now, therefore, take the liberty of declaring, once for all (and for ten years I have fairly adhered to and been consistent in this opinion), that the Taeping rebellion is the greatest delusion, as a political or popular movement, and the Taeping doctrines the most gigantic blasphemous imposition... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g THE TAIPINGS AT NINGPO 31 of the entire Taiping Revolution from 1853 to 1864 as it related to foreign powers. At the least, it suggests once again a need for renewed consideration both of the Taiping period in itself and of the historical tradition which transmitted our understanding of it. NOTES 1 Romaine to Hammond, No. 34, Admiralty, February 17, 1862, Inclosure 1, Hope to Admiralty, Shanghai, December 22, 1861, Blue Books, pp. 90-91. 2 Harvey to Hammond, No. 32, Ningpo, December 7, 1861, Inclosure 1, Ibid., p. 85. 3 The letters to both Taiping generals are translated as Inclosures 3 and 4 in Harvey to Hammond, No. 32, Ibid., pp. 86-88. 4 Harvey to Hammond, No. 33, December 18, 1861, Ibid., p. 89. 5 Romaine to Hammond, Admiralty, February 17, 1862, Inclosure 3, Ibid., p. 95. 6 Ibid. 7 Frederick Wells Williams, The Life and Letters of Samuel Wells Williams, LL.D., New York, 1889, p. 336. 8 W. H. Sykes, The Taiping Rebellion in China, London, 1863, p. 34. 9 The China Mail, Hong Kong, May 8, 1862, reprinted from the Shanghae Commercial News, May 2, 1862. 10 Sykes, p. 19. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid., pp. 49-53. 13 G. E..., "Rebels in the Ningpo District," North China Herald, No. 615, May 10, 1862. 14 Harvey to Hammond, No. 36, January 3, 1862, Inclosure 1, "Correspondence respecting...." Blue Books, p. 107. 15 Romaine to Hammond, No. 34, Inclosure 5, Corbett to Hope, Ningpo, December 20, 1861, Blue Books, p. 97. 16 This seems evident, for example, in the writings of A. E. Moule obtainable at the Church Missionary Society archives in London, and in his undated Personal Reminiscences at the Essex Institute Library. 17 Harvey to Hammond, No. 3, Ningpo, March 20, 1862, Inclosure 4, "Further Papers...." pp. 12-16. 18 In this dispatch, Bruce makes another unwarranted generalization about foreign views of the Taipings: "The experience of several years and the testimony of all foreigners who have been among them, show that they are unable to govern." Bruce to Russell, No. 14, Peking, April 10, 1862, Ibid., pp. 18-20. 19 Bruce to Russell, No. 15, Peking, April 8, 1862, Ibid., p. 21. 20 Admiralty to Hammond, No. 32, July 28, 1862, Inclosure 4, "Further Papers relating to...." Blue Books, p. 44. 21 Inclosure 9 in No. 32, Ibid., p. 48. 22 Inclosure 6 in No. 32, Ibid., p. 45. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 36 CHIU LING-YEONG After giving his reader a vivid picture of China in her sleep, Tseng then urged the public to watch closely for China in her awakening. The awakened China, he said, would not be aggressive or dangerous to any of her neighbouring countries. China, after all, was not a land-hungry nation. Hungering for land was only the affair of the European powers. China was under no necessity of finding in other lands outlets for her surplus population. A considerable number of Chinese had, at different times, been forced to leave their homes and try their fortunes in Cuba, Peru, the United States and the British colonies, on account of the Taiping Rebellion. The Chinese emigrated to these countries of their own free will, and their movement and activities had nothing to do with the Chinese Government. The Chinese in these countries, however, unlike the Europeans who had settled in the East, had no political nor territorial ambitions. Returning to the internal affairs of the awakened China, Tseng stressed: • Great efforts are being made to fortify her coast and create a strong and efficient navy. China will proceed with her coast defences and the organisation and development of her army and navy, without, for the present, directing her attention whether to the introduction of railways or to any of the subjects of internal economy; the changes which may have to be made when China comes to set her house in order can only profitably be discussed when she feels she has thoroughly overhauled and can rely on the bolts and bars she is now applying to her doors. The general line of China's foreign Policy will be directed to extending and improving her relations with the Treaty Powers, to the amelioration of the condition of her subjects residing in foreign parts, to the placing on a less equivocal footing of the position of her feudatories, as regards the suzerain power, to the revision of the treaties, in a sense more in accordance with the place which China holds as a great Asiatic power" "China has decided on exercising a more effective supervision on the acts of her vassal princes and of accepting a hostile movement against these countries or any interference with their affairs will be viewed at Peking as a declaration ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g The Emergence of a Chinese Elite in Hong Kong Carl T. Smith* (A lecture delivered to the Branch on 15 March 1971) INTRODUCTION The opening of Tung Wah Hospital (1872)† marks the terminal date for this study of the emergence of a Chinese élite in Hong Kong. We are concerned, therefore, with the first thirty years of the colony's history, 1841-72. The first decade was characterized by economic and social problems partially created by a shifting and generally irresponsible population. During this period, there was, however, a small number of settlers who were establishing themselves and their families with the purpose of making Hong Kong their permanent home, of acquiring capital, and of investing in real estate. As the Colony entered into the 1850s, this group increasingly assumed a position of leadership. It was recruited from a few successful contractors and builders, several government servants, compradores of foreign firms, and Chinese Christians attached to missionary groups. The second decade of Hong Kong's history was marked by an influx of population and capital caused by disturbed conditions in South China created by the Taiping Rebellion. This influx turned into an exodus when hostilities began between the British and Chinese in 1857. But war brought more compradores to Hong Kong as foreign firms moved down from Canton. In the third decade, there was a revival of trade, and a growing merchant class provided its share of élite. By the end of the * Rev. Carl Smith is Lecturer in the Theology Division in the Department of Philosophy and Religion, Chung Chi College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong and has been associated with the College since 1962. † It is difficult to know what date to give to the origin of Tung Wah Hospital. In 1869, a committee of concerned Chinese was organized. In 1870 (the usual date given for the foundation of the Hospital), the Tung Wah Hospital Ordinance was passed and the foundation stone was laid by the Governor. The Hospital was formally opened by the Governor on 14 February 1872. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g 86 CARL T. SMITH of substantial Chinese merchants was not realized. The Blue Book reports for both 1845 and 1846 noted some signs of a growing stability in the Chinese population. In 1845 it was stated that "both in numbers and respectability the Chinese are improving, being accompanied in a greater number of instances by their families", and in 1846, "the proportion of females increases as a feeling of security induced Chinese settlers to bring over their families". The settling of families was welcomed because it indicated that the Chinese who did so were willing to consider Hong Kong as a place of permanent residence. Although there had been noted some progress in this area, the report for 1848 indicated that it was not sustained. "There exists no local attachment, which may be ascribed to the absence of respectable families born on the island, with which the adventurers could contract marriages. The rent of houses and shops is at present low enough to enable any man who has a middling trade to lodge his family, yet very few decent married females reside here. In this respect there has been very little improvement during the past year". The paucity of Chinese families in Hong Kong is reflected in the annual census of shops and buildings. In 1845 there were as many brothels as families, twenty-five families and twenty-six brothels. Within five years the families had increased to 141, but there were only six more brothels than in 1845. The 1850s saw a substantial influx of Chinese families escaping from the turbulent conditions in Kwang Tung Province created by the Taiping Rebellion. This influx changed somewhat the characteristics of Hong Kong's Chinese population. It acquired more stability, responsibility and economic strength. Examination of an emerging élite in this period shows that its members can be divided into five occupational groups: contractors, merchants, compradores, government servants and Christian employees of missionary groups. The biographies of the individuals in each of these groups found on our lists for determining élite status provide the background for élite emergence in the 1850s and 1860s. THE CONTRACTORS GROUP When Hong Kong was settled the immediate need of buildings brought many connected with the building trade to Hong Kong. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g CHINESE ELITE IN HONG KONG 89 Fukienese merchants to settle in Hong Kong. Several other merchants appear on the earliest of the élite lists indicating their presence in the first decade of the Colony's history. In 1852 "Cun-wo A Kwi, merchant" contributed five dollars to Dr. Hirschberg's Hospital. This is Chow Aki* of the firm Cong-wo, which had been established in the Lower Bazaar in 1842, having a branch at Canton. In 1849 he bought the lease of the Central Market, holding it until 1857. He became a large investor in real estate, but sold out most of his property in 1866 and retired to Macao. A merchant who survived the pitfalls of commerce in early Hong Kong was Wong Ping1. He is named as a silk merchant on the land-owners' petition of 1848, but he was one of Hong Kong's first industrialists in that he owned a rope walk beyond the western end of the Lower Bazaar. He was one of three trustees to hold Inland Lot 361 in Taipingshan on behalf of the Chinese community. The lot was granted in 1851 and upon it was built a temple "for the reception of Tablets to the memory of... deceased countrymen".22 The building was used, however, not only for memorial tablets but also as a depository for those who were about to die, following established Chinese custom. When this use came to the notice of the European community it was shocked. The reaction and public discussion which followed resulted in Government allocating a grant from the revenues of the gambling monopoly to the Chinese community for the erection of a suitable hospital to be known as Tung Wah. Wong Ping was not a member of the Organizing Committee of the Hospital, though he was on the Kai Fong Committee for 1872. He died in 1887. Wong Yue Yee alias Wong Yick Bun, of the Chun Cheong Wing Nam Pak Hong, a Director of the Tung Wah in 1872, may have been a relative as Wong Ping is mentioned in 1881 as a managing partner of the Chun Cheung Hong for some twenty years. He also was associated with the Tsui Shing firm and the Tuck Mee Hong. In the 1850s the Taiping Rebellion upset the social and economic structures of China. The changes in China were reflected in changes in Hong Kong. The Taiping threat upon Canton created a refugee group which sought in Hong Kong more stable conditions. Some were wealthy and brought their ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1972 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h 160 DAFYDD EMRYS EVANS 23 A writ of fieri facias (abbreviated to fi. fa.) is the means whereby a judgment is executed against the property of a person found liable to another in damages in a civil suit. It enables his property to be sold to meet the sums awarded against him. The writ was frequently employed at this time in suits for arrears of Crown Rent. 24 Memorial 359. 25 When property is mortgaged to secure sums advanced by the mortgagee to the mortgagor, the latter is said to have an 'equity of redemption'. The purpose of this is to make certain that his interest in relation to that of the lender is kept in balance, so that the lender can always be forced to release the security when the reasons for giving it are no longer present, i.e., when the sums advanced are repaid. The equity of redemption is treated as an item of property which the mortgagor is free to dispose of—it is the right to reconveyance when the security is discharged or repayment of the loan. 26 Under the Ordinance No. 3 of 1844, all transactions in and concerning land, as well as judgments, wills and so on which involve land, must be registered in the Land Office. A transaction is quite effective even if the Ordinance is not complied with but subsequent purchasers or persons having dealings with property automatically have notice of any registered transaction which will therefore take precedence even over prior unregistered transactions. 27 Ong Chok may in fact have been Ong Lok. The latter frequently dealt in property and is described in Memorials as a 'compradore'. He had extensive property interests in the Taipingshan district. 28 Memorial 384. 29 Memorial 385. 30 Memorial 418. 31 The Chinese used then and still do use to a certain limited extent a lunar calendar. 32 Friend of China, 23 June 1849. 33 Memorial 541. 34 Lease Register Vol. C, f. 219. 35 Lease Register Vol. F, ff. 38 and 47. 36 It was suggested that Chinese merchants were not averse to bribery because they were accustomed to bribing Chinese Government officials. 37 But it should be noted that there are a good many lots in the Taipingshan area in which there were no recorded dealings for a good many years. It is unlikely that there were no dealings at all. It is more likely that the dealings were simply not recorded. 38 Towards the end of the 1840's and in the early 1850's the number of non-residents investing in property in the colony rose markedly, most of them coming from those districts of Kwantung Province adjoining Hong Kong and Macao. The Taiping rebellion may have caused some part of the flow of capital. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r EARLY STEAMSHIPS IN CHINA 53 Hong Kong on 30th August 1849, just six months after the arrival of the P. and O's Canton. The second ship, the Hong Kong, arrived barely a month later. They went into service soon after their arrival, but not until modifications to the Canton's engines in early 1850, could they be said to be operating a regular service. They then commenced a regular schedule, leaving Hong Kong and Canton every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 8.00 a.m., and calling at Macao and Cumsingmoon as inducement offered. Saloon passenger rates were $8.00 between Hong Kong and Canton; $5.00 between Hong Kong and Macao; and $1.00 for Chinese passengers between any two ports. Although the two Cantons and the Hong Kong were a great improvement on earlier steamships, they were still liable to frequent accidents and breakdowns, and still often withdrawn for the more lucrative towing and salvage work. On 21st December 1854 the China Mail wrote: We are now pretty well supplied with river steamers, having no fewer than seven (Hong Kong and Canton of the Hong Kong and Canton Steam Packet Company; Canton, Sir Charles Forbes and Tartar of P. and O; and Spark and Ann of Russell and Company). The River Bird is on its way out (from America) and other three (Rose, Thistle, and Shamrock) are being assembled in Hong Kong. There is plenty of room for all of them, however, for every day seems to raise river steamer traffic higher in the estimation of the natives, and a very short time will elapse before Chinese merchants become steamboat proprietors. The Hong Kong and Canton Steam Packet Company, however, was not proving profitable, and the prospect of still more competition decided the company to wind up its affairs and offer its ships for sale. Shortly after this optimistic forecast by the China Mail, river traffic was almost completely disrupted—first by the continuing Taiping Rebellion and then by the Second China War. The fortunes of steamships as a whole, however, were very little affected by these events. Several were chartered by the Royal Navy for service in the war, and others went on coast services to Shanghai and intermediate ports. During these troubled years the foreign factories at Canton were burned, and Canton was blockaded and then captured by the Anglo-French forces on 29th December 1857. After this the tide of war moved north to the Peiho River, and peace was quickly restored to the Canton River. Admiral Seymour gave ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d MERCHANT ORGANISATIONS IN IMPERIAL CHINA 35 buildings and roads destroyed during the Taiping Rebellion. Collaboration of this sort gave these merchant leaders a greater voice over taxation and other local public affairs.23 The same guild leaders joined charitable organisations because their larger numbers offered them a wider base of support. As the merchants assumed a leadership role in providing social services and welfare, they gradually took over responsibilities and privileges which went along with their work. Because permanent charitable organisations could cut across guilds and sometimes Landsmannschaften, they claimed that their leadership was based on community-wide support. And since they were merchants, they should be identified as merchant leaders to whom matters affecting the merchants would be referred. Moreover, these merchants were elites in their own communities, and were regularly referred to as "titled merchants” (shen-shang). Even as individuals, they had some political influence with the local officials. But unless they had begun as gentry or officials, such influence rested on no legitimate basis. When they organised themselves in institutions which had a communal purpose, they quickly used them to claim legitimate leadership. This was what happened by the late nineteenth century. In Hong Kong, the board of directors of the Tung Wah Hospital quickly gained the right to present petitions to the Hong Kong government on all matters related to the Chinese community. Institutionally, the hospital was put under the jurisdiction of the Registrar General, after 1913 styled the Secretary for Chinese Affairs, who also served as its patron. By the early 1880's, the board opened up another channel when the Governor-general's Office in Canton began to correspond with it. There is some indication that the directors acted as a kind of information centre and advisory board for the Governor-general on matters involving the overseas Chinese.24 To this day, a seat on the board of directors of either the Tung Wah Hospital or the Po Leung Kuk still represents the government's recognition of each occupier's leadership status. In Canton, charitable organisations, too, quickly became a regular channel of communication between the government and the merchants. In early 1886, when news of the San Francisco race riots against Chinese workers reached Canton and Hong Kong, the Chinese government wrote to the directors of the Ai-yü shan-t’ang ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN MILITARY TALENT 121 allies, for example, occasionally directed their military efforts against, rather than for, the dynasty; and even the Uighurs sometimes became overbearing and troublesome.42 There were, moreover, tensions between barbarian and Chinese officers, as well as conflicts between various competing barbarian commanders. But perhaps the most vivid illustration of the dangers involved in utilizing foreigners was the famous rebellion of the "mixed-breed" barbarian, An Lu-shan, which the Uighur heir apparent had helped combat in its early stages. Contemporary observers saw this uprising not as a civil war between the central government and a local "warlord," but rather as a conflict between the Chinese and a barbarian. Chinese historians went so far, in fact, as to maintain that the rebellion occurred "because An Lu-shan and other barbarians were given important military and political offices."43 Whatever the merits of this view, we may safely assume that An did not rate a biography in Li Te-yü's I-yü kuei-chung chuan; and although foreign troops and individual barbarian commanders assisted in the restoration of imperial rule, and helped sustain the Tang dynasty for nearly a century and a half after the revolt, resentment and distrust of barbarians became increasingly evident as neo-Confucianism rose to prominence. The Use of Foreigners in Post-T'ang Times Chinese anti-foreignism, already on the rise in the later years of T'ang, received reinforcement from neo-Confucianism, with its emphasis on the superiority of Chinese culture and the closer identification of Confucianism with that culture. At the same time, the stress on civil virtues and the growing importance of the vaunted examination system as a channel for upward mobility led to a general decline in martial spirit.44 Yet even as China turned inward, her ever-present need for foreign military and administrative expertise assured that outsiders would continue to find their way into the Chinese service. This proved true in the Sung, when specially trained "barbarian troops" (fan-ping) operated against internal and external enemies, and barbarian commanders (fan-chiang) such as Kuo Yao-shih (a surrendered Liao officer) rendered similar service. Kuo is particularly noteworthy for having led a military force known as the Ever-Victorious Army (Ch'ang-sheng chün) which, in some respects, resembled the contingent with the same designation raised by Frederick Townsend Ward in the latter stages of the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864).45 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN MILITARY TALENT 125 material superiority, and intent not on conforming to Chinese ways, but on changing them. Enjoying the privilege of extraterritoriality and other unequal treaty “rights,” they were closely linked to the policies and practices of their respective home governments, who, after 1860, maintained a diplomatic (and at times military) presence on Chinese soil. These foreign employees were at best unwitting agents of cultural change, and at worst, potential tools of the aggressive Western powers. Their use by the Chinese, therefore, introduced special new problems of responsibility and restraint. This was particularly true in light of China’s all-too-obvious military weakness and the new role Western technology was beginning to play in Chinese military affairs. The Manchus, obsessed with internal security, were fearful enough of modern Western weapons in the hands of Chinese (as opposed to Manchu) soldiers. To allow foreigners to train and command Western-armed Chinese troops introduced an additional element of risk. Yet under the exigencies of the massive Taiping Rebellion, the dynasty sanctioned the rise of foreign-trained and foreign-officered Chinese contingents in a desperate effort to stem the threatening rebel tide.63 And despite the changed circumstances of China’s internal and external situation after 1860, Ch’ing policymakers instinctively looked to the past for policy guidelines. Page 04 As the first Westerner to hold high military rank in the new situation, the career of Frederick Townsend Ward is worthy of special attention. Like many other barbarian employees in China’s past, this outlaw-adventurer from Salem, Massachusetts owed his position in the Chinese military service to singular circumstances. At a crucial juncture in the Taiping Rebellion, Ward raised a unique, foreign-officered Chinese military force, the Ever-Victorious Army, which proved useful not only as a weapon against the Taipings, but also as a means to limit Western intervention in the Chinese civil war.65 In the course of his brief career, Ward attained the rank of colonel (fu-chiang), and upon his death in 1862 he received high posthumous honors and abundant praise for his loyal service to the dynasty. But during his lifetime, Ward’s behavior was under close and constant scrutiny. So innovative was his position that Chinese officials were reluctant to suggest historical parallels, and it was not until well after his death that the “Yankee adventurer” began to be compared with such noteworthy barbarian employees in the past as Yu Yu and Chin Mi-ti.66 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d EMPLOYMENT OF FOREIGN MILITARY TALENT 63 See Smith, "Foreign-Training,” 83-86. 64 Ward and other foreigners in the Chinese military service are studied in depth in Smith, Ward, Gordon and the Ever-Victorious Army. 65 For basic Chinese documentation on Ward's career, see IWSM TC 4: 25-276; 4: 40a; 4; 51b-52; 5: 6b-8b; 5: 33-36b; 5: 51-52; 5: 54; 6: 2a-b; 6: 14b; 6: 17b-18; 6: 19b-20; 6: 30-31; 7; 47b-48b; 9; 3-4. 66 IWSM TC 79: 11. 67 Ibid., TC 4: 25-26; see also John K. Fairbank, "The Early Treaty System," 270. 68 IWSM, TC 5: 33-36b; 5: 51-52; 6: 19b-20; 6: 30a-b. 69 Li Hung-chang, Letters to Friends, 1: 29. 70 Foreign Relations of the United States (1888), part 1, 211-217. 71 IWSM, TC 6: 17. 72 Ibid., TC 9; 3b. 73 Ibid., TC 9: 4. 74 Ching Wu and Chung Ting, eds., Wu Hsu tang-an chung ti T'al-p'ing r'ien-kuo shih-liao hsüan-chi [Selections of historical materials concerning the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in Wu Hsu's archives] (Peking, 1958), 128-129, 75 See Martin Ring, "The Burgevine Case and Extrality in China, 1863-1866," Papers on China 20 (1969). In mid-1863, Prince Kung requested that Burgevine be expunged from the Chinese population register. See IWSM, TC 17: 136 and 20b. 76 Ring, 145-146, 156 note 70. 77 IWSM, TC 10: 46-49. 78 Ibid., TC 10: 50a-b. 79 Ibid., TC 15: 10b-11. 80 I have discussed this combination in Ward, Gordon and the Ever Victorious Army. For some indications of Li's approach, consult J. O. P. Bland, Li Hung-chang (New York, 1917); I. C. Cheng, Chinese Sources for the Taiping Rebellion, 1850-1864 (Hong Kong, 1963), 120-132; Gordon Papers (British Museum), Ad. Mss. 53, 386, Robert Hart to Charles Gordon, October 7, 1863. 81 See, for example, Feng Kuei-fen's Hsien-chih-r'ang chi [Collected essays from the Hall of Manifest Aspirations] (1876), 6: 46. 82 IWSM, TC 22; 3b; 24: 29a-b; 25: 27b-28b; 27: 28-29. On Gordon's return to China in 1880 to assist Li during the so-called Ili Crisis, consult Immanuel C. Y. Hsü, "Gordon in China, 1880," Pacific Historical Review 30.2 (May, 1964). 83 See Kuo T'ing-i, Taiping t'ien-kuo shih-shih jih-chih (A daily record of historical events of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom] (Taipei, 1963), appendix, 165-167. 84 See Smith, "Foreign-Training". 85 See Mary Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: The T’ung-Chih Restoration, 1862-1874 (New York, 1967), 216; IWSM, TC 16; 11; 39; 22-29; 70: 38a-b and 41-42b; 85: 39a-b; 87; 31, 34-35. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q NOTES ON FRIENDS AND RELATIVES OF TAIPING LEADERS Carl T. Smith* The Christian element in the Taiping rebellion has been of special interest to interpreters of the movement. It was this non-Chinese factor which made this rebellion different from all previous Chinese rebel movements. Through its Christian elements the rebels were expressing one aspect of the effect of increasing western influence on Chinese national life. The precise relation of Christianity to the origin and development of the movement has been a matter of debate. One aspect of the problem is the relationship established between family members and friends of the originators of the movement and the missionaries. On the one hand, there was a tendency for these relations and friends to seek out the missionary in the course of the disruption to their lives caused by their connection with the rebel leaders. They especially looked to the missionaries for financial assistance in their efforts to join the movement once it had been successfully established at Nanking. On the other hand, the missionary vision and hope had been stimulated by the early, but confusing, reports of the Christian nature of the rebel movement. They welcomed the opportunity to learn more particulars about the movement from first-hand accounts. It was the small book written by the Rev. Theodore Hamberg in Hong Kong on The Visions of Hung Siu-Tschuen which first gave the outside world detailed knowledge of the Christian influence upon the rebels. Most of the subsequent accounts of the origins of the movement draw heavily upon the material recorded by Hamberg, who received it through Hung Hsiu-ch'uan's cousin Hung Jen-kan. The missionaries were eager to use the refugees, who were physically cut off from the movement by the troops of the Imperial * Carl Smith, at present Research Associate in the Theology Division, Chung Chi College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, is well known for his researches into the early Chinese community of Hong Kong and the Protestant church in China. He is currently Vice-president of the Hong Kong Branch, R.A.S. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q NOTES ON FRIENDS AND RELATIVES OF TAIPING LEADERS 119 point to Feng as the more active leader in the movement's initial phases. An account given of him by a deserter from the Taiping army and a former member of Gützlaff's Chinese Christian Union, published in The Hong Kong Register, 27 September, 1853, states that when he met Feng in Kwangsi, they recognized each other as fellow members of the Union. According to the account, Feng had studied under Gützlaff. I have carefully gone over the rather detailed reports Gützlaff sent back to Germany reporting the activities of the Chinese Christian Union, hoping that he might have mentioned Feng, but I was unable to find him named. Gützlaff, however, does report trips made by his workers into Kwangsi, where they preached and distributed tracts. These reports were published in the Calwer Missionsblatt and Gaihan's Berichte. When Hung Hsiu-ch'uan left Roberts and Canton in the late spring of 1847, he travelled to Kwangsi in search of Feng, arriving there in August. In the Journal of Roberts published in the Southern Baptist Missionary Journal, vol. 2, no. 10 (March 1848), under date of 25 June, 1847, Roberts states that two of his followers were appointed to visit the inquirer Hung in a different province. Several efforts were initiated to bring the families and followers of the Taiping leaders to Kwangsi from Kwangtung, but the plans were frustrated by the authorities. Some were caught and imprisoned, others scattered and fled. The friends and relatives of the leaders of the Taipings were rooted out of their native districts and at the same time cut off from the troops of the Rebellion as it advanced from Kwangsi to Nanking. Some appear to have had branches of their clan settled in Hsin-an District, adjacent to Hong Kong. Many of the people moved in and out of Hong Kong. These movements left traces in the reports and records of the Missions, but they are not complete enough to provide a comprehensive account. The various adventures and travels of Hung Jen-kan before he reached Nanking in 1856 are documented in the writings of Jen Yu-wen. For an English language account see his The Taiping Revolutionary Movement (New Haven, 1973). A few additional details are provided by missionary archival sources. In 1852, Hung Jen-kan was brought to Hong Kong by a young tailor from Lilong (Li-lang) in Hsin-an District. He was the grandson of a clansman of Hung, who had befriended Jen-kan in his wanderings. The grandson Fung (Hung?) Sen1 had been under ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q NOTES ON FRIENDS AND RELATIVES OF TAIPING LEADERS 127 style befitting relatives of one of the Taiping Kings. To celebrate his second marriage, Dr. Legge and his new wife entertained their Chinese friends and associates at a feast of twelve tables with some thirty courses. Mrs. Legge remarks in a letter dated 24 August, 1860, that “Sy-poe seemed very desirous I should honour his table We had a letter from the Rebel King, he congratulates Dr. Legge on his marriage." Sy-poe is not mentioned again by the missionaries, but in 1871, Dr. Legge states that his son came to the Mission house requesting a recommendation for the position of a watchman. Legge states, "He is an honest-looking lad — but alas, that the glory of the Taipings should thus have passed away” Reports in the Archives of the Basel Missionary Society mention Fung Khui-syu, born in 1848, "son of a Taiping King". He must be Hung K'uei-yüan alias K'uei-hsiu, the son of Hung Jen-kan." He was employed by the Society as a teacher; first on the mainland, but then, because of the danger to him and his family created by his former association with the rebellion, he was removed to Hong Kong to teach in the mission's Girl's School at Sai Ying Poon. In 1873 a marriage was arranged by Mrs. Lechler between Fung Khui-syu, then teaching at Tshong-hang-kang in Hsin-an district, and one of the older girls in the Society's boarding school at Hong Kong. The bride Tsen A-lin, alias En-min was an orphan. As a young girl she had been sold by her mother in Shanghai and had been brought to Hong Kong to work in a brothel; but she had been found wandering in the streets by a member of the Basel Society congregation and was brought to the Mission House. In 1865, at the age of twelve, she was enrolled as a student, and was baptized in 1870, when she received the name Lin, meaning compassion, in place of Tchuy-khuyk (Ch'iu-chü), meaning autumn chrysanthemum. In 1878 a large part of the congregation of the Basel Mission Church at Shau Kei Wan, Hong Kong, emigrated to Demerara, British Guiana. Fung Khui-syu went with them. The 1885 Yearly Report of the Rev. Lechler states: In Georgetown is a Chinese Church and one of our emigrants has been placed there as Pastor. He is the relative of the former rebel king Fung Syu-tshen, and himself, at the time of the Government of Taipings in Nanking, was made king. He found his way to Hong Kong and was received at our table. I sent him ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 128 CARL T. SMITH later to Lilong, where he served under Brother Bellon in the boy's school. Because of his relation to the Rebel King, it was difficult on the mainland so he came to Hongkong until 1878, when he emigrated with those of Shaukiwan. 14 A search of the records of British Guiana might provide details of his later career. Lechler's Day Book under date 12 January, 1871, mentions a visit from Tsau-phoi, a member of the Fung family of Tsim Sha Tsui, and on 18 February, 1871, he notes that Fung A-lin from Tsim Sha Tsui returned to the Girl's School at Sai Ying Poon. It is probable that Fung Tsau-phoi and Fung A-lin were the son and daughter of "a former Rebel King", who is referred to in the records of the Girl's Boarding School of the Basel Mission at Sai Ying Poon. A report dated 10 July, 1866, lists as a student Lyu Tsya, aged eighteen years, "betrothed to a son of a former Rebel King, who long has put away the crown, baptized by the Berlin Missionary Hanspach in her home." Also listed is Fung A-lin, the small sister of the young man. She had been enrolled in 1865, aged seven years. Her mother was a widow and a Christian. Keeping in mind that the Hakka version of the surname Hung was written Fung, and that the entries in Lechler's Day Book were written in a very illegible script, it may be that Fung Tsau-phoi is the same as Hung Tsun Fooi mentioned in T’ai-p’ing t'ien-kuo shih-shih jih-chih Appendix, p.24, as present in Hong Kong after the fall of the Taiping government. Two relatives of Feng Yün-shan, a twenty-one year old nephew A-sou and his fourteen-year old cousin, accompanied the Rev. Issachar J. Roberts to Shanghai in 1853, in an attempt to reach Nanking. A-sou was baptized by Roberts at Shanghai. The Baptist Missionary Rev. Matthew T. Yates became acquainted with the two boys, but in his book The Tai Ping Rebellion, he mistakenly states that they were brothers of Feng Yün-shan. Fung A-sou found it impossible to reach Nanking, so he came down to Hong Kong. From here he went up to Canton where he became a teacher to an American missionary. But he became ill, and returned to Hong Kong where he died on the 21 August, 1855. These accounts of some of the events in the lives of friends and relatives of Taiping leaders and their association with the missionary ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q NOTES ON FRIENDS AND RELATIVES OF TAIPING LEADERS 129 movement in China illustrate the impact of the Christian aspect of the Taiping ideology had on individuals connected with it in a peripheral way. The Taiping rebellion upset the even tenor of their former village life. They became refugees. Most had an objective, however: they wished to join their former village clansmen and neighbours at the Taiping capital, Nanking. A few were successful; more, perhaps, were not. Having been previously influenced by the confused Christian ideas as promulgated by Hung Hsiu-ch'uan and Feng Yün-shan during the period before the outbreak of open hostilities between the Imperial forces and the Taiping revolutionaries, it was natural for them to seek out the missionaries for assistance and employment and also to be receptive to more thorough training in the Christian faith. The missionaries welcomed them as a means of relating to the Taiping movement with its promise of establishing a new dynasty on Christian principles. The promise was never realized and the missionaries eventually were disillusioned, but not before forming close relations with these refugees, some of whom became valuable assistants and contributed to the growth of the Chinese Christian Church. The Taiping Kingdom had within it, from the Christian point of view, the seeds of a transformation of China, but the end result was largely disastrous for China, and its fall left behind those who had dreamed of a glory that had passed them by. Some, as this article suggests, adjusted to a life devoted to the Christian Church, while others went other ways. But the missionaries maintained a nostalgic interest in those who had been closely connected to the leaders of the Taiping movement. NOTES This article first appeared in Ching Feng (*) Quarterly Notes on Christianity and Chinese Religion and Culture, XIX, No. 2, 1976: 105-119, and is reproduced here with permission. Ed. 1 When my sources have not given names in Chinese characters, I have used the romanization of the original manuscript, except for Hung Hsiu-ch'uan, Hung Jen-kan and Feng Yün-shan. There are particular difficulties in determining the proper surname for individuals who appear in the sources as Fung. This was the accepted Hakka form of the surname Hung #, but it was also the Cantonese spelling of the surname Fung. 2 Die Evangelischen Heidenboten, Oct., 1854, Letter of Hamberg, dated, May 1854. 3 Ibid., June, 1868, p. 73. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 130 CARL T. SMITH 4 London Missionary Society Archives, London, England (hereafter given as L.M.S.A.), South China Box 5, Folder 3, Jacket C, letter of Legge, 26 Sept., 1853, and Jacket D, Yearly Report of the Hong Kong Mission, 25 Jan., 1854. For a brief notice of Keuh A-gong see my article, "A Register of Baptized Protestant Chinese 1813-1842, Chung Chi Bulletin, No. 48 (Dec., 1970), p. 24. For Ng Mun-sow see my article, "Dr. Legge's Theological School", ibid, No. 50 (June, 1971), pp. 16-22. 5 L.M.S.A., South China, Box 6, Folder 2, Jacket C, letter of Legge, 28 Jan., 1869, and Folder 1, Jacket A, letter of Wong Foon, 8 May, 1857. Another missionary estimate of Hung Jen-kan is the testimonial the Rev. John Chalmers sent to the Rev. Rudolph Lechler, Basel Missionary Society Archives (hereafter given as B.M.S.A.), Vol. IV, 1857-1862, letter dated, London Mission House, Hong Kong, 24 Dec., 1857: “I have great pleasure in giving my testimony to the Christian character of Hung Jin, the relative of Hung Sew Tauen, who, since his return from Shanghai in the year 1854, has been in the employment of our mission; first as a Christian teacher, and afterwards as a preacher and assistant missionary. His general behaviour has been such as becomes the Gospel; the work which we have given him to do, he has always executed to our satisfaction and not only so, but his zeal for the promotion of the cause of Christ has been marked. He is a young man of superior abilities, and I hope he may yet be honoured to labour successfully in the preaching of the gospel to his countrymen for many years. 6 L.M.S.A., South China, Box 6, Folder 1, Jacket B, letter of Chalmers, 5 June, 1858. 7 L.M.S.A., South China, Box 6, Folder 1, Jacket C, letter of Legge and Chalmers, 11 Jan., 1859, with enclosure of translation of letter of Hung Jan: "Translation of Hung Jan's last letter, sent from Shanghai by Mr. Muirhead, who received it from a Chinaman who had been with Lord Elgin's expedition up the Yangtze. He wrote in 170 or 180 miles on that river below Hankow." Letters from "Shau Kwan, Nan Gan [both on the north boundary of Kwangtung], one from the capital of Keangse, one from imperialist camp at Yaou Chow [in north of Keangse]" are mentioned as having been written by Hung Jen-kan. 8 L.M.S.A., South China, Box 6, Folder 2, Jacket C, letter of Legge, 24 Aug., 1860, and Folder 3, Jacket B, letter of Legge, 14 Jan., 1861. 9 L.M.S.A., South China, Box 6, Folder 1, Jacket A, letter of Legge and Chalmers, 14 Jan., 1857. 10 L.M.S.A., Legge Family Papers, letter of 28 Mar., 1861 and 24 Mar., 1871. 11 For identification of Hung K'uei Hsiu see Jen (Chien) Yu-wan “**太平£Ø*^£$*M”, (Record of Visit with Descendants of the Taiping Hung Family) ***@** (Taiping Kingdom Miscellany), No. 4, and * Lo Hsiang-lin, (Historical Sources for the Study of the Hakkas), (Hong Kong, 1965), p. 409, 12 B.M.S.A., Hong Kong School Report, 14 Feb. 1875, "Teacher Schui Thin will shortly change places with Fung Khui-syu in Tschong Hang Kang, because the last as a son of a Tai Ping Rebellion King, cannot stay anymore in the mainland without danger to the life of himself and family." 13 B.M.S.A., Hong Kong School Report, 16 Apr. 1873, and Die Evangelischen Heidenboten, Jan., 1866, letter of Lechler, 2 Oct, 1865. 14 B.M.S.A., Chinese Mission Yearly Report 1885. The ship Dartmouth left Hong Kong 25 Dec., 1878 and arrived at Georgetown, British Guiana on 17 Mar., 1879. Among its 516 emigrants were seventy Christians. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 132 CARL T. SMITH The fourth son, Li Shen-en alias Li Syong-kong, was baptized in Hong Kong in 1859. Following the footsteps of his father, he served as Catechist in the Sai Ying Poon Hakka Congregation from 1883 to 1888. He then emigrated to Sabah, North Borneo, where, under the auspices of the Basel Missionary Society, he organized a congregation of Hakkas. He married Lin Loi-kyau, a daughter of Rev. Lin Khi-len. She was a teacher at the Girl's Boarding School at Sai Ying Poon from 1882 to 1894. Li Tsin-kau had one daughter, Li En Kyau, born in 1860 and baptized as an infant. She attended the Sai Ying Poon School and also taught there from 1877 to 1902; in addition, she did volunteer church work among the women. The services rendered by the several generations of the Li family to the congregations and schools of the Basel Society well repaid the initial interest and attention given to the young Li Tsin-kau when he first turned up in Hong Kong in 1853 as one displaced because of his connection with the leader of the Tai Ping movement. Details of the family are largely taken from Archives of the Basel Society and a mimeographed Geschichte der Hongkonger Gemeinden kindly lent to me by Mr. James Hayes. JEN YU-WEN'S ADDITIONAL NOTES Professor Jen Yu-wen (MX), the eminent and lifelong historian of the Taiping rebellion, has kindly added the following notes: (1) Feng & Gützlaff Aside from this account [i.e., from the Hong Kong Register, 27th September 1853], there were a few others alleging that Feng, having been taught and baptized by Gützlaff, was a member of his Chinese Christian Union (4). Nevertheless, I find great difficulty in believing this story. First, there is no documentary evidence supporting it. Secondly, a careful checking on the time that Gützlaff founded and promoted the Union since 1844 does not permit Feng, who went to Kwangsi with Hung Hsiu-Ch'üan also in 1844, to come to Hong Kong to establish any relationship with Gützlaff, as Feng was at the same time busy running the affairs and directing the activities of the God-worshippers' Association in Kwangsi. There is no persuasive evidence that Feng and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q 164 A. D. BLUE and gorges in their upper reaches. Yet British and French explorers light-heartedly planned roads and railways through the region, when earth moving and other civil engineering techniques were primitive by modern standards. Political difficulties were equally formidable. In addition to Anglo-French rivalry, there was an involved relationship between Britain, Burma, China, and the Kachin and Shan hill peoples in the borderlands. A further complication, from 1855 to 1873, was the devastation of Yunnan by the Panthay Rebellion, a Moslem uprising almost as destructive as the more famous Taiping Rebellion. Although the Treaty of Yandabo had established Britain in Lower Burma, Upper Burma continued as an independent state, with an ill-defined tributary relationship with China. However, during the sixty years before Britain annexed Upper Burma in 1886, Britain obtained the province of Pegu (1852), and mounted a succession of expeditions to find a practicable trade route from Burma into Yunnan, contemporary with other expeditions up the Yangtze from Shanghai. Between Marco Polo in the late thirteenth century, and the French priest M. Huc in the 1840s, practically no European had travelled in West China. So little was known of it that while their compatriots in China looked on neighbouring Szechwan as the El Dorado of the East, the British in Burma and India had their eyes on the province of Yunnan. The extravagant and over enthusiastic appraisal of Yunnan's potential wealth gave rise to what became known as the "Yunnan Myth". The first British attempts to reach Yunnan and West China came from Burma in the late eighteenth century. When Captain Sorrel went to Ava in 1792 to deliver a letter to the King of Burma from Lord Cornwallis, Governor-General of India, some Burmese offered to take him overland to China. Sorrel's reference to this aroused great interest in India. Over a century earlier, Dutch East India traders in Ava and Syriam had given glowing accounts of a flourishing trade between Burma and China, conducted through Chinese merchants in Bhamo. In 1795 when Captain Michael Symes was sent on an official mission to Burma, he was instructed to “find a mart in the south west dominions of China by means of the great river of Ava”. Symes' report was enthusiastic. He said the principal export from Ava was cotton, which went up the Irrawaddy in large ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n 70 J. T. KAMM out to private concessions. So pervasive was tax farming in this regard that the Kowloon Customs itself joined with the local magistracy in insuring its maintenance. CSO15 of 1900 records the case of the Ying Yi Farm which was granted the concession for supplying services to trading junks at Lai Chi Kok (*** ) in exchange for supplying free water to customs cruisers.4 Despite its significance for late Ch'ing finance, little has been written concerning the origins and structure of tax farming in China. C.M. Chang's case study of auctioned revenue collection in Ching-Hai Hsien **), Hopei, remains our most authoritative account. Chang, who focuses on the workings of the brokerage tax farm, ascribes the origins of tax farming in China to the growth of miscellaneous taxes imposed after the Taiping Rebellion, an assertion decisively rebutted by Lien-sheng Yang, who traces the institution as far back as the fifth century. In general, we can say that tax farming arose at various times in Chinese history to meet the demands of the specific era and locality. There was indeed a remarkable increase in miscellaneous taxes imposed on Hsin-An in the late nineteenth century. In an appendix to his report on the New Territory, Lockhart lists a number of "extra" taxes and rents not found in the gazetteer of 1819. This list, in turn, is borne out by an investigation of the data contained in the Kwangtung Ts'ai-cheng Shuo-ming-shu (*****). Lockhart, distrusting the figures supplied by the Nam Tau Magistrate, persuaded an informant in Sham Chun () to provide him with an unofficial assessment of the revenue collected annually in the Tung Lu. As expected, Lockhart discovered a great number of omissions and discrepancies between the "official" and "unofficial" revenues. Lockhart observed that the magistrate and his superiors benefit substantially from these discrepancies, but noted that "not a small portion of it (the difference between reported and collected revenue) is secured by those who farm various items of revenue, for which they pay much less than they make out of them." Despite the surge of miscellaneous taxes and the consequent rise in the activity of farmers in the trade sector, the origins of tax farming in the East River counties of the Kwangchow Prefecture can be traced to earlier times. I propose to show that tax farming evolved in the agricultural sector, and was the direct result of the failure to effectively implement the official li-chia system. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 18 RICHARD J. SMITH process. Ch'i's view was that by seeking "genuine scholarship," badly-needed military talent might be secured for the defense of the dynasty.' His proposal was blocked however — undoubtedly in part because Ch'i fell out of favor as a negotiator with the British, but also because the proposal itself was so revolutionary in spirit. In late 1851, the censor Wang Mao-yin resurrected Ch'i's innovative proposal. His memorial, dated November 11, stated baldly that "for seeking talent within the examination system, there is nothing better than Ch'i Kung's five categories to encourage scholars to study military affairs." The memorial was forwarded by the emperor to the Board of Rites for deliberation, but Wang's suggestion regarding the reform of the examination was not approved, on grounds that Chinese scholars were men of breadth and “need not be specialists" (pu-pi chuan-men ming chia),16 Once again Ch'i's proposal died a swift death. It had no other prominent advocates. Several more years passed, during which time Wang Mao-yin attained the rank of senior vice-president of the Board of War. In the midst of both the "Arrow War" negotiations and the Taiping Rebellion, Wang again memorialized the throne (July 9, 1858), once more requesting meaningful military reform. Making pointed reference to the abortive proposals put forward by Ch'i Kung and himself over the past decade and a half, Wang suggested that they might now be reconsidered together with the policy of recommendation (pao-chi) as a means of recruiting badly needed military talent. He did not mince words. Reminding the throne that many of China's best military commanders were not in fact products of the examination system, he went on to criticize the appointment of imperial relatives to positions of military responsibility, and the throne's tendency to place military affairs in the hands of officials schooled only in essay-writing, poetry, and other literary skills. He ended with a highly moralistic appeal for self-cultivation (hsiu-shen) on the part of the emperor, replete with quotations from the Shu-ching and Ta-hsüeh, but his proposals fell on deaf ears,17 Wang retired from office within months of writing this bold but fruitless memorial. Efforts to reform or abolish the nearly useless military examinations met with no more success than this. During the Hsien-feng emperor's reign, a number of officials advocated changes in the outdated system, including dispensing with the military examinations ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 MILITARY EDUCATION IN CHINA, 1842-1895 19 altogether. But fears over tampering with inherited institutions and respect for ancestral precedent (tsu-tsung ch'eng-fa) prevented the tests from being either transformed or abandoned. Subsequent attempts to reform or abolish the system of military examinations, such as Shen Pao-chen's famous memorial of 1878, came to nothing.19 As late as 1898, we still find the throne ordering officials to determine what the policy of the imperial ancestors had been regarding military reform before taking concrete steps.20 Small wonder the prestigious civil service examinations also remained essentially unaltered throughout the nineteenth century. There was, however, room for the reform of military education outside the examination system - particularly during the Taiping period. Not only did the Rebellion allow for the emergence of new civil and military leadership in China; it also resulted in the establishment of new-style military forces which placed comparatively heavy emphasis on military education. The yung-ying armies of Tseng Kuo-fan and others, for example, employed the highly effective training methods of the famous Ming general Ch'i Chi-kuang - techniques that had long since fallen into disuse. In addition to Confucian moral instruction, yung-ying armies received daily drill, which was all but unheard of in Banner and Green Standard forces. They practiced regularly with firearms, swords, knives, spears and other weapons, and were taught tactical formations such as Ch'i Chi-kuang's "mandarin duck" (yuan-yang) and the "three powers" (san-ts'ai). It is true, of course, that officers received very little, if any, formal military training, since it was deemed sufficient that they be upright gentlemen (chün-tzu) who led by moral example. Moreover, we know that active involvement by officers in troop training was generally considered demeaning. But at least some lower level personnel in yung-ying staff organizations (ying-wu ch'u), and perhaps some high-level officers as well, were more knowledgeable about key aspects of military affairs - planning, command, field maneuvers, discipline, supply, communication and so forth - than the vast majority of their Banner or Green Standard counterparts.25 After 1860, Western influences began to penetrate Chinese military forces. In the latter stages of the Ch'ing-Taiping War, the British and French took an active role in supporting the introduction of foreign-training to Chinese troops. Foreign-officered con- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1982 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mk61z420p 35 The 1866-1869 Land Regulations The first two sets of Land Regulations had been drafted by the Chinese and/or local foreign authorities; this was not the case with the third Constitution, the one of 1866-1869, In the years between 1854 and 1866 a great number of problems had arisen, partially caused by the influx of Taiping rebellion refugees. Moreover, civic discipline among foreigners was waning (taxes were not being paid, nuisances were being caused in the form of building materials left lying around, the authority of the Municipal Council to levy taxes was being questioned, the members of the Municipal Council had been held personally responsible for any deficits and debts of the municipality, etc.). All this contributed to the opinion that something had to be done to increase the authority of the Municipal Council, and on April 15, 1865, a Public Meeting of landrenters appointed a Commission to draft new Land Regulations. This Commission consisted of Henry Dent (member of the Municipal Council 1863-64 and 1864-65), R. F. Gould (former municipal secretary), Thomas Hanbury, James Hogg, and William Keswick (all members of the Municipal Council 1865-66), J. P. Lynill, and G. Tyson. The new proposed Regulations were published on January 22, 186610, and discussed in Public Meetings on March 9, 12, 13, and 1711. After a delay of three years, they were eventually approved by the foreign powers in 1869. There were a number of differences between the draft and the final version, but space does not permit me to detail these12. The new Constitution consisted of 29 articles, in which the position of the Municipal Council was strengthened as compared to the former Land Regulations. These Land Regulations were subsequently slightly amended, some articles being added in 1898. In this form, they remained in force until 1943, when the Settlement was returned to China. In the course of these years, only a few byelaws were altered or introduced; and thus, during the greater part of its existence, the Settlement had as its constitutional foundation a set of Land Regulations devised essentially by the landrenters themselves in 1866. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1983 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j9607p61v Chinese 89 Loan Word Characters Soy 豉油 Tai chi 太極 *Tai tai 太太 Taipan 大班 Taiping 太平 Tanka 疍家 Tao(ism) 道(教) (ist) Tea 茶 *Tin Hau 天后 Tofu 豆腐 Tong 堂 Tung (oil) 桐(油) Tycoon 大亨 Meaning A salty, fermented sauce much used on fish and other dishes in the Orient, prepared from soybeans. A series of postures and exercises developed in China as a system of self-defence and as an aid to meditation, characterized by slow, relaxed, circular movements. Meaning 'Mrs', a title for a married lady, placed after the surname as in 張太太 or 'Mrs. Cheung'. In the Hong Kong media it has acquired specific connotations and refers to wealthy married ladies who are usually prominent in society and are arbiters of style and fashion. The head of a foreign house of business in China: a great merchant. The name given to the adherents of a great rebellion which arose in Southern China in 1850, under the leadership of Hung Siu-tsuen. The boat-population of Canton, who live entirely on the boats by which they earn their living; they are descendants of some aboriginal tribe of which Tan was app. the name. A system of religion, founded on the doctrine set forth in the work Tao te king 'Book of reason and virtue'. The leaves of the tea-plant; first imported into Europe in the 17th C. A drink made by infusing these leaves in boiling water, having a somewhat bitter and aromatic flavour, and acting as a moderate stimulant; largely used as a beverage. Literally 'Queen of Heaven', goddess who is patroness of fishermen and sailors. The bean-curd or bean-cheese of China and Japan, made from soya beans. A Chinese secret society. A yellow drying oil derived from the seed of a tung tree, Aleurites Fordii, used in varnishes, linoleum, etc. A businessman having great wealth and power. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1984 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/5h73wh572 210 e. Recreation Ground J.H. HAAN Originated in 1860 when the ground inside the second racecourse was bought with the purpose of making it a Recreation Ground for other sports. f. Shanghai Library Established in 1849; the existing premises were found to be inadequate and in 1852 it was decided at a meeting of library-members that it was "desirable to erect a Building for an Exchange and Reading Room", to which end a committee was appointed. All plans came to nothing however and the Shanghai Library had at one time, during the 1860s, to rent space at the Shanghai Club. Affairs of the Library were managed by a committee that was annually elected. g. Shanghai Volunteer Corps The S.V.C. came into being during the Taiping troubles in 1853; at first it was a more or less private organisation until in 1870 control was handed over to the Municipal Council. h. Society for the Relief of Distressed Foreigners of All Nationalities Founded on June 6, 1865, in order to provide a temporary solution for the problem of foreigners who had come to China as mercenaries to fight the Taipings and who became unemployed after the ending of that rebellion. Biographical Notes ANTROBUS, Robert Crawfurd 1864-1865 Partner in Lindsay & Co. from May 20, 1852. Member Recreation Ground Committee;2 trustee British Episcopal Church 1863(?);3 trustee Chinese Hospital 1865;4 commanding officer of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps.5 Member Commit- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 146 CARL SMITH invited all the important people and white men in Malacca, + + う to a gathering at six o'clock in the morning. Assembling there they buried their contributions of money, altogether $70 or $80, in a hole scooped out in a stone below the door. Then they all raised the door into position and Mr. Milne, coming forward and striking it with his hand, declared that the place was the Anglo-Chinese College." Abdullah must have been at the edge of the crowd unable to see clearly what was put into the hole in the foundation stone. Seventy or eighty dollars would not likely have been buried. What probably was buried was a few token coins which were often placed in foundation stones. A-FA: SEEDS OF THE TAIPING REBELLION The first full-time Chinese student of the Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca was Liang A-fa. There is no evidence that he was a particularly brilliant scholar, but the college was always proud to claim him as a former student. He was a native of Ko Ming District in the province of Kwangtung. His previous education had consisted of a few years at his village school. He began his education late, at the age of 11, and when he was 15 he left the village to learn a trade in the city of Canton as village schools usually provided only a rudimentary education. If one had hopes of being a scholar, attendance at an advanced academy or instruction by a private tutor was the usual procedure. Liang A-fa, in spite of the few years of study when an adult at the Anglo-Chinese College, never developed a proper classical style of writing. This, however, did not discourage him from composing and printing Christian tracts. Sometimes he would have a scholar revise them to make them more literary. After learning the block cutting trade in Canton, he was engaged by one of Rev. Dr. Robert Morrison's assistants to carve blocks for the printing of a Chinese translation of the New Testament. Such work for foreigners was not looked on with favour by Chinese ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 147 officials. Therefore, Dr. Morrison decided it would be safer and less troublesome to have the printing done in Malacca under the supervision of the Rev. Mr. Milne. When Mr. Milne sailed from Macau to Malacca in 1815, Liang A-fa was one of the staff of cutters and printers sent with Mr Milne. The following year A-fa was baptised and thus began his career of writing, exhorting and preaching which only ended with his death at Honam, a Canton suburb, in 1855. About the year 1828, he opened a school in his home district. Associated with him and probably bearing most of the teaching duties was one of his recent converts, the schoolmaster Kwu Tin-ching. This school was the first organised by a Chinese Protestant Christian in China. It was, however, not a success. Parents did not wish their sons to be associated with teachers who had acquired strange ideas from foreigners. The school was soon closed. It was charged that it taught foreign ideas and its purpose was to undermine Chinese tradition so that the foreign powers might more easily impose their will on China. One of the results of this educational venture was a small catechism he wrote to be used in the school. It was another of A-fa's books, however, that proved to be an important factor in influencing the course of Chinese history. In 1843 Liang A-fa and a helper distributed thousands of tracts to the candidates for the official literary examination being held at Canton. One of the candidates was Hung Hsiu-chuan, the future leader of the Taiping Rebellion which almost succeeded in unseating the Manchu dynasty in the middle years of the nineteenth century. Hung paid no attention to the pamphlet he had received, as an examinee he had more weighty cares on his mind. He took it home after the examination, put it in a cupboard and forgot about it. Some years later after another unsuccessful try at the examination, Hung experienced strange dreams and visions. One day a relative called his attention to Liang A-fa's book. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063 209 The fifth brother, Ho Wooi-shang, became an assistant in the business of A-tick, Hongkong's most successful tailor at that time. In addition he had a business at Honam in Canton. While visiting there he was wounded by a Chinese tax officer. He lingered long enough to make his will but died not long after leaving a family of small children. In the collection of the Legge family, which was deposited in the Archives of the London Missionary Society, there is a photograph of Ho Shun-chee, alias A-lloy. On the back is written: “To Miss Legge with kind regards from her sincere friend,” and an added note by Dr. Legge's daughter, Edith: "He told me he had attended the emperor when he went to pray at the Altar of Heaven." It is indeed a long step from a Hongkong classroom to the Altar of Heaven at Peking. TO THE GOLDFIELDS DOWN UNDER IN SEARCH OF CONVERTS Among the students of Dr. Legge's school in Hongkong were a number of boys from the Ho clan. Two orphaned brothers, Ho Low-yuk and Ho Mei-yuk, were near relatives of the Rev. Ho Fuk-tong. Both went to Australia after finishing school. They were part of an exodus of Hongkong-educated boys seeking their fortunes in overseas communities. As English speakers in a place where their countrymen were cut off from the general community, they served to bridge the gap. At the same time, government officials and Christians interested in the conversion of the Chinese needed someone through whom they could communicate with the immigrants. A-low and another young man from the school were urged by Dr. Legge to emigrate to Australia. Because of the unsettled conditions in China created by the Taiping rebellion, Dr. Legge felt it was not a good field for these two young men he had trained as religious workers. So provided with letters of introduction to a Congregational minister in Melbourne off they sailed. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 28 NOTES Virgile Pinot, La Chine et la formation de l'esprit philosophique en France, 1640-1740 (Paris, 1932). 1 From Diderot's Encyclopédie. English translation from A. Reichwein, China and Europe, Intellectual and Artistic Contacts in the Eighteenth Century (Kegan Paul, Trench, Turbner & Co., London, 1925), p.92. Reichwein offers the best comprehensive treatment of China at the Age of Enlightenment, together with L. Maverick (see note 10). 3 Pierre Poivre, Voyages d'un Philosophe (English translation by Reichwein, loc. cit.). François Quesnay, Le Despotisme de la Chine (Paris, 1767). His friends had dubbed him 'the Confucius of Europe'. $ Lo Hui-min, The Tradition and Prototype of the China-watcher, 1976 G.E. Morrison lecture (Australian National University, Canberra, 1978), p. 9. 7 Louis Lecomte, Nouveaux mémoires sur l'état présent de la Chine (Paris, 1969). Du Halde, Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique et physique de l'Empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie Chinoise (Paris, 1735). $ Hugh Honour, Chinoiseries, the Vision of Cathay (John Murray, London, 1961). In 1951, at the Lycée de Chartres where I was teaching history, the bicentenary of Diderot's Encyclopedia was celebrated at the initiative of left-wing teachers who were keen to stress the connection between the Encyclopedia and French Revolutionary traditions. I gave a public lecture: 'China and the Encyclopedists', of which the present Morrison Lecture might be considered the direct descendant. 10 Lewis A. Maverick, China, a Model for Europe (Paul Anderson Company, San Antonio, Texas, 1946). || From Les Fleurs du Mal (my translation). 12 Evariste Regis Huc, L'Empire chinois (Paris, 1854). For a more severe evaluation of Huc, see Simon Leys, The Burning Forest (New York, 1986), pp. 47-94 ("Peregrinations and perplexities of Pere Huc'). 13 Eugene Simon, La Cité chinoise (Paris, 1885). 14 Paul Claudel, Connaissance de l'Est (Mercure de France, Paris, 1908). 15 The novel by Jules Verne, Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine (1879), is quite unique in its concern for the politics of nineteenth-century China. The hero, Kin Fo, is torn between his fascination with modern technology and his loyalty to his teacher Wong, who is an ex-Taiping leader. It is to my knowledge the only appearance of the Taiping rebellion in French literature. 16 V. Hugo, Lettre au Capitaine Butler, Hauteville House, 25 November 1861 (my translation). 17 Charles Bettelheim, Cultural Revolution and Industrial Organisation in China: Changes in Management and the Division of Labor, trans. by Alfred Ehrenfeld (Monthly Review Press, New York, 1974). See also China Since Mao, by Neil G. Burton and Charles Bettelheim (Monthly Review Press, New York, 1978). 18 Claude Roy, Clés pour la Chine (Paris, 1954); Etiemble, Le Nouveau singe-pèlerin (Paris, 1957); Philippe Sollers, Tel quel (a literary magazine edited by... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1987 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/rx919b522 297 that guided the administration of the city of Canton during its four year occupation by the Allies, during which he laid the foundations of his knowledge of written and spoken Chinese, he joined the Chinese Maritime Customs at Ningpo. When that city was captured by the Taiping Army, he assisted the Sino-French "Ever Triumphant Army" to recapture it, and later commanded it in the operations that led to the recapture of Hangzhou, for which he received high rank and honours from the appreciative Ch'ing government. Contacts made during this time led to employment after the Rebellion, in and outside China, that lasted until his death in France in 1886. His principal achievement was the construction and administration of the Fuzhou Dockyard and its fleet of warships in the face of many difficulties. Ironically, they were destroyed by naval forces of his own nation during the hostilities of 1884-85 between France and China over Vietnam. Giquel was a rare bird for his times. Apart from his linguistic proficiency and administrative capacities, he was sympathetic towards China at a time when this was not common among his contemporaries. Moreover, he sought ever to combine his duties to his employers, the Chinese, with his loyalties towards his native land, a veritable tightrope which he conscientiously trod throughout his working life. As Dr. Leibo observes, "A less committed individual might never have attempted such a balancing act”. (Transferring Technology, p. 5). He gave offence to many influential Frenchmen and to his government in 1872 by an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes in which he suggested that the French Concession at Shanghai should be merged with the International Settlement, and criticized French policy towards China in various aspects. Why this should be so is hinted at by an English account which indicates how different Giquel must have been from most of his fellows. Even allowing for the fact that this is an English account, written at a time of strong rivalry between the two powers and by one side of an old and mutual antipathy, it speaks for itself: French officers are so quick to take offense (sic) — so quick to obtain satisfaction - so imperious, so impractical, and so totally uncommercial that they are viewed ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 159 still more because of the unsettled conditions in China during the 1850s and 1860s. Internal dissent manifested itself through the Taiping rebellion, in which Shanghai was threatened. The native city was occupied by insurgents during 1853-1855 and in order to prevent Imperial troops from threatening the neutrality of the Settlement, the recently formed Shanghai Volunteer Corps (which later, in the 1860s, gave some amateur dramatic performances) fought the Battle of Muddy Flat on April 4, 1854, a skirmish about which some Shanghailanders still spoke with unreserved pride fifty years later, but for which a performance of the dramatic corps had to be postponed for more than a month. ― In the early sixties, tension heightened again; in August 1860, the Taipings threatened the Settlement; 1861 was relatively calm, but in January and August 1862, the town was once more the target of the rebels. Foreign, mainly British, troops, however, had been brought down to Shanghai from North China, where they had been fighting another war, and with the aid of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps, as well as mercenaries, all attacks could be staved off. Early in 1864, the Taiping insurrection was definitely quelled, All this was not without its consequences, of which only those pertaining to theatrical life need detain us here. It was not to be wondered that, as long as the Settlement was under the threat of attack, its foreign population had other matters to attend to than mere amusement, so in these years (1861-1862), there is an almost total eclipse of entertainment. Yet, no sooner had tensions eased somewhat than "nightlife" again appeared in full swing. The thousands of soldiers and marines had swelled the originally small population; as a result, this led, on the one hand, to amateur dramatics by the garrison forces; on the other, to an increased audience for travelling companies, which gave, for the first time in Shanghai's history, rather lengthy seasons. As was mentioned above, the resident foreign population was fairly small, and this should not be forgotten during any discussion of cultural life in the Settlement. In 1846, the total number of foreigners was given as 120; five years later, the British census showed 256, of whom 38 were females; in December 1859, there were 495 male and 74 female westerners, whereas the census of March 1865, which incorporated the results of events in recent years, showed a total of about 2100 resident foreigners, increased by 1850 military (a number which had no doubt been still higher in 1863 and 1864) --- 160 women again formed a tiny ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 165 unanimous voice of the Community in wishing that the Corps would again favour us with their highly agreeable representations”.30 ― A new venture in local companies was started in 1864 when, after the troubles of the Taiping rebellion, the Shanghai Volunteer Corps which had taken part in the defence of the Settlement apparently had enough superfluous energy to direct their efforts into more peaceful ventures. On March 30, 1864, Kenney's Raising the Wind, Jerrold's Cool as a Cucumber and Coyne's Duck Hunting were the three pieces given. Several more performances followed in 1864 (April 25, May 26) and 1865 (March 21, May 8, December 14). Not to be outdone by their colleagues, the Mounted Rangers, part of the S.V.C. and formed in 1862, decided to put on theatricals too. May 24, 1865 saw their first moves on the stage with Planché's The Knights of the Round Table and Mayhew's The Wandering Minstrel.3 31 Later performances were given on November 11 and 20, 1865, and January 12 and March 28, 1866. It was these two groups that in 1866 resolved on the foundation of the Amateur Dramatic Corps. Another local company saw the light in June 1864: The Amateur Burlesque Company Ltd. Whether they were not satisfied with the existing conditions of the theatre in Shanghai or whether the demand for Thespian evenings was so great cannot be ascertained; in any case it was announced that **although the theatrical season has closed, the approach of the hot weather warning us against crowded assemblies, a number of gentlemen have formed themselves into a burlesque company**. But the heat was no deterrent and on June 28, 1864 Lacy's The Silent Woman and H.J. Byron's Ill Treated Il Trovatore came off with considerable success, so much so that "many of the audience were disposed to believe that they were witnessing a display of professional talent". The society proved not to be a one-day affair, for it gave a number of other representations in 1864 and 1865. The actors in it probably consisted mainly of British and Americans; of another company that was also established in 1864 it may safely be assumed that only compatriots were members, viz. the Portuguese amateur dramatic club. Although the Portuguese population of Shanghai was small (the census of 1865 showed a total of 110, including 14 women and 15 children) this was apparently no hindrance to the staging of plays ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1989 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8336pm92h 417 interested in modern China or who are interested in the British in Asia. Dr. Atwell has made a significant contribution to our knowledge of how the British administered one small locality and coped with the demands of modern forces. Her work can be used as a guide or spring board for comparison of British colonial policy in other East Asian places, such as Brunei and the Straits Settlements, Hankow, Tientsin and Shanghai, say, with Hong Kong tossed in for good measure. WEI PEH T'I, Centre of Asian Studies, University of Hong Kong Steven A. Leibo, Transferring Technology to China, Prosper Giquel and the Self-strengthening Movement, China Research Monograph 28, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, Center for Chinese Studies, 1985. Prosper Giquel, edited by Steven A. Leibo, A Journal of the Chinese Civil War 1864. Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1985. These two works, one of compilation and assessment based on a doctoral dissertation, the other of translation (with the help of Debbie Weston) and annotation with a lengthy introduction, have a considerable intrinsic interest because they deal with a rather extraordinary man. They have also a degree of relevance, over a century later, for the West's involvement with present day China's modernizing programme. They are to be read in conjunction with other modern works on this period of China's self-strengthening efforts, including those listed in Dr. Leibo's introduction to Transferring Technology. Prosper Giquel, a French naval officer, came to China during the Second China War. After service with the Joint Commission that guided the administration of the city of Canton during its four year occupation by the Allies, during which he laid the foundations of his knowledge of written and spoken Chinese, he joined the Chinese Maritime Customs at Ningpo. When that city was captured by the Taiping Army, he assisted the Sino-French "Ever Triumphant Army” to recapture it, and later commanded it in the operations that led to the recapture of Hangzhou, for which he received high rank and honours from the appreciative Ch'ing government. Contacts made during this time led to employment after the Rebellion, in and outside China, that lasted until his death in France in 1886. His principal achievement was the construction and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 139 I was in Ningpo when the announcement of the closing of the Burma road was received. It was a severe blow for the Chinese, but I think they appreciated the difficulties of Britain's position and that she had only been compelled by the force of circumstances to accede to the Japanese demand. Nothing could have exceeded the kindness and courtesy shown to me by the merchants and officials whom I met. Ningpo was one of the first five treaty ports, opened to trade in 1842. Early promises had not been fulfilled, and the port, overshadowed by Shanghai, had remained small. Off the mouth of the Ningpo river on the largest island of the Chusan archipelago lay the walled city of Tinghai, occupied by British troops twice for a space of several years between 1840 and 1860. Tinghai at one time was designated, instead of Hongkong, as the place to be ceded to Britain for the repair of vessels. It looks a healthy enough place, built up the slopes of a high hill, yet the troops suffered much from sickness and the stones in the graveyard bear witness to the numbers buried there. The garrison imported some turkeys, to provide variety for the larder. The British troops have long since left, but the climate was favourable to turkeys, and now large flocks descended from the original birds are bred to supply the Christmas market in Shanghai. In Ningpo, the graveyard contains the stone monument, first erected outside the East gate of the city, to commemorate the assistance given by Captain Roderick Dew, R.N., and Lieutenant Kenny of the French Navy and their respective ships' companies, in 1862, to the Imperial Chinese troops in expelling the Taiping rebels from the town. It was nearby that the American General Ward, Gordon's predecessor in command of the Ever Victorious army, was killed. But times change. To Dr. Sun Yat Sen and the Kuo Min Tang the Taiping rebels are the glorious forerunners of their own revolution, and it is doubtful whether General Gordon, or the British, are given any credit for having assisted the Imperial Government to quell the rebellion. The country round the little Ningpo plain is very beautiful. In previous winters I used to shoot on the shallow lakes which lay amongst the hills to the west. Most sportsmen waited to go after the early morning and evening flights of duck, but I preferred to work along the edge of the hills with my dog for the occasional pheasant. They were not so numerous here as amongst the reedbeds of the Yangtze. Beyond the lakes, the deep waters of Nimrod Sound were ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 "New light on the population of the country? On the governmental system? On the administration of justice? What is the relation of the different provinces of the country to the Empire? of Tartars and the Chinese?” "What is the actual idolatry of the people? Their actual morality?” “To what degree are they intellectually active? To what extent does education pervade their masses?** 195 Legge concluded: “these are not exhaustively stated questions, but those which most readily present themselves to my mind”, These commitments became the driving force for the rest of his life. No other Western scholar in modern history or before has ever studied the full breadth of Confucian classical literature and published translations or commentaries on all of these traditions." Although other scholars, (including missionary-scholars like Legge and those in consular positions), pursued studies in Buddhism and Taoism with great thoroughness, none published the kind of extensive translations of both Taoist philosophy and Taoist religious texts which Legge presented in his translations for The Sacred Books of China. With regard to Buddhism, Legge did not publish any extensive translations of Buddhist scriptures, but he remained informed of some of the current work in Chinese Buddhism by Western scholars, continuing even late in his Oxford years to read and assess Chinese, Japanese, and Korean scholarship in selected fields of Buddhist literature. The results of his work in Buddhism were made public in his book on The Religions of China and in a public essay presented at an Orientalist Congress in the 1880s.** These sinological studies do not tell the whole story of Legge's approach to his Chinese audiences. During the 1850s Legge was tempted by another missiological approach. While he remained active in teaching and publicly discussing technical problems in biblical translations in the early fifties, a major change in his life occurred as a consequence of the death of his first wife in 1852. The indefatigable Legge redirected his energies towards the training of indigenous church leaders; among his trainees was the intelligent Hong Rengan (洪仁干), a relative of the Taiping Leader, Hong Xiuquan (洪秀全), and later made one of the Taiping kings in the final years of the rebellion. Legge was intent on making Christianity relevant to contemporary China. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1990 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/d79206299 196 45 In order to achieve these aims, he translated from English a reader for younger students which at times was a conscious attempt to impress Chinese readers with the greatness of Western culture. In addition, in the mid-1850s he took over the editing of a monthly journal, written in Chinese for the propagation of news and cultural information from a Western perspective. This kind of approach, so common among many Western missionaries of various sorts, from the early Jesuits to the educators and medical doctors of the 20th century, Legge consciously rejected in 1856. In that year he decided as editor of the monthly journal that the enterprise was not helpful, so he not only stepped down as editor, but also stopped its publication. Furthermore, never again did he translate an educational reader of the sort mentioned above for Chinese students. In doing so, he was returning to the original educational ideals first expressed in his personal journal of 1847. What motivated Legge to return after 1856 to his original ideals after his experiments between 1852 and 1856 with a more didactic educational philosophy? Several factors seem to have been involved. One was a disenchantment with the government's militarism and the ugly stories tied to the commercial opium trade in which English capitalists were implicated. Although Legge remained a faithful British citizen, he was not unwilling to criticize policies which stood in opposition to ethical duty and moral integrity among his own countrymen. He was a faithful citizen, but not a blind patriot. Another factor may well have been the growing apprehension among the missionary communities about the Taiping Rebellion and its distortion of Christian faith. Some had originally hailed it as a judgement of God on the Qing dynasty, with leaders who were favourable to the representatives of Christian religion. This hope was dashed when a German missionary in contact with Taiping leaders published an account of their doctrines, displaying them as an eclectic cult which adopted some teachings of Christianity, but distorted them by combining them with other religious teachings and the visionary messages of Hong Xiuquan.47 Legge could not distance himself from this issue, because his closest Chinese friend during this period was Hong Rengan, later to become the Shield King of the Taipings (太平天國) once he arrived in their capital of Tianjing (天京) (formerly and now Nanjing). The issue was constantly in the widower's mind not only because he felt close to Rengan, but also... 4K ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j BUSINESS NETWORKS AND PATTERNS OF CANTONESE COMPRADORS AND MERCHANTS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY HONG KONG* PUI TAK LEE To trace and account for the role of Cantonese in modern Chinese economic history is an interesting study topic. Actually, under what specific socio-economic and historical conditions did the Cantonese contribute to the formation of Chinese capitalism? Cantonese are outstanding in business not only in mainland China but also amongst overseas Chinese scattered around the world. The Cantonese were the earliest and largest group of Chinese to go to Southeast Asia. Moreover, in the 1850s, after the Taiping Rebellion, Chinese immigrated to Hong Kong or transited through Hong Kong to the west coast of North America and to Australia. This movement reached its peak in the 1880s. Overseas Chinese are always hardworking, hoping to save enough money to ensure them a good quality of life after they return to China. They usually accumulated capital and modern business know-how when they were in foreign countries and then returned to start their own business in China. An obvious example is the Australian Cantonese who started the first modern department store in Hong Kong, which marked a revolution in modern Chinese retailing business practice. Furthermore, the four biggest department stores in Shanghai were also opened by Cantonese, and all of them came from the Heung Shan (Zhongshan) prefecture, which is strategically located near Macau and Canton, the two centres of early European commerce in China. Simultaneously, in the mid-nineteenth century, Cantonese compradors from Zhongshan prefecture, namely Xu Run, Tang Tingshu, and Zheng Guanying, were pioneers in establishing modern Chinese businesses. This article will assess the mechanism of Cantonese immigration in the nineteenth century and also examine emigrant Cantonese business ethics. Emigration and Chinese Ethnic Groups Emigration from China gave rise to the concept of native place identity. Historically, Chinese have always distinguished their place of * The first annual lecture on local history, jointly organised by the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society & South China Research Circle, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, 10 December, 1994 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 17 the 550 specified wills, 67 of the testators were at the time absent from Hong Kong, being only 12.2%. Mostly they were in Canton and Macau and nearly all of them were in retirement or were there for medical reasons. 19 Table 2 shows Hong Kong merchants held properties, mainly landed properties, not only in Hong Kong, but also in Canton, Macau and Shanghai as well as other parts of China. Table 2 Properties Held by Hong Kong Merchants in China, 1850-1906 1850-70 1871-80 1881-90 1891-1900 1901-1906 Canton 3(4) 9(11) 7(8) 14(14) Macau 1 1(1) 5(?) Shanghai 1(1) Rest of China 1(2) [(?) Total 1 في 3 9 10 20 note:( ) number of places where landed properties located Source: HKRS#144 Hong Kong-Canton-Shanghai Network After 1842, British commercial interests on the Chinese coast were dually extended from Canton to Hong Kong and Shanghai. The newly opened port in Shanghai was flocked to by Cantonese merchants, compradors and foreign employees with Western merchants.20 Though Shanghai was opened for trade in 1843, the real development of Shanghai began during the 1850s. Cantonese emigrants came to Shanghai with the hope of making a fortune from foreign trade, particularly in the 1850s when the Taiping Rebellion disrupted trade in South China. Cantonese merchants had early established a presence in Shanghai. The Cantonese guild was established as early as 1710. As a scholar said, Cantonese merchants were a more national rather than a regional type. After 1843, they mostly came from Zhongshan prefecture and the Hong Kong Macau area, a region within the Pearl River estuary. Shanghai and Hong Kong were cities of immigrants, the number of outsiders surpassed the natives. Statistics confirm this impression. In 1885 immigrants represented some 85 percent of Shanghai's population. The first Shanghai taotai after the Opium War, Wu Jianzhang, was a Zhongshan native who came from the merchant family of Samqua of ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1991 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/k356gt84j 169 as they subsequently produced no results, and indeed, in the absence of targets could not be expected to However, the next course had to be postponed time and again owing to our dangerous position. The Japanese took Kinhwa, advanced and after severe fighting took Chunsien, and joined up with their other troops who had advanced from Nanchang to Yingtan. They occupied Shangjao: the Headquarters of the 3rd War Zone withdrew to Fukien. We were thus entirely cut off. The most serious consequence was to break our telegraphic communication with Chungking. It was fully expected that the Japanese would mop up the areas left behind; in the absence of the telegraph we could not get accurate information and all sorts of wild rumours circulated. We broke up our stores and found hiding places for them in the mountains. We had already decided on our own line of retreat to a mountain hideout, which had last been used by the members of our village during the Taiping rebellion. We ran out of money. Michael was able to borrow some from his friends, and the magistrate did what he could to help us; but currency seemed to have vanished. Eventually the Government dropped a supply by aeroplane in the area and the situation eased. I found a Chinese civilian who was a wireless expert, and who had made a good set, driven by hand-operated power, which had sufficient strength to reach Chungking. We applied to the Chinese authorities for permission to use this set; the request was relayed by wireless to Chungking, but after a long delay we received a refusal from General Ho Ying Chin "Lest precedent be set". I know, of course, that wireless was one of the subjects on which the Chinese government was very touchy, but I had hoped, in view of our circumstances, that an exception might be made. After three months the Japanese withdrew from Shangjao, conditions improved, and students collected for the second course. In the meantime, we had not been idle. One of our chief problems was to obtain the metal for our mines and booby-traps. We had heard that a number of damaged locomotives were to be found down the line; on inspection, we discovered that they had been stripped of anything portable, particularly of all brass work, but in some of them, the boiler tubes still remained. The Chief felt sure he could make good mines out of these. We obtained permission from the engineer in charge of the railway to take what tubes we could find; they had to be cut out by explosive, as those that screwed out had already been taken. The Chief put in a lot of work at this, and we acquired quite a useful stock of tubes. They were 1" in diameter and when cut I ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x Chinese Military Services which have not before been recorded in English. One aspect of Mesny's writings which will bring wry smiles to a number of western faces was his occasional essay into the ever-popular art of China-watching. In 1896 his conjecture that Earl Li Hung-chang was a likely candidate to be the first ruler of a China ruled by Chinese is now, with the benefit of hindsight, amusing to say the least. Even more so was Mesny's next thought. Li perhaps might even marry the Empress Dowager and thus amalgamate his influence with that of the reigning line. He added that the Empress Dowager was however too old to bear children and would therefore only be a witness to her own departing glory by seeing her husband, [and Li would then have been 74] begetting an heir to the throne through a younger woman. Between 1850 and 1873 peasant discontent, both Chinese [Han] and non-Chinese, led to a wave of rebellions, some of exceptional size. These included the Taipins, the Nien and the Moslem revolts, but not Ya'qub Beg's Sinkaing rebellion which ended in 1877. Mesny first became involved in the Taiping rebellion [1850-1864] towards its latter days, a time when the imperialists were gaining the upper hand and had confronted the Taiping leadership in its capital, Nanking where he was held captive for some months. Later, whilst he was working with the Chinese Maritime Customs in Hankow, he became involved with the Nien-fei [the Nien rebels] bandits who ravaged north of the Yangtze between 1851 and 1868. The Nien, a decentralised association of peasants, were basically bandits without any ideology as such, whereas the Taiping rebels were a pseudo-Christian movement led against the imperial rulers in Peking by Hung Hsiu-ch'uan who had adopted some elements of Christian beliefs into his ideology. The Taiping rebels, whose capital city was Nanking, enjoyed some sympathy from westerners but eventually the rebellion was defeated but not until many millions had died. When the final defeat came it was due mainly to the Chinese imperialists under Tseng Kuo-fan, Li Hung-chang and Tso Tsung-t'ang, aided to some extent by several foreign-trained Chinese forces which included the much-vaunted western-trained force, first under an American Frederick Ward and finally under a British colonel in the Royal Engineers, Charles Gordon, together with direct British and French military intervention in Shanghai and Ningpo areas. The rebels, with whom Mesny and many Christian missionaries at first sympathised, introduced many reforms such as monogamy, and the banning of opium, tobacco and alcohol, and foot-binding. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 26 name had eventually appeared in the Peking Gazette. In 1871, he added, he was recommended for special honours on account of distinguished services on the field of battle and received the order of merit called Yung Hao with the title of Ying Yung Pa-t'u-lu [i.e. ‘Brigadier-General, the title of Knight Ying of the Order of Pa-t'u-lu, Mesny"]. Mesny was awarded the Ying-yung for having penetrated a Miao stronghold with a few Chinese riflemen and turned the tide of battle from defeat into victory. In April 1896 Mesny wrote: 'Having lived in Hankow for some years and acquired some notoriety amongst the Chinese there, if not actual fame, the characters Wen-kao 'Eminent', were chosen and given me as a Hao or familiar by my friends.' His Chinese name is Mai Wen-kao or using a transliteration 'Mai-shih-ni [i.e. mai-knee) and his rank, Tsung-ping **General**]. In another autobiographical 'obituary' printed after his death in the Celestial Empire, a Shanghai paper, he described himself as 'I, Wen-kao William Mesny, F.R.G.S., Brevet Lieutenant-General of the Chinese Army; Knight, Ying Yung of the Order of the Pa-t'u-lu.................. Mesny noted on one occasion long after he had completed his military service that he had come across a battalion of Kueichou field troops with the men wearing the cuirass-shaped uniform or Pa-t'u-lu vesture, invented by Mesny in 1868 for the An-ting and Ko-i Rifle Brigades. ["The ancient Manchu Knights of the order of the Pa-t'u-lu wore such vests as uniform when not wearing the metal cuirass, hence its significant name Pa-t'u-lu.'] [NOTE: Liu Ming-ch'uan, Governor of Taiwan 1884-1891, referred to in the text as having met Mesny, initially was a freebooter who, during the Taiping Rebellion supported Li Hung-chang and the Imperial forces, and opposed the Taipings. He was at that stage a fairly lowly officer and is recorded as having received 'the honorary title of military merit, baturu': Later, when more senior he was awarded the much greater award of the Yellow Riding Jacket.] Mesny was awarded the 'flowery plume' [hua-ling ##4] in 1869 together with the brevet rank of colonel after battles with the Miao tribesmen. He was also presented with the Pao-hsing in 1869. He refers to the Pao-hsing #, the Precious Planet [or decoration of the Star of China] implying that it was the same decoration as the Double Dragon Jewelled Star which he also later referred to. It was, he said, instituted after the Taiping Rebellion as a form of reward for foreigners who ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 27 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 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 46 His essays on his soldiering days consist of strings of facts and incidents, strong on action but showing little attempt at analysis or motives. He often managed to mingle action scenes with romanticised ones. According to his writings he, at 26, displayed strategic and tactical wisdom which his seniors, experienced Chinese generals greeted with acclaim, or so Mesny would have us believe. He lived in exciting times and enjoyed experiences worthy of being recorded for posterity. A case in point is his description of the incidents when twice in a twelve month period he had to call on British gun boats to deliver him from the hands of Chinese captors. The first was the deliverance from the 'Imps' [the Chinese Imperial forces] at the forts below Nanking and the second from the Taiping rebels at Nanking itself. His description of his experiences living with the Taiping rebels, of life in a treaty port and his explanations of, for example, the process of the literary and military degree examinations in China and the organisation of the Tsung-li Yamen [The Chinese Bureau of Foreign Affairs] are fascinating even if some of the material has been copied from other works, and some of the autobiographical episodes seem at times to be exaggerated or 'edited'. An article in The Pilot [July 1946] claimed that Mesny had served under General Gordon during the Taiping rebellion as a lieutenant and, when Gordon returned to England in 1865, Mesny remained on in the Chinese army. This would seem to have been misunderstood folk memory as it is certain that, if such had been the case, Mesny would have described it during his autobiographical essays in the Miscellanies. His love life with Chinese ladies also at times reads like a Mills and Boon novel, but however much we may smile at his amorous memoirs, the military side of his autobiographical essays ring true throughout. Mesny wrote about himself as if he needed the constant repetition to reassure him of his place in society and perhaps history, and was frustrated by the lack of influence he considered his due. In March 1905 Mesny wrote that scarcely a day passed but that he was asked to adjudge of important matters between Chinese and Chinese. He added that he did not always comply though his Chinese rank was sufficient as an excuse to act as a judge. He certainly saw himself as a bridge between Chinese and foreigners, and appeared to have many nodding acquaintances in both societies. A number of foreign authors describing China as they saw it around the turn of the last century each in turn complimented other writers ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 56 together with his regular recommendations to the Chinese government, such as the one for the Chinese capital under a new regime to be moved from Peking but not to Nanking which would, he suggested, be the natural Chinese choice, but to Si-an, nearer central China and better able to be defended from invaders, were interspersed amongst other more mundane factual paragraphs. Very occasionally his stories verged on the salubrious, but were never risqué. He described Patriarch Lu Tsu, one of the Eight Immortals, as the author of an extraordinary work on the art of massage. By a certain process of massage, if systematically continued for some time, it was possible, so wrote Mesny, to deprive young men and women of their desire for sexual intercourse. They were practically rendered impotent and maintained so, without injury to their health or intellect. This was practised in Szechuan and Hupei provinces, especially in the large monasteries and nunneries of the Taoist and Buddhist priesthood, wherein celibacy was strictly enforced and easily maintained. Mesny was not above writing very puerile articles. One such in 1896 was a parody on the subject of the Shanghai Mixed Court in the British Concession, referred to by him as the 'tribunal of injustice', which is now practically impossible to understand without knowledge of the personalities of the day, whom Mesny disguised behind pseudonyms. It filled some five columns on four pages and may have amused some readers and rid Mesny of some of his spleen, but a century later it reads so poorly that it is embarrassing. Something at the Mixed Court had so upset Mesny that he must have rushed into print, writing in the vein of many similar letters to the press in England at that time signed by 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' etc. The contents of the Miscellany included serialised weekly parts running for a couple of months or so on substantial subjects such as: [1] The Taiping Rebellion or the Life and Adventures of a British Pioneer in China. This provided many pages of detailed and often petty experiences, such as his voyage up the Yangtze in 1868, where he repeats minor incidents often ad nauseam. Better descriptions of, for example, voyages up the Yangtze have been written by other westerners, such as Little, with excellent photographs, something Mesny appears not to have ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 61 November 1862 1863 March 1863 May 1864 April 1864 1864-1865 1867 Winter 1867 his junk and three others Captured at Fu-shan-chan by Taiping rebels. Mesny held first in Soochow and Chang-shu, then at Pao-ying the Taiping camp, and finally in Nanking Rescued by Adkins, the British Consul at Chin-kiang aboard HMS Slaney and taken back to Chin-kiang Joined Chinese Imperial Customs Service, Hankow Resigned from Customs Service after fourteen months Involved in cotton broking Established the Hankow Horse Bazaar, a private hotel in Hankow, and set up Hupei Iron and Brassworks, Han-yang Romantic interlude with a Chinese widow in Hankow Mesny called on Tso Tsung-tang during the latter's visit to Hankow and was appointed his French and English Secretary, and was further offered the opportunity to accompany Tso on his campaign to the Northwest. Mesny also claimed that he had made recommendations to Marquis Tso Tsung-tang for a number of undertakings to help modernise China Sold the Huper Iron and Brassworks to officials of the Viceroy of Szechuan province Mesny's trek to war 1868 June Late July or early August Late August September Left Hankow, after five year's residence, for Szechuan to become a drill instructor with the Szechuan Force Arrived Chungking Departed Chungking for Kueichou to join the Szechuan Force suppressing the Miao rebellion: he accepted employment as a military instructor (wu-chiao hsi) Arrived Niu-ch'ang, the headquarters of the Szechuan Force in Kueichou September 1868-May 1874 Involved in the military campaigns to suppress the Miao The Advance: Late Summer 1868-March 1869 1869 Promoted Colonel, awarded the Star of China and the Flowery Plume The Retreat: Summer 1869-Summer 1870 1870/1871 1871 1872 Helped form a joint stock company in Kuei-yang to "recover mercury" The Withdrawal: mid-August 1870-Lunar New Year 1871 ca 1873 1873 1874 Spring Established a small day school for poor boys and girls in the Jade Emperor temple in Kuei-yang, importing suitable books and paying a Chinese teacher, a struggling student painter, Chin Yü-t'ang Siege of Hsin-ch'eng in upper Kueichou (Mesny involved in preparations for the siege during 1871) Went to Szechuan with General Chou Ta-wu Promoted Major-General and awarded the Ying-yung Pa-t'u-lu Left Kueichou for Szechuan: Margary expected to meet Mesny in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 65 1900 ca 1900 1901 December 1904 1905 Jan/Jun 1907 ca 1910/1911 1914 November ca 1914/1915 1914-1919 11 Dec 1919 Claims to have volunteered for service in Peking [Boxer troubles] Mesny visited Nan-chang in Kiangsi where he met Hsiung Shih-fu, a young reformer Interviewed Viceroy Liu K'un-yı în Nanking. Published Mesny's Chinese and English Almannac Publication of his final volume of his Chinese Miscellany Most Excellent High Priest in the Keystone Royal Arch Chapter, in Shanghai His wife, Han, obtained a legal separation in Shanghai Mesny moved to Hankow Claims to have passed a medical and then offered his services to the Crown [World War 1] Employed by Messrs. Reiss and Co. in Hankow Died in rue de Paris in Hankow Appendix C The Chinese Imperial Forces Mesny's Involvment in the Suppression of the Miao Revolt The First Campaign by Imperial Troops in Kueichou Province 1868-1871 and Order of Battle of the Szechuan Force Chinese Imperial Forces, with the aid of a number of foreigners and foreign arms, had by 1864 succeeded in suppressing the Taiping rebellion against the dynasty. They then turned to liquidating the other rebellions seething in various parts of China which included the Nien movement in northern China, the Moslem minority revolt in Yunnan province, another major Moslem uprising in the North-west, and finally the Miao aboriginal tribes which had revolted in Kueichou province. The Miao, or Miao-tzu as Mesny refers to them, rose against the Ch'ing dynasty Manchu rulers of China in 1854 after discontent reached boiling point due not only to Chinese settlers colonising the best lands in the low lying areas of the province of Kueichou, but also to the exploitation of the Miao by Chinese officials and merchants. According to Mesny the passionate and untamed Miao gradually took back almost the whole province apart from the capital, Kuei-yang Fu, and the city ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 67 Mesny, writing in the first person some thirty years later, was not in any way slow in claiming that he played key roles in the campaign and frequently related how his improvements on the battle plans conceived by the Szechuan Force's senior officers were immediately adopted and were always successful. On the occasion when a general went ahead with his plan without Mesny, which ended in defeat and failure, Mesny made no bones about it; the failure was due to the lack of foresight of the general concerned for not first consulting Mesny! Also of significance is the infrequent mention by Mesny of the Manchu Tartars. Considering that China was at this stage still under the rule of the Manchu dynasty, with the main forces of the Imperial Army in Manchu hands, and whose armies consisted to a considerable extent of Manchu bannermen, there is no indication from Mesny of Manchus being involved in the campaigns to suppress the Miao, and his only reference to the Manchus was the sighting of Manchu women in a town on his journey along the Yangtze. Manchu emperors had permitted only Manchus real power and had not allowed Chinese to hold independent commands until Tseng Kuo-fan was given a military command during the Taiping rebellion, in 1852. His army, called the Army of Hunan, won many of its battles leading to other Chinese armies being raised, one of which was the Army of Szechuan into which Mesny was recruited. How much Mesny understood the behind-the-scenes politics in play directing the control of the force in which he served is difficult to assess as, for example, he does not refer to the Manchus at any point. He would have us believe that he was frequently the confidante of Chinese senior military officers; logic, however, suggests that he, a foreigner in his twenties who had had no previous military experience, would be unlikely to be told anything of the more complex struggles and challenges for control and power within his or other Chinese forces. Mesny's position within the Chinese Imperial military, as he described it, was complex. On joining the Szechuan Army Corps at Kuei-yang at the age of 26 in 1868, he was given a commission and brevet rank of Ch'ien-tsung +, which he equated on one page of his Miscellany to a First Class Warrant Officer or Sergeant Major, and on another page with a Company Commander or Captain. In early 1870 he was awarded the rank and honour of ts'an-chiang hsien. The 'hsien', according to Hucker in his Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China, is a troublesome term. It is often ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 72 basic elements of the social network and were such obvious facts of life that Chinese took them for granted and did not think of them as in any way unusual. The Army of the Hsiang was an important Field Force raised in Hunan, especially in the area of the Hsiang River, a sort of counter-balance to the Huai River Army, raised about the same time for the suppression of the Taiping rebellion in the valley of the Yangtze and elsewhere. The Marquis Tseng Kuo-fan was the C-in-C of the Hsiang-chün consisting of Hunan troops which had at first been designated as the Ch'u-chün or Army of Ch'u, a name derived from the ancient state of Ch'u, which comprised the provinces of Hunan and Hupei, as well as other provinces including the whole or part of Anhui and Honan. The Ch'u-chün was commanded by Tso Tsung-t'ang. The Hsiang Army was divided into several army corps or divisions, each numbering from ten to twenty, or even thirty battalions each of five hundred men. Each corps had a distinct designation or appellation, derived from the locality where it was actually organised or from the name or part of the name of the commander of the particular corps. One corps however, the principal one, was styled the Hsiang-ying from its having been organised in the prefecture of Changsha Fu on the banks of the Hsiang River. When more corps were required, however, the name Hsiang-chün was brought into use as with the Huai-chün, to represent all the corps of each army.” Although Mesny obliquely mentioned a higher command, the Ministry of War in Peking, regrettably he did not offer any information which would explain the subordination and chain of command other than telling us that the commander of the Szechuan Force, General T'ang, took his orders from the Viceroy of Szechuan and obtained supplies and funding, when they were forthcoming, from the Szechuanese provincial authorities in Ch'eng-tu. The plan now was for the main body of the Ko-i Brigade to advance and occupy the city of Chung-an [Szu] on the Chung-an River by way of Ta-ngai and Chung-pai (later renamed Chung-sheng), whilst another element of the brigade would advance and occupy Huang-p'ing Hsin-chou [New Town]. The advance began on 18 March 1869. Several days later Chung-an had been occupied and fortified, as had Huang-p'ing New Town. Chung-an was overlooked by hills and mountains occupied by ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 75 of the Szechuan Force under the C-in-C had been badly defeated and had left him in the lurch without support. However, the other half of the fourteen battalions remained in Ch'ing-p'ing Hsien and stood firm, and even recovered much of the abandoned equipment. This was not reported to Kuei-yang and Ch'engtu in Szechuan in time to benefit the C-in-C of the Szechuan Force, the story put about by the commander of the seven battalions who had evacuated Ch'ing-p'ing Hsien being believed and acted upon. The C-in-C, T’ang, was therefore degraded and posted to Szechuan, The story, according to Mesny's narrative, ended with the demobilisation of several units of the Szechuan Force, the C-in-C's guards and the Ko-i Brigade in particular, and with Mesny settling into life as an adviser to the new supreme commander of all the Imperial forces in Kueichou, Chou Ta-wu; leaving us in anticipation of the next and successful campaign to suppress the rebel Miao, beginning later the same year, 1871, to be published by Mesny. Regrettably it never seems to have got beyond either Mesny's pencil jottings or good intentions. The Organisation of the Szechuan Force In his Notes on Chinese Military Services Mesny explained that there were several branches of the Army, the Manchu Banner Corps, the Mongol Banner Corps and the Chinese Banner Corps, each with eight banners. There were also the Chinese militia called Chih-ping; volunteer troops raised during the Taiping Rebellion and on many other occasions of emergency, called Yung-ying or simply Yung i.e. braves [known to Mesny as the Mobile Volunteer Force], and the local train bands", Tuan-lien [known to Mesny as the Sedentary Volunteer Force]; armed peasants trained in the use of weapons for the defence of their homes in both town and country. Mesny appears to have used notes written during the early 1870s to compile his descriptions of the Chinese Imperial forces and seems not to have taken much advantage of the benefit of hindsight to amend them prior to going to press in 1895. It had proved difficult to differentiate between Mesny's personal knowledge and his accuracy in recording detail, and information he acquired from other non-Chinese sources. Many of his notes on the Manchu Army and the Green Standard Regiments have been taken from Mayers' Page 90 Page 91 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 77 army in itself, especially organised to meet the requirements of its own territorial demands or necessities. The various provincial army corps [chün] consisted of two or more territorial divisions called chen besides several [from 3-10] territorial brigades called hsieh. The divisions consisted of several regiments and battalions, both of which were called ying; the regiments were commanded by ts'an-chiang [colonels] or yu-chi [lieutenant-colonels], and battalions by tu-ssu [majors]. Most regiments and battalions were divided into two or more companies, shao; however, a few regiments and battalions were not divided at all, with the officers in each regiment or battalion holding common authority over all portions of the regiment or brigade. Mesny frequently referred to individuals as holding the rank of lieutenant-colonel in one context whilst elsewhere describing them as generals. This was finally clarified in a throwaway line buried in other text when he wrote, 'In China Brigadier-Generals, Colonels and Lieutenant-Colonels in command were all considered to be General officers, that is Chiang-Chün.' General officers, chiang-kuan, in the territorial army were those brigadiers, colonels and lieutenant colonels in command. In field forces the commanders of battalions were also so styled by courtesy irrespective of rank. The same courtesy was extended to the chief of battalion, ying-kuan, in field forces where many of them had only permission to wear a button sometimes of the lowest civil rank and degree. Mesny summarised the order of battle including the Chinese naval forces, with two provinces, Kuangtung and Fukien each having a naval force, and another stationed on the Yangtze. Finally, with the northern steam fleet of iron-clads there was a total of twenty-one army corps, i.e. provincial forces, and four naval corps for the whole Chinese empire. To these had to be added the Tartar Banner forces forming the garrisons of several important towns, Canton, Foochou, Hangchou, Cha-pu, Chinkiang, Nanking, Peking and elsewhere. Also the numerous regular field troops denominated Yung or Lien-chün which had been kept under arms in various parts of the empire since the Taiping Rebellion (which, he added, were a great deal more formidable in numbers as well as effectiveness than the whole of the sedentary garrisons or ordinary chün or army). It was not until, literally, the latter days of the first campaign that an overall commander was appointed, with the Szechuan Force commander ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 81 in an office which bore the same name and in which there was a staff of clerks etc. It corresponded to all intents and purposes with the western orderly room in which was transacted nearly all the business concerning the force of which it formed a part. Before the Taiping rebellion military secretaries and clerks were all military officers but after it civil service men got the appointments owing to the fact that so few military men could read or write sufficiently well to carry on the correspondence of the force. All offenders against military laws, whether soldiers or civilians, were first of all examined by the military secretariat or a delegate appointed by him. Some viceroys had several such secretaries, each attached to some department with the chief of them styled Tsung-lu Ying-wu-ch'u, i.e., Chief Director of the Army Secretariat. Soldiers in attendance wore the name of the office on their uniforms. In provincial Governors' staff brigades, Fu-piao Ying, warrant officers and NCOs were employed as couriers and runners. Standards and standard bearers were frequently referred to in Mesny's accounts: each standard being displayed to make known the location of the unit or official represented. A number of the petty unit and formation supporting officials had the character for 'flag' [ch'i] within their title. Examples of these were the Quartermaster in charge of ammunition depots and reserves in a Field Force who displayed a red flag and was known as The Red Flag [Hung-ch'i] and the QM in charge of provisions was the Blue Flag [Lan-ch'i]. These officers were subordinate to the Quartermaster [Chün-chuang] who was responsible for all stores and clothing, and who in turn was subordinate to the Headquarters' Commissary Officer [Liang-t'ai]. Coolies were paid three taels of pure silver per month of thirty days [or forty days for An-hui troops], private soldiers four taels two mace, decurions four taels five mace, orderly officers eight taels, vice commanders of companies twelve taels and one servant, commanders of companies eighteen taels and two servants, vice-commander of a battalion received thirty-two taels and three servants, the commander of a battalion received one hundred and eight taels and forty coolies, besides extras, brigadiers got two hundred taels for each battalion in their brigade besides their battalion pay and perquisites. Mesny continued: the company commanders in the Force in which he served in Kueichou made about double their pay every month in perquisites of all kinds. The battalion commanders made about seven hundred taels a month, but added Mesny, he had heard that the company and battalion commanders ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 86 NOTES In one of the notes written by Mesny in his Miscellany, [Volume 4 page 34], he listed the various classes and degrees of military rank in what he terms the Chinese Militia Service. A marshal or general was a T'i-tu Chün-men, a lieutenant-general was a Tsung-ping Kuan, a major-general a Fu-chiang; and a colonel a Ts'an-chiang. 2 Mesny gives various totals for the number of battalions serving with the Szechuan Force and in particular with the Ko-i Brigade, with a grand total of thirty-three battalions in the whole Force. These vary from eight to fifteen and a half operating with the Ko-i Brigade. Presumably the explanation lies in the arrival of new battalions to support the Force from time to time, though we are unable to be certain how many battalions were serving at any one particular moment. Mesny states at the beginning of Volume 1 of his Miscellanies that in 1861 General Ward had organised a disciplined force for the Chinese Government, at first locally styled "Ward's Force" and later as the 'Ever-victorious Legion'. 4 Mesny later keeps referring to thirty-five battalions. The I-ho-t'uan, the "Patriotic Train Band", was the official title of the Boxers, of ill-repute. 6 Mesny too had been a member of a train band, the volunteer force in Hankow between 1863-67, under arms several times during the approach of the Nien-fei rebels, when he wore the uniform of the Queen's Western Rifles [sic]. 7 Mesny goes into some detail providing recruitment policy, promotion schemes, ranks and titles, training and duties. Use of the term Disciplined Force was a contemporary fashion. It later became popular to refer to the Lien-chun Ying as Field Forces. 9 Most of the ranks of unit commanders given by Mesny do not tally with those given by Hucker in his Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China. 10 All commanders of divisions and corps had one or more battalions, regiments or brigades, serving a sort of staff brigade and forming the headquarters of that particular army corps. It was popularly designated the Body Guard Battalion or Regiment. Presumably Han Chinese rebels such as the Huang-hao or the Pai-hao, the remnants of the Taipings or even the Moslem rebels. 12 This is the same title as the Force previously operating under the command of General Gordon during the Taiping Rebellion. Either Mesny has incorrectly recalled the title of the new Force or the new Force continued to bear the former title. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 91 Hart, Sir Robert [1835-1911] Known as the "I G” [Inspector-General of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs]. His Bureau was the one financial stay and prop, the negotiable asset, the one honestly administered and creditable branch within the Imperial government. He left the British Consular Service in 1861 to join the Customs Service, appointed I G in 1863. Hill, David [1840-1896] Wesleyan missionary stationed in Hankow until 1867. Died of typhus in Hankow. Hill was not only a witness with Griffith John at the re-marriage of William Mesny's brother's widow to E.G. Wilson in October 1884; he was also guardian with William Mesny to John's children. Hung Hsiu-ch'uan ## [1813-1864] a Hakka Leader of the Taiping Rebellion: believed himself to be entrusted as the brother of Jesus to lead China and destroy the Manchu regime. [There is an inexplicable reference in Mesny's Miscellanies to a daughter 'of Hung?' wishing Mesny to return to Nanking to marry her] Gordon, C G [1833-1885] An English officer in the Royal Engineers who commanded the 'Ever-Victorious Army' against the Taiping rebels. He was appreciated by the Ch'ing Imperial government and was the first foreigner to be awarded the prestigious Yellow Riding Jacket. He later helped advise the Chinese during the Ili uprising in the early 1880s. He died in Khartoum during the Mahdi Uprising. John, Griffith [1831-1912] Missionary, LMS, Hankow 1861-1912. (Hill: q.v.) Prince Kung: also known as I-hsin [1832-1898] Sixth son of the Tao Kuang emperor and half brother of the Hsien Feng emperor. Probably one of the most important Ch'ing dynasty officials in foreign affairs. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 92 Li Hung-chang ## [1823-1901] He was one of the outstanding figures in modern Chinese history; a statesman and diplomat. He was Governor of Kiangsu province at the time of the Taiping Rebellion, and again was a major proponent in the self-strengthening movement in Imperial China during the latter years of the Ch'ing dynasty. He was first a soldier who came to notice during the suppression of the Taiping rebellion and later went on to help develop western economic methods to endeavour to lead China into a greater independence from western domination. He emerged from comparative obscurity commanding a few battalions of field troops with the title of Expectant Tao-t'ai of Fukien in 1859 serving under Tseng Kuo-fan (q.v.) and soon rose to fame. Liu Ming-ch'uan ## [1836-1896] 劉銘傳 Said to have been a gang leader who murdered a rich villager. When the Taiping rebels threatened his area, he organised a volunteer corps which became famous as a military leader. He was rewarded by being made an official of the first rank and Commander-in-Chief of Chihli at the early age of 29. Under the command of Tseng Kuo-fan, he defeated the Nien rebels. Some time later, in 1884, he was made Governor of Fukien during the France-Chinese war and ordered to garrison Formosa. Liu was defeated in several lesser battles but held Taipei and was probably saved by a French change of policy when they withdrew from Formosa [Taiwan]. Liu was made Governor of Taiwan in 1885 and relinquished his post in 1891, dying in retirement. Little, Robert and Archibald Robert [Bob] was a failed tea merchant who edited the North China Daily News for eighteen years. According to OM Green, he was the best-loved man ever known in the Settlement [Shanghai]. His brother, Archibald Little, who was not so loved according to others, has been credited with designing and taking the first steamship up the Gorges. He made the first attempt in 1888 but, when he got to I-chang, the officials raised a storm of protest and he had to desist; the Chinese Government afterwards buying up his ships. In 1899, he tried again, with a boat called the Pioneer, and got through from I-chang to Chungking in seven days compared with the three or even six weeks it took a junk to be hauled up by trackers on the bank. Archibald's wife, Alicia, founded one of... ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 94 [passport) of Prince Su was printed on page 235 of Volume 4 [18 March 1904] of Mesny's Miscellanies. Tseng Kuo-fan [1811-1872] A Confucian statesman and general who defeated the Taiping rebels in Nanking and put an end to the rebellion. He was first a militia leader, then a Governor-General of the Two Kiang provinces and finally the Imperial Commissioner for the suppression of the Taiping Rebels. Later he became the Imperial Commissioner ordered to suppress the Nien rebellion. He was Viceroy of Chihli in 1869. His Hunan Army provided the Manchu dynasty with a new lease of life. Tso Tsung-t’ang [1812-1885] An official who first came to the notice of his emperor when he was an active and successful military officer during the Taiping Rebellion. He was raised to an earldom and up to 1866 earned renown as an administrator in the provinces of Fukien and Chekiang. With his experience during the Taiping Rebellion he was sent to Shensi and Kansu to suppress the Muslim revolt [1862-1873] and, en route, he helped suppress the Nien rebels. He remained Governor General of Shensi and Kansu for many years and later in 1884 he became Governor of Fukien province during the French attack on Foochow and Keelung in Taiwan. He died in Foochow the following year. Ward F T [1831-1862] An American mercenary and founder of the 'Ever-Victorious Army', a Sino-foreign military force which aided the Manchu Ch'ing dynasty suppress the Taiping rebellion. He was killed in battle in September 1862 near Ningpo and was at first succeeded by another American, Burgevine, and then by Charles Gordon [q.v.]. Ward married Miss Yang, the daughter of the official banker Yang Ta-Ki, a Tartar. A magnificent mausoleum was erected over his grave in Sungkiang in 1877. Wylie, Alexander [1815-1887] A missionary and scholar, editor of the Chinese Recorder. T ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 96 Ch'in-ch'ai Ta-ch'en ✯✯E : Imperial High Commissioner, a very senior appointment. Ever Victorious Army ET: A European-officered Chinese force of the Imperial Army raised by the American, Ward, which ultimately, under the command of Colonel Gordon, assisted in putting an end to the Taiping Rebellion. Expectant... (Ho-ju) ✩A : A prefix indicating that an official was qualified and certified to take up duty in the post named. Fan-t'ai #: A provincial treasurer known to foreigners as the Commissioner of Finance; charged with the fiscal or financial administration of a province. Formosa: The Portuguese name for the island of Taiwan. Hakkas [Ko-chia] ** : One of the southern Chinese ethnic groups said to have migrated from northern China during the Mongol dynasty, ca the thirteenth century AD. Han-lin Yuan #: The Chinese National Academy, admission to which was the highest literary honour obtainable by a Chinese scholar. Ho-shang : Buddhist monk or priest. Hongkew : Site of the American Settlement in Shanghai, where Mesny later lived. Hsien : Administrative district. Huang Ma-kua : The Yellow Riding Jacket. A high award from the emperor to his senior officials. Imperial Maritime Customs: Chinese customs service with a foreign inspectorate largely able to control the collection of duties and taxes without the usual Chinese squeeze [q.v.]. Robert Hart became Inspector General in 1863. Jingal (gingal): The Chinese blunderbuss. It was generally fired from a swivel fixed on a wall or wooden post, but sometimes it was fired with ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 98 Likin ✰✰ : [li-chín] An arbitrary tax, originally of one cash per tael 釐金 on all kinds of produce, known to foreigners as the 'tax of one-thousandth', imposed in 1853 with a view to making up the deficiency in the land tax caused by the Taiping and Nien-fei troubles. Hence its common term, a 'war tax'. Lorcha: A vessel having a hull of Chinese build but rigged with European masts and sails, and usually manned by a European captain and a Chinese crew. Mace: The tenth part of a Chinese tael [q.v.] or ounce. Miao-tzu #7: shoots or sons of the soil: one of the larger of the southern Chinese aboriginal non-Chinese races subjugated by the Chinese, whose revolt in the 1860s lead to Mesny being employed by the Chinese army. This was not their first revolt; they had rebelled against Imperial rule at the end of the eighteenth century when their widespread revolt in Kueichou and Hunan provinces was put down with great difficulty owing to the mountains and forests covering that part of the world. Mixed Courts: Instituted in 1865 in the Shanghai International Settlements [q.v.] for the hearing of cases between Chinese residents in the Settlements, between Chinese and foreign residents, and where foreigners were the defendants, provided always that they were unrepresented by a Consul on the spot. All suits were tried by a Chinese official having the rank of sub-Prefect, with the assistance, in cases where foreigners were concerned, of an assessor of the same nationality. Muslim Rebellion: the rebellion in the northern Chinese provinces of Shensi and Kansu between 1862 and 1873. Nanking: the major city on the Yangtze and capital of Ming China. The 'Southern Capital', held by the Taipings from 1850 to 1864. Nestorian Christians: The church which first introduced Christianity into China, at the close of the 6th century AD. Nien-fei : [lit. The Twisting Robbers], The official designation of the large bodies of rebels who ravaged the plains of north China for a number of years. They referred to themselves as Nien-Tzu [The Coilers or Twisters] from their peculiar manner of formation in battle. The Nien ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1992 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x 100 dynasty in China. It was a non-Chinese dynasty, being Manchu, founded by invaders from Manchuria, with Manchu garrisons stationed at the most important points in the empire. It was established in the capital at Peking in 1644. The military arm of the Manchus was referred to as Tartar, with a Tatar-general commanding Manchu garrisons. Tael: Liang : a Chinese ounce in weight [one third heavier than the avoirdupois weight] derived from the Hindu 'tola'. It was the given weight of silver used in commercial reckonings, and was not a coin. Taels varied in value; there were the long taels of the Imperial maritime Customs and the short taels of Shanghai. [Mesny notes that the rate of exchange in 1860 was six shillings and eight pence to the silver tael; and in 1868 he noted that 10 taels of silver were worth just over £3.] see also under 'Cash'. Taiping : the name given to the rebellion which raged over much of central China between 1850 and 1864. Literally "The Great Peace" though it is usually translated as the "Heavenly Peace". Its founders were influenced by Protestant Christian beliefs as well as misunderstood foreign concepts. The Christian beliefs led many western missionaries to admire the Taipings and created a hope that a Taiping victory would lead to some form of Christianisation of China. However, after the leader, who had declared that he was the son of God and a younger brother of Jesus, led a life of ease in his capital at Nanking, and his armies, though comparatively competent, had been defeated, he committed suicide. Tao-t'ai : a civil official post referred to regularly by Mesny. A tao-t'ai was an Imperial Circuit Intendant, a member of the hierarchy controlling several prefectures, e.g. the Tao-t'ai of Shanghai Hsien. Tartar general : [see under Ta Ch'ing above] Manchu commanders of the Manchu garrisons in key cities in China. Their presence was meant as a check upon the actions of civil authorities. T'i-t'ai : A high provincial official in charge of the military administration of his province as regards native troops; the Manchu force was under the exclusive command of the Tartar general. Tracking: a common practice whereby scores if not hundreds of coolies were employed to tow junks against the stream up the Yangtze Gorges, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302 195 Tau Kok District Committee Propaganda Section), TERRITORY ZINALA £** 愛國主義教 AAMAAT, Sharongaode Lish he vanzhuang aiguo zhiệm paoya panghua catho,(The History and Present Situation of Sha Tau Kok Material for Oral Teaching of Patriotism), Sha Tau Kok, 1986, p 4 22 Jali esberichte der Basler Mission, 1849, pp. 141-143, and PH Hase, “Sha Tau Kok in 1853, op cit. Some of the shops in 1853 occupied two shop units. 2 See W Schlatter, Geschichte der Basler Mission, 1815-1915, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der ungedruckten Quellen, Basel, 1916, Vol 2. p 297 The (Taiping) rebellion spread its waves throughout the whole Empire, disheartening and weakening the Mandarins, and making thieves and robbers impudent. The small school at Sha Tau Kok went under, as the children fled the prevailing insecurity, and the teachers left. Despite the disturbances, however, the services and worship of God were seldom interrupted, in fact, only when the cannons thundered. The Mission, however, closed down during this period, in part because of the “prevailing insecurity”, and in part because of illness among the missionaries. The Mission was re-established at Lilong (WJ), 20 miles to the north-west of Sha Tau Kok, near Po Kat (Bup, fb'). 24 The Punti clans around Sham Chun had a similar district school, the Sham Chun Community School, in the market there, which brought them a great deal of prestige (D Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, op cit). 25 See Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society, op cit, p. 200, n. 4. These dead were very possibly the victims of the Taiping fighting in 1854. 26 See Enclosure 22 to Item 204 (pp. 272-273) in File No. 66. Correspondence (June 20 1898 to August 20 1900) Respecting the Extension of the Boundaries of the Colony, printed for the Colonial Office, London, November, 1900. It is worth noting that the Council of the Punti clans in Sham Chun, the Tung Ping Kuk, also met in a Meeting Hall attached to the Community School there. 27 No firm evidence survives as to the date of either gun-tower, but the eastern tower was in existence in the present elders' fathers' time, and thus before 1898. The eastern gun tower "looked less old" than the western one in the 1920s. 28 Sugar was probably the item most heavily smuggled into China in the early 1930s, because of its prohibitively high import duty. See Jutan BL, 1887-1986, (Xianggang Haiguan Bainian Dashiji, 1887-1986, (Chugao), [A record of major Events of the Hundred Years of the Kowloon customs, 1887-1986, (Draft)], Canton, 1987, 1931, and 1932 (estimates of smuggled sugar in 1932 were 640 tons in April, 20,984 piculs in May, and 14,400 piculs in July). 29 Administrative Reports, App J. “Report on the New Territories”, for the year 1932, p J3, refers to problems caused by "the heavy customs duty payable on the export of dried fish into China", for the Year 1934, refers to "continuing problems" due to the high import duty on dried fish, which, at $3 per picul, exceeded the value of the fish. For the year 1935, p. J3, refers to the high import duties on "New Territories fish", which were causing difficulties. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 195 Birch, John Grant, Travels in North and Central China, London Hearst and Blackett, 1902 Bishop, Isabella Lucy, The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither, London J Murray, 1883 The Yangtze Valley and Beyond, New York Putnam, 1900 Blackburn Chamber of Commerce, Report of the Mission to China of the Blackburn Chamber of Commerce, 1896-7, Blackburn North East Lancashire Press, 1898 Blakiston, Thomas Wight 1832-1891, Five Months on the Yang-Tze and Notices of Present Rebellions in China, London J Murray, 1862 Bland, John Otway Percy, Houseboat Days in China, London Heinemann, 1919 Boardman, Eugene, Christian Influence Upon the Ideology of the Taiping Rebellion, 1851-1864, Madison University of Wisconsin Press, 1952 Bohr, Paul Richard, Famine in China and the Missionary Timothy Richard as Relief Administrator and Advocate of National Reform, 1876-1884, Cambridge (Mass) Harvard University Press, 1972 Boone, Murel, The Seed of the Church in China, Edinburgh St Andrews Press, 1973 Braam Houckgeest, Andreas Everard van, An Authentic Account of the Embassy of the Dutch East India Company to the Court of the Emperor of China in the Years 1794 and 1795 (Subsequent to that of the Earl of Macartney) from the journals of..., London printed by R Phillips, 1798 Bradford, Ruth, "Maskee?" The Journal and Letters of Ruth Bradford 1861-1872, Hartford The Prospect Press, 1938 Bredon, Juliet, Sir Robert Hart: The Romance of a Great Career, London Hutchinson, 1909 (New York Dutton, 1909) —, Peking, Shanghai Kelly and Walsh, 1931 (Hong Kong reprint Oxford University Press) Bruce, Clarence D., In the Footsteps of Marco Polo, Edinburgh Blackwood, 1907 Bryson, Mary Isabella, The Land of the Pigtail, London The Sunday School Union, 1905 Burland, Cottie Arthur, The Travels of Marco Polo (with photographs by Werner Forman), London Joseph, 1971 Cable, Mildred, Through Jade Gate and Central Asia, with an introduction by Rev John Stuart Houghton, London Constable, 1927 ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g 215 Younghusband, Francis, The Heart of a Continent. London John Murray, 1896 (Hong Kong Reprint. Oxford University Press) Yuan, Chung Teng, Reverend Issachar Jacob Roberts and the Taiping Rebellion, Journal of Asian Studies 23.1:55-67 (November 1963) Yule, Colonel Sir Henry, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian, Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, edited and with notes by Henri Cordier, London John Murray, 3rd edn, 1903 —, Cathay and the Way Thither, new edition revised with notes prepared by Henri Cordier, London Hakluyt Society, 1915 (Taipei Reprint Ch'eng-wen Publishing) J MANI ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 200 The influence of these western-educated Cantonese extended northward in the 1860s when western firms such as Jardine and Swire established their branch offices in the newly opened Treaty ports — Shanghai in 1850, Fuzhou in 1854 and Hankou in 1861. It was in these new Treaty ports that the Cantonese recognized that a new job market in politics was open to them. A "Western Affairs Movement” was initiated by several powerful provincial officials in China by the 1870s. Under the patronage of these officials, economic and legal reforms were introduced into China in the name of westernization. These officials who rose to power after suppressing the Taiping Rebellion without Beijing's support, developed huge business enterprises in the name of the "official supervision — merchant management” or “western-affairs movement". The Hong Kong compradores were mainly responsible for the collection of capital. Their credibility came not from the enterprises they set up, with or without the legal backing of a company law, but from their own reputation as well as the political patronage behind them. Amidst the rhetoric of these western affairs movements, “reform-minded" officials recruited their own advisors and set up their own personal governments, known as Mufu, literally, tent government, or what we now call think-tanks. Many Cantonese, with or without imperial degrees, were sought to fill these posts. The strength of this “Cantonese party” rested on their early access to things western — the "Cantonese faction established predominance in China's internal affairs and foreign relations... [their strength] lies in the monopoly in the matter of emigration overseas ... Before 1840, Canton was the only port open to foreign traders”. On how these think-tank members were appointed, westerners observed that: in the exercise of patronage... the principle is that which animated Washington in the selection of his first cabinet. Latterly the Canton party, ultra-progressive, has come to the front. In the 1870s amidst this rhetoric of westernization, and with the assistance of western-educated Cantonese, the "reform-minded" officials managed to bargain with Beijing and develop huge business enterprises under their patronage. In an environment where company law and stock markets were absent, these reform-minded officials started these modern enterprises under an arrangement known as the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1996 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/3n209j641 254 of death rituals, rites of passage, gender role, festivals and customs, ancestor worship and feng shui, Constable illustrates that the Shung Him Tong Hakkas' attempt to reconcile Hakka-Chinese and Hakka-Christian identities is an ongoing process. This ongoing process is also demonstrated in the continuous transforming images of Hakka characters. The older generation emphasises Chineseness despite being Christians; the younger generation tends to allow Christianity a far more obvious role in their lives (Chapter 6). Chapter 2 is devoted to a discussion on Hakka migration and the Taiping Rebellion, both events thought to have been important in the construction of Hakka identity. According to the book, the former provides the Hakkas with a historical mechanism to identify themselves as "Orthodox Chinese," and the latter provided, other than lineage, an "organisational structure that helped bring together those who became influential in inventing and articulating Hakka identity” (p. 38). If these two historical events were so crucial to the construction of early Hakka identity, one would expect to know more about how they were told and utilised by the Shung Him Tong Hakka Christians to reconstruct their own Hakka identity, not through records by historians of European missionaries. Without this, it is difficult to relate the construction of early Hakka identity and the reconstruction of the Hakka-Christian identity in Shung Him Tong. Shung Him Tong is located near Lung Yeuk Tau, a village compound dominated by the powerful Tang lineage. It is also situated close to two other influential localised lineages in the New Territories of Hong Kong: the Pangs of Fanling and the Lius of Sheung Shui. Though the political influence of the early founders of Shung Him Tong is mentioned, Constable does not explain how the marginal situation of the village contributed to the survival of the community, which is Christian and Hakka (as against Chinese and indigenous Punti villages like Lung Yeuk Tau, Fanling, and Sheung Shui). It is also unclear how, unlike the Lius of Sheung Shui, who had to change their ethnic identity from Hakka to Punti, this marginal nature of the community is manipulated by the Shung Him Tong Hakkas to reconstruct their own unique Hakka-Christian identity. There are also some minor imprecisions. One of which is Qing Ming, which does not fall in “Spring during the third month of the ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 193 These communist iconoclastic campaigns are by no means unique in Chinese history. Over the centuries one or other of the beliefs have found favour at the expense of others, temples have been razed, religious communities dispersed and images destroyed. Within the past century and a half we have seen the Taiping Rebellion of the mid 19th century which covered much of central-southern China; the Boxer Rebellion of the turn of the century in northern China; and the nationwide Anti-Superstition Campaign of the Republican Kuomintang in the late 1920s, all of which destroyed temples and their contents. From an historic preservation point of view it is worth recalling that temples within the two foreign colonies at the mouth of the Pearl River, held by Portugal and Britain, remained unscathed during these years and, in Macau for instance, some of the images and temples date back three to four hundred years. We look forward then with great interest to see what will happen in the future to the urban and rural temples and shrines in Hong Kong and Macau. They are sure to survive though I have a horrible suspicion that sooner or later they might be converted to electronic devices. NOTES It is not difficult to see how the confusion rose in Chinese minds. During the 19th and early 20th centuries Catholic and Protestant missionaries rarely co-operated and, in many places, actually denounced the other as heterodox. Also, the Catholic priests, berobed bachelors, with prayers and chants in a dead language, with church images and incense, were sufficiently similar to the Buddhists for the Chinese to empathise. Protestant missionaries on the other hand tended to be married and live isolated from their parishioners; they dressed either as pseudo-Chinese or in dark heavy western suits, and lived frugally whilst preaching of hell fire and damnation. To the Chinese these were two entirely separate religions. If we take as a very rough estimate 6,000 temples in present day Taiwan where religious freedom is permitted and temples have been flourishing, then the figure of 20,000 in the coastal province in mainland China opposite to Taiwan across the Straits must include every possible shrine, never mind how small. 3 I have to thank Professor K Dean of McGill University for this observation. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794 285 THE AMERICAN SOLDIER OF FORTUNE FREDERICK TOWNSEND WARD HONOURED AND REVERED BY THE CHINESE WITH A MEMORIAL TEMPLE KEITH STEVENS Frederick Townsend Ward was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1831 and though he is said to have attended a private college in the United States, which included a military element in its curriculum, he failed to graduate. He left home and as a young ship's officer sailed on several trading voyages to China. In his twenties, having sought excitement and a career as a free-booter during which time he claimed that he had fought in the Crimea with the French and in Central America where he met Garibaldi, he sailed yet as an officer on a US registered ship to China where, at the time, the Taiping rebellion, a major rebellion against the Ch'ing [Manchu] dynasty, was at its height and he finally sought employment ashore. Basically, he was a mercenary who saw his chance and took employment first sponsored by local Chinese officials and supported by a Chinese official in the defence of the Shanghai area from the rebels, then later by Ch'ing officials in his campaign against the same rebels, either for gain or excitement, possibly both. Ward raised a force of some hundred Western mercenaries, on behalf of the Chinese in Shanghai, together with scores of Filipinos, as well as soldiers and sailors discharged or deserters from the Anglo-French expedition, for the protection of the city against what seemed like an impending attack by the Taiping Rebel forces. This proved a failure and a year or so later he raised a highly competent and disciplined force of Chinese soldiers officered by Westerners to fight the rebels. Ward became a Chinese citizen with an official rank. He claimed Chinese nationality when arrested by the captain of a British warship for violating neutrality but in the event was handed over to the Chinese because of his "non-nationality." At first the force of about a thousand was known as the Foreign- ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2001 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zg651950g 1 March 2002 ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY HONG KONG BRANCH LIBRARY ADDITIONS LIST 2001/2002 Adams, Edward Ben, 1934- Palaces of Seoul: Yi dynasty palaces in Korea's capital city; foreword by Hwang Su-Young. Seoul, Korea: Taewon Pub. Co., c1972. Belden, Jack, 1910- China shakes the world. New York: Harper & brothers, c1949. Bodde, Derk, 1909- Law in imperial China: exemplified by 190 Ch'ing dynasty cases (translated from the Hsing-an hui-lan) with historical, social, and juridical commentaries. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, c1967. Boulger, Demetrius Charles de Kavanagh, 1853-1928 The life of Sir Halliday Macartney, K.C.M.G., commander of Li Hung Chang's trained force in the Taeping rebellion, founder of the first Chinese arsenals, for thirty years councillor and secretary to the Chinese legation in London. London, New York: J. Lane company, 1908. Carney, Dora Sanders, 1903- Foreign devils had light eyes: a memoir of Shanghai 1933-1939. Toronto: Dorset Pub., 1980. Copper, John Franklin Words across the Taiwan Strait: a critique of Beijing's "White paper" on China's reunification. Lanham: University Press of America, c1995. Croft, Michael Red carpet to China. London: Longmans, c1958. Cronin, Vincent, 1924- The wise man from the West. London: R. Hart-Davis, c1955. xlv ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 216 forces of the British and French armies were departing Canton, so that whether these events had any correlation may be an additional issue. Nothing seems to have been consciously planned as an attack on the Governor-General, though he felt threatened by the riot (the events in Poklo being some 40 miles east of Canton). At the very least the vigilantes were acting "in flagrant violation of the stipulations of the [1860] Treaty," "stirring up the hatred of the people toward foreigners, and their dislike to Christianity." Whether they had other "ambitious ends" hidden under the banner and their rhetoric remained a serious, but moot, question. Following normal protocol for this kind of emergency, Chalmers acting on behalf of the London Missionary Society presented their complaints to the consul at Canton. The missionaries had been given no indication of the Governor-General's intentions, but Legge specifically adds that, if all else failed, they could refer the matter "to our Ambassador at Peking." His attitude toward the Qing bureaucracy was unqualified and negative: "The [Qing] Government is effete. The foundations are destroyed.” Although this might seem like an overstatement, the feelings reflected a fairly realistic evaluation of the disarray of an empire overcome by foreign powers in the capital and unable to handle the massive Taiping Rebellion which continued to defy imperial armies and ruled over much of the centre of the empire at the time. Other means for dealing with the crisis were also at hand. Daily prayer about the whole situation and its continuing problems became the self-imposed discipline by the Chinese Christians in Hong Kong, prompting Legge to compare this "painful and discouraging" situation in Poklo with the "primitive forthgoing of Christianity” where persecution was also a stimulus for expansion. It was part of the "cunning of history" that Legge's life and name for the next decade were identified with two major issues of the year of 1861: Poklo and his Chinese Classics.90 In missionary publications he became "Dr. Legge of Hong Kong and Poklo,” and in Hong Kong itself, the memories were more vivid and even more powerful in creating around him a kind of aura as a “folk hero" in the Carlylean sense of the term. At least one major event later in ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 259 towns and villages of the region visiting their Chinese agents, taking orders for tobacco and sugar and checking sales and receipts, used Zhenjiang as one of their bases. They were known as 'sugar and tobacco travellers'. An extract from the Shanghai Mercury in 1887 described Zhenjiang and its surroundings in the not untypical purple prose of the newspaper hack of the day: Few ports in China would seem to be better situated for trade than Chinkiang, a few perhaps have been more disappointing. The first glimpse of the port is eminently reassuring, as the fine bund, at the time of the year bosomed [sic] in trees, the conspicuous houses topped by the British Consulate, and the goodly array of hulks connected by handy bridges with the shore make a picture surpassed in our picturesqueness by none. The hum of traffic and the cry of coolies permeates the air; the familiar aspect of the Sikh policeman appears at the corners of the British concession; the concession roads are wide and well kept, and, what is unfortunately unusual in China, the enterprise of the foreign residents has succeeded in acquiring a system of good riding roads penetrating the country in all directions as far as from four to six miles from the central point. At the first opening of the port it was assumed that, with the suppression of the Taiping rebellion, its unrivalled position would make it the centre of a large and increasing trade. The Inspector-General nursed it, and proclaimed it the natural rival of Shanghai, British consuls prophesied a direct trade on its own account with Europe, even the native authorities for a time seemed to have come out of their shell and lent it aid and counsel. One Taot'ai', to his honour, be it said, laying aside the prejudices of his class, re-introduced the art of silk cultivation, and the mulberry trees planted by his assistance have originated almost the only industry which remains in the neighbourhood. In spite, however, of all this flourish, Chinkiang remains a comparatively poor port...the British concession is but a small spot, a few hundred yards square, and on it is concentrated the entire trade of the place, native as well as foreign. Although Zhenjiang in reality was but a minor treaty port it was well-known to western expatriates in China during the 19th century as • ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 263 after a siege of 49 days. Most accounts claim that they died by their own hands rather than fall into those of the enemy. Our interest lies in Zhang. He was born in Henan in AD 709 and died with Xu on either the 15th of the second or the 9th of the tenth lunar months in 757. Zhang was the military mandarin in Suiyang and is occasionally referred to in temple records as Zhang Suiyang. Before being posted to Suiyang he had been employed in military operations in Central Asia where his discipline was legendary. In 756 during the rebellion of An Lushan he fought many battles, was wounded on a number of occasions and performed prodigies of valour. The climax was reached by his heroic defence of the Henan provincial city of Suiyang against the rebel army commanded by An Lushan's son. Zhang refused to yield and even sacrificed his favourite concubine to no avail. The enemy broke in and as he scorned to owe allegiance to his conqueror was immediately put to death. It is said that during the siege his patriotic rage caused him to grind his teeth so that after his death it was found that all but three or four had been worn down to the very gums. In central China the rain and crop deity, the Bodhisattva of the Whole of Heaven, Doutian Pusa or the Marshal of the Whole of Heaven, Doutian Yuanshuai, was believed to be an incarnation of Zhang who, it was said, had intervened to assist the imperial forces during the Taiping wars ca. 1855 and had been awarded the title of Zhangwei. His major local shrine is some distance outside the southern gate of Zhenjiang, a little beyond the shell of a Ming pagoda. There was also a shrine to him in the city's new main street, Ma Lu; another in a village on the road to the Bamboo Grove, and yet another in the village of Doutian Miao where the Imperial battery had been located on the north shore of the Yangzi abreast of Jiao Shan. Annually, during the Fourth lunar month, Zhenjiang was crowded with country folk who came to enjoy the procession of gods being borne through the streets of the city, including the image of Doutian Pusa. When the Tang dynasty collapsed China fell back into feudal kingdoms, one of which was the Xiu dynasty of Nantang. Under their rule the walls of Zhenjiang were repaired. Xiu Lijing succeeded his father in 946 and during his reign he annexed what today is Fujian province and added it to his dominion of Jiangxi, most of Anhui and Jiangsu, thus becoming one of the largest states in China at the time. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 268 bannermen stationed there. The great Qing emperor Qian Long, travelled far and wide throughout his empire on Inspection Tours and visited Zhenjiang. He had a particular love for the monastery at Jin Shan. Lord Macartney was yet another visitor who, in 1792, passed through Zhenjiang on his way up to Beijing, during his unsuccessful attempt to achieve British diplomatic representation there. He was much impressed by the crossing of the Yangzi from the southern arm of the Grand Canal to the start of the northern arm, and by the pagoda-crowned islands he observed on the Yangzi. These would be Jin Shan and the Ganlu Si. Some twenty-five years later Lord Amherst's Mission to Beijing also visited Zhenjiang. His visit was also unsuccessful and, moreover, he was treated with gross discourtesy in the Capital. The storming and capture of Zhenjiang by the British force under Sir Hugh Gough on the 21st July 1842 during the First Anglo-Chinese War This episode in Zhenjiang's history is described in Part II by Phillip Bruce. The problems facing the Qing emperors and their survival from both within and without China during the seventy or so years after 1840 heightened political consciousness and the increasing weakening of control due to unrest and an increase in brigandage. During the latter years of the Qing forced confrontation with Western culture in treaty ports led to the spread of popular unrest and Zhenjiang was no exception. The Taiping era The Taiping Rebellion was an armed rebellion against the Manchu Emperor. It grew out of worsening social and economic conditions, with a number of secret societies and clan groups offering an existence economy and protection. The foreign dynasty of the Manchus had lost its drive and with opium addiction widespread, the scene was set and ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 269 the time ripe for an insurrection.. The rebellion began among the Hakka people in the southern provinces of Guangxi and Guangdong and by 1853 was spreading north and west, led by Hong Xiuquan, a schoolmaster who had picked up a smattering of Christianity. Whilst suffering from an illness he experienced severe hallucinations and saw that his mission was to free the Chinese from Manchu rule. He also convinced himself and others that he was the younger brother of Christ and a son of God sent to save mankind. The Taiping rebels were known colloquially by the Chinese peasants as the Long-haired Rebels, Chang Mao, as they refused to shave the front of their head. [China's Manchu conquerors had ordered that all Chinese males would shave the front half of their head and wear the rest tied into a lengthy queue or 'pigtail'.] Hong Xiuquan's liberated territory was known as the Kingdom of Great Peace, Taiping Tianguo and by 1860 he had more than a quarter of China under his control. Much of the fighting between the Manchu Imperial forces and the Taiping rebel armies took place across Zhejiang province and down the Yangzi, especially around the Taiping capital at Nanjing. With Zhenjiang captured by the Taiping in April 1853 [a mere eleven years after the British had taken the city], their control of the southern bank of the Yangzi was virtually complete. Zhenjiang lay deserted during the Taiping era, being no more than a fort occupied by the Taiping rebels. The pagodas and temples were all destroyed with the usual Taiping iconoclastic fervour, and in many places their stones used as fortifications. The city, surrounded on three sides by a remarkable line of Taiping trenches some ten to eleven miles in length, was besieged several times by the Imperial forces. Each time they were driven off, with the city remaining in Taiping hands until compelled by a failure of supplies the rebels were forced to evacuate it early in 1857. Zhenjiang never fully recovered. The Taiping were finally defeated in 1864 when their capital at Nanjing finally fell to the Imperial forces - assisted by several foreign-led armies of Chinese and western mercenaries, one of which was the Ever-Victorious Army under General Gordon. Rasmussen in 1905 refers to the decayed trench system as 'Gordon's trenches', with some of his guns still to be found sunk deep into the soil of their old embrasures. He added that 'the only reminder now [1905] of the Taiping Rebellion was the thousands of graves covering the countryside, and the ghost-ridden walled city where the whole population had been put to the sword'. Thomas Adkins, the British Consul in Zhenjiang, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 289 There has been many an article printed in Britain and the US both for and against their nationals whose activities as missionaries in China varied from the mild and mediocre to the wild, bigoted and in a number of instances weird and incomprehensible. There were those whose lonely lives drove them to despair, to insanity and even to suicide. Others caused untold harm to the cause by their intemperate sermons, lectures and even actions. Their success rate in China was abysmal and The Times even wrote that missionaries in general were not very well educated and not gentlemen." This was not always so and their social origins did not matter, but with a number taking the Bible literally, their grasp of the accepted meaning of biblical scriptures and of language, both English and Chinese, was inadequate leading not only to blinkered bigotry but also to an inability to 'sell' their ideals. There were a great many good, well-intentioned missionaries but with the general evangelising attitude of the Victorian era most Chinese found any spiritual message out of step with their personal religious experience and their own culture. Christianity as taught during the 19th and early 20th centuries failed to appeal to or attract contemporary Chinese who were possibly no more than mildly intrigued to hear what a foreigner might have to say. The multiplicity of sects, teachings and churches, as well as different terms for God, confused Chinese. The Roman Catholics had a far higher conversion rate primarily due to their sympathetic attitudes and policy of getting as near to being one of the community, in dress and living conditions [apart, that is, from the very rare luxuries of wine and cigars]. Missionaries had first seen the Taiping Rebellion as the outcome of missionary enterprise. This view changed when it became apparent that the Taiping leadership had revised and interpreted Christianity. The Taiping leaders had, for example, adopted polygamy for themselves whilst banning it for their followers, and lived in luxury having misappropriated untold wealth. The notable early Protestant missionary, Griffith John, made a sweeping reconnaissance across the Yangzi basin in June of 1858 but when visiting Zhenjiang he decided that it was too close to the Taipings at Nanjing and moved on.27 The London Mission eventually commenced work in Zhenjiang in 1868, and regarding the city as an outstation of Shanghai they rented ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278 312 * Li Zee-min (1950) Chinese Potpourri. Hong Kong: Oriental Publishers [He relates a local Hong Kong legend about the arrival of the young emperor escorted by Lu in what is now Kowloon, fleeing ahead of the Mongols. Li claims that the headman of the Hakka walled village of Kowloon was Tan Gong who died during the last battle with the Mongol fleet when Lu, with the emperor in his arms, jumped overboard to their deaths]. Couling, Samuel (1917) Encyclopaedia Sinica. Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh 11 Yu Dayu is recorded as being a native of Fujian who died in 1573 having made his name as the victor in the struggle to defeat the Japanese pirates along the coast of China and in particular that of Zhejiang. 12 Yang Xiuqing as one of the leading lights of the Taiping Rebellion, to whose military genius much of the early success of the movement was due. He was known as the Taiping Eastern King [Prince], and professed to be the spokesman of God. After the capture of Nanjing by the Taipings he established his palace in the yamen of the former Viceroy and lived in great state. By 1856 he had begun a campaign of political and religious intrigue to usurp the position of leader and to overthrow Hong Xiuquan, the founder. His plans were uncovered and he, his family and thousands of his supporters were slain by Wei Changhui, the Taiping Northern King. 13 extracted from the Transcription of the letters written from China to Milcote, Stratford on Avon by Thomas Adkins between 1855 and 1879 by courtesy of Theo Christophers of Dorridge, West Midlands : November 1999 14 Hymes, Robert P. (1986) Statesmen and Gentlemen: The Elite of Fu-chou, Kiangsi, in Northern and Southern Sung. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 15 Although the name was known much earlier Mao Shan has always been the centre of a Daoist sect. [see Kita Aziya gakuho, a Japanese Journal, Vol. 2] 16 Doré, Henri S.J. (1914) Recherches sur les Superstitions en China. Shanghai [Zikawei] : La Mission Catholique : Vol. XI 17 Werner, E.T.C (1932) A Dictionary of Chinese Mythology. Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 17 In the early Qing Dynasty Longhua Temple received considerable attention in the form of repairs to the existing buildings and construction of new ones. A major construction project started in 1647 resulted in the completion of the Abbot or Temple Master's Room (Fang Zhang Shi) and the Wei Tuo Hall (Wei Tuo Dian), as well as the repair of the Scripture Storage Pavilion (Cang Jing Ge). It will be recalled that during the Yuan Dynasty the temple experienced a massive expansion in the size of its territory, if not its actual structures. In 1672 the Qing authorities measured the size of the immediate area around the temple halls as occupying 93 mu of land, plus an additional 74 mu of open land in the surrounding area which was used to plant vegetables. It was this later open space which gradually evolved into first Longhua Park, and then the present day Martyr's Cemetery. During a 155 year period in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, from 1672 to 1827, no new construction, reconstruction or repairs were recorded. This begs the question as to why the temple was dormant during such a long period of time. Was it lack of imperial sympathy for Buddhism in general, or simply the absence of wars and destruction requiring later rehabilitation during this relatively peaceful time? After a century and a half of dormancy, the Taiping Rebellion finally provided the opportunity or the need for new construction and repairs. Between 1860 and 1862 the Taiping rebels attacked Shanghai three times, during which records say vaguely that most of the Longhua Temple buildings were destroyed. On August 18, 1860 the Taipings captured Xu Jia Hui, and it was probably then when the nearby Longhua Temple was destroyed. Although no list is provided of exactly which buildings were destroyed, we can infer from later lists of the structures rebuilt afterwards that this included the Great Sadness Hall (Da Bei Dian), the Precious Hall of the Great Hero (Da Xiong Bao Dian), the Heavenly Kings Hall (Tian Wang Dian), the Three Gods Hall (San Sheng Dian), the Maitreya Buddha Hall (Mi Le Fo Dian), the Drum Tower (Gu Lou), the Bell Tower (Zhong Lou), and the Big Buddha Hall (Da Fo Dian). Basically every previously existing key structure is mentioned as having been rebuilt after this period of destruction, with the exception of the die-hard Precious Pagoda (Bao Ta) and the Master's Room (Fang Zhang Shi), raising the possibility that the two structures which stand today are both authentic originals. ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2003 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390 25 Yin. While Guanyin has compassionate mercy for those in need, it is Da Shi Zhi who possesses the power to actually carry out her acts of kindness. The San Sheng Dian houses by far the oldest of Longhua's three bronze bells, this one supposedly dating from 1132, which would also make it the oldest historic relic the temple possesses today. The hall itself dates from an 1884 reconstruction, when it was rebuilt to replace an earlier structure destroyed during the Taiping rebel attacks on Shanghai in 1860-1862. The hall was last restored in 1986. Immediately behind the San Sheng Dian is a walled garden with trees which unfortunately is closed to the public. Inside this walled garden is a fifth main hall, the Abbot's Quarters (Fang Zhang Shi), which is for the private use of the resident monks and their master, the Fang Zhang. It was the only hall which the monks maintained control of during the Cultural Revolution. Normally it is kept off limits to the public and cannot be visited. However, the author was able to steal a glimpse and found that the hall was furnished with rows of large armchairs, and lacked any large statues. Possibly it is a modern day form of the Meditation Hall (Chan Tang). At the far left end of the hall is a small office decorated with framed color photos of the temple's Buddhist leaders posing with Communist Party leaders such as Jiang Zemin. Behind the Abbot's Quarters is the sixth and final courtyard, and the sixth hall on the central axis, the newly built two-story Scripture Hall (Cang Jing Lou). This modern building holds most of the temple's few genuine relics, including a library of 7,000 Qing Dynasty volumes; a Ming Dynasty gold seal given to the temple in 1598 by the emperor Wanli (1573-1620); a Ming Dynasty gold-plated bronze Buddha statue; Tang Dynasty scriptures; and a copy of the Heart Sutra dating from the year 1098, the fifth year of the Zhe Zong reign (1085-1100) of Emperor Zhao Xu of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1126). Exactly how these relics survived the destruction of the Taiping Rebellion, the lengthy military occupation of the Min Guo era, and the Cultural Revolution is unclear. Possibly they were donated to the temple sometime later. Unfortunately the public is not welcomed to visit this sixth hall, and the relics are kept hidden from view, although photographs of them appear in a recent pamphlet sold at the temple's bookstore. Hidden in a seldom visited corner of the temple grounds on the east side of the Fang Zhang Shi's walled garden is a smaller garden ================================================================================