China
° Amoy ° Fuzhou, Pagoda Island ° Canton (Gunagzhou) ° Qingdao
° Hong Kong ° Fuzhou ° Macau ° Ningbo-Zhoushan ° Qingdao ° Peking (Bejing) ° Shanghai ° Tianjin
° Tientsin ° Whampoa
° Yangzhou ° Xiamen ° Pirates in the China Seas
° The Great Wall ° Mahjong ° Opium Wars ° Shaolin (Kung Fu) ° The Jews of Kaifeng (Henan Province)
Hong Kong
September 16, 1866
The Celestial Empire
The Hongkong and Whampoa Dock Company have declared a dividend of 7 per cent, for the half year.
A report is also current in Canton that a German mission station at Kwai Shin has been pulled down.
In response to urgent and persistent appeals, her Majesty the Empress Regent has consented to reign in conjunction with the young Emperor until be has reached the age of twenty.
A proposal has recently been brought before the Chinese in Hongkong and Canton by a foreigner to establish a company to make sugar out of rice. The capital of the company is to be $250,000, in $100 shares.
The British colony of Hong Kong was born from the clash between China and Great Britain in 1839; ostensibly overopium, which the British and other Western traders were importing illegally into China.
On January 25, 1841, Captain Charles Elliot, Royal Navy, arrived in Hong Kong and planted the Union flag, proclaiming Hong Kong as a colony for the United Kingdom.
In 1841, the Queen of England pronounced dominion over Hong Kong Island and promised them:
- Protection against all enemies;
- Freedom to practice their own religion;
- Government according to Chinese laws and customs by village elders, subject to the control of a British magistrate;
- Exemption from the payment of taxes to the British Government.
Britain acquired Hong Kong Island under the Treaty of Nanking (Nanjing) in 1842 at the end of its first war with China. Elliot invited merchants to trade in Hong Kong and he organized the first government land sales. Land was parceled into marine lots (by the sea), town lots (certain areas inland) and suburban lots (all remaining). Some areas were designed as Chinese bazaars and some were reserved for the army and the navy.
The conflict continued, however, because of two fundamentally different concepts of international relations and trade. In the face of Western pressures to open China to trade, the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) clung to the old tributary system and struggled to keep the West at bay. Resenting the Qing dynasty's disdain of foreigners, Britain and other Western traders demanded equal treatment and commercial access to the Chinese market.
By 1844, the population of Hong Kong Island was 20,000, with an influx of Chinese immigrants from the Chinese mainland seeking work.
Maintaining law and order in a community of buccaneers, entrepreneurs and scoundrels was a major problem. Flogging held no terror for half-starved jailbirds from Canton, and imprisonment in the Hong Kong jail was a welcome respite for some. By 1845, a police force was formed of Europeans, Indians and Chinese. But it was inept as crime and fever raged through the Island. In the summer of 1843, 440 Europeans troops died and many people were seriously ill.
The commercial development of Hong Kong's fine natural harbor, which had attracted the British in the first place, began slowly, and Hong Kong lagged behind Shanghai as a port. With the discovery of gold in California in 1849, however, Hong Kong became a center for Chinese emigration from Guangdong Province to the United States, helping to build Hong Kong's economy, as many of the Chinese who went to California returned with their new-found riches.
In 1850 when a new emperor assumed the throne in Beijing, and it became clear the treaties were not being observed. Another war, fought between 1856 and 1860, resulted in Britain's obtaining the tip of the Kowloon Peninsula (on the mainland across the harbor from Hong Kong Island) and Stonecutters Island.
In the ten years to 1853, the population nearly doubled, reaching over 39,000 and by 1859 the population had reached more than 86,000. The huge influx of Chinese was caused partly by the Taiping Rebellion on the mainland and partly by Hong Kong's growing prosperity. To a limited extent, immigration was offset by Chinese emigration to North America and Australia with the gold rushes of 1849 and 1851. Emigration also resulted from the illegal trade in coolie labor for the West Indies.
From as early as 200 B.C.E. Chinese junks sailed to the Malay Peninsula and through the Strait of Malacca. There they met and traded with the Indonesian people and with merchants from east India. During the time of the Han Dynasty (206 B.C. 220 A.D.), Chinese products, such as silk reached the Roman Empire. Nabataean merchants not only traded in silk, but began to manufacture silk products in both Damascus and Gaza, known as Damask and Gauze silk products. Some historians have speculated that the rise in international trade during the period of 200 BC to 200 AD helped the Asian and Arabian civilizations rise to great heights, and acquire great wealth.
When the British started using the excellent harbor on the northern side of Hong Kong Island in the early 1840s, they found more than 3,000 inhabitants in villages and 2,000 fishermen living in their boats in the harbor. The British started referring to the small, hilly, rocky island sheltering the harbor as "Hong Kong," which comes from a local Cantonese dialect and means "fragrant harbor."
The British colony of Hong Kong was born from the clash between two great empires. The ostensible reason for the outbreak of war between China and Great Britain in 1839 was opium, which the British and other Western traders were importing illegally into China.
Captain Charles Elliot, Royal Navy, arrived in Hong Kong on January 25, 1841 and planted the Union flag, proclaiming Hong Kong as a colony for the United Kingdom.
In 1841, the Queen of England pronounced dominion over Hong Kong Island and promised them:
- Protection against all enemies;
- Freedom to practice their own religion;
- Government according to Chinese laws and customs by village elders, subject to the control of a British magistrate;
- Exemption from the payment of taxes to the British Government.
Britain acquired Hong Kong Island under the Treaty of Nanking (Nanjing) in 1842 at the end of its first war with China. Elliot invited merchants to trade in Hong Kong and he organized the first government land sales. Land was parceled into marine lots (by the sea), town lots (certain areas inland) and suburban lots (all remaining). Some areas were designed as Chinese bazaars and some were reserved for the army and the navy.
The conflict continued, however, because of two fundamentally different concepts of international relations and trade. In the face of Western pressures to open China to trade, the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) clung to the old tributary system and struggled to keep the West at bay. Resenting the Qing dynasty's disdain of foreigners, Britain and other Western traders demanded equal treatment and commercial access to the Chinese market.
By 1844, the population of Hong Kong Island was 20,000, with an influx of Chinese immigrants from the Chinese mainland seeking work.
Maintaining law and order in a community of buccaneers, entrepreneurs and scoundrels was a major problem. Flogging held no terror for half-starved jailbirds from Canton, and imprisonment in the Hong Kong jail was a welcome respite for some. By 1845, a police force was formed of Europeans, Indians and Chinese. But it was inept as crime and fever raged through the Island. In the summer of 1843, 440 Europeans troops died and many people were seriously ill.
The commercial development of Hong Kong's fine natural harbor, which had attracted the British in the first place, began slowly, and Hong Kong lagged behind Shanghai as a port. With the discovery of gold in California in 1849, however, Hong Kong became a center for Chinese emigration from Guangdong Province to the United States, helping to build Hong Kong's economy, as many of the Chinese who went to California returned with their new-found riches.
In 1850 when a new emperor assumed the throne in Beijing, and it became clear the treaties were not being observed. Another war, fought between 1856 and 1860, resulted in Britain's obtaining the tip of the Kowloon Peninsula (on the mainland across the harbor from Hong Kong Island) and Stonecutters Island.
In the ten years to 1853, the population nearly doubled, reaching over 39,000 and by 1859 the population had reached more than 86,000. The huge influx of Chinese was caused partly by the Taiping Rebellion on the mainland and partly by Hong Kong's growing prosperity. To a limited extent, immigration was offset by Chinese emigration to North America and Australia with the gold rushes of 1849 and 1851. Emigration also resulted from the illegal trade in coolie labor for the West Indies.
Pirates preying on shipping in Hong Kong waters were a constant problem, and not all were Chinese. A famous English renegade, William Fenton, was eventually brought to trial in 1851, sentenced to three year's hard labor, then deported. An American pirate, Eli Boggs, was tried for murder and piracy in 1857 and deported.
During these trade development years, Chinese authorities were unable to prevent to control the trade of opium, which lay in the hands of the English, who attempted to create an opium monopoly in Hong Kong. The monopoly was unsatisfactory, so licenses were sold -- at $30 a month -- to sell raw opium. By 1858, with the Treaty of Tientsin, which legalized opium sales in China, the drug was also taxed by the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs.
During the 1850s and 1860s, opium was listed as part and parcel of the cargo being brought into San Francisco and sold through it's auction houses through advertisements in the Daily Alta California. Despite the formation in 1874 of the Anglo-Oriental Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade in England, it was not until 1891 that the first serious attempt was made to suppress opium in Hong Kong. But it was 1909 when the export from Hong Kong of prepared opium was forbidden to any country which prohibited its import. However, use of opium remained legal in Hong Kong until the second world war.
Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited
The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited was established in 1865 to finance the growing trade between Europe, India and China.
The inspiration behind the founding of the bank was Thomas Sutherland, a Scot who was then working for the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. He realised that there was considerable demand for local banking facilities in Hong Kong and on the China coast and he helped to establish the bank which opened in Hong Kong in March 1865 and in Shanghai a month later. Soon after its formation the bank opened agencies and branches around the world. Although that network reached as far as Europe and North America, the emphasis was on building up representation in China and the rest of the Asia-Pacific region. In Japan, where a branch was established in 1866, the bank acted as adviser to the government on banking and currency. In 1888, it was the first bank to be established in Thailand, where it printed the country’s first banknotes. From the outset trade finance was a strong feature of the local and international business of the bank, an expertise that has been recognised throughout its history. Bullion, exchange, merchant banking and note issuing also played an important part. By the 1880s, the bank was acting as banker to the Hong Kong government and also participated in the management of British government accounts in China, Japan, Penang and Singapore. In 1874 the bank handled China’s first public loan and thereafter issued most of China’s public loans. By the end of the century, after a strong period of growth and success under the leadership of Thomas Jackson (chief manager for most of that period from 1876 to 1902), the bank was the foremost financial institution in Asia.
By the last quarter of the 19th century, Hong Kong had developed as a British Crown Colony. The 1880s and 1890s were the heyday of colonialism in Asia, and colonial society in Hong Kong reflected the temper of the times. During this period, Hong Kong became an increasingly popular destination for western travelers in Asia. In 1879 Ulysses S. Grant visited Hong Kong during his two-year voyage around the world. Grant's official welcome united the former commander of the Union army with Col. John Mosby, the former Confederate guerrilla leader (who was representing the United States in Hong Kong), and Hong Kong Gov. Sir John Pope-Hennessy, in full imperial regalia. Hong Kong's elite society loved it.
January 29, 1896, Echo, London, United Kingdom
IMPERIAL PORCELAIN STOLEN
A considerable robbery of some priceless porcelain from the Imperial Palace at Pekin has recently come to light. It is alleged that over 300 large and small pieces of green jade, peach blow, sang de boeuf, rose pink egg shell, black hawthorn, and other rarities are missing. The principal curio shops in Pekin are said to have been closed, and their owners arrested, while a number of pieces have been recovered from foreign collectors at Tientsin and Pekin. A well-known Pekin dealer who has been in Shanghai for about a month has left for the north, overland, at the summons of the authorities, to answer for his subordinates. Oue execution is already reported.
CHINA.
Some negotiations having been entered into between her Majesty's Superintendent and the Imperial Commissioners respecting a mode of carrying on the trade between China and England under existing circumstances, the following public notice was issued in consequence thereof:--
TO HER BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S SUBJECTS
It has been agreed between their excellencies the High Commissioner and Governor upon the one side, and the Chief Superintendent of the trade of British subjects upon the other that under existing circumstances--
- The British trade may be carried on outside the Bucca Tigria, without any necessity of signing the bond of consent to Chinese legislation (to be handed to Chinese officers) upon the condition that the ships be subjected to examination.
- That the place of resort shall be the anchorage between Anuaghoy and Chumpee.
- It is fully understood that the vessels while discharging their cargoes outside the Bogue, shall pay the measurement charge in the same manner as if they went up to Whampoa.
The pilots' charges shall also be paid in like manner. - The vessels proceeding to Anungboy will transport their
cargoes by means of chop boats, and will undergo search by the officers.
By Order of the Chief Superintendent,
EDWARD ELMSLIE,
Sec. and Treasurer to the Superintendents
The Silk Road is a historically important international trade route between China and the Mediterranean. Because silk comprised a large proportion of trade along this road, in 1877, it was named 'the Silk Road' by Ferdinand von Richthofen, an eminent German geographer. From the time Zhang Qian opened up the world-famous Silk Road during the Han Dynasty, until the collapse of the Yuan Dynasty, it enjoyed a history of about 1,600 years.
John N. Miksic
Sterling Seagrave
Gavin Menzies
On March 8, 1421, the largest fleet the world had ever seen set sail from China to "proceed all the way to the ends of the earth to collect tribute from the barbarians beyond the seas." When the fleet returned home in October 1423, the emperor had fallen, leaving China in political and economic chaos. The great ships were left to rot at their moorings and the records of their journeys were destroyed. Lost in the long, self-imposed isolation that followed was the knowledge that Chinese ships had reached America seventy years before Columbus and had circumnavigated the globe a century before Magellan. And they colonized America before the Europeans, transplanting the principal economic crops that have since fed and clothed the world.
During the nineteenth century, tens of thousands of Chinese men and women crossed the Pacific to work, trade, and settle in California. Drawn by the gold rush, they brought with them skills and goods and a view of the world that, though still Chinese, was transformed by their long journeys back and forth. They in turn transformed Hong Kong, their main point of embarkation, from a struggling, infant colony into a prosperous, international port and the cultural center of a far-ranging Chinese diaspora.
Making use of extensive research in archives around the world, Pacific Crossing charts the rise of Chinese Gold Mountain firms engaged in all kinds of trans-Pacific trade, especially the lucrative export of prepared opium and other luxury goods. Challenging the traditional view that this migration was primarily a "coolie trade," Elizabeth Sinn uncovers leadership and agency among the many Chinese who made the crossing. In presenting Hong Kong as an "in-between place" of repeated journeys and continuous movement, Sinn also offers a fresh view of the British colony and a new paradigm for migration studies.
A Cruise in Chinese Waters: Being the Log of "The Fortuna." (c 1882)
Augustus F. Lindley
Cornell University
Library Print Collections
The Treasure Fleet of the Dragon Throne, 1405-1433
Louise Levathes
A hundred years before Columbus and his fellow Europeans began making their way to the New World, fleets of giant Chinese junks commanded by the eunuch admiral Zheng He and filled with the empire's finest porcelains, lacquerware, and silk ventured to the edge of the world's "four corners." It was a time of exploration and conquest, but it ended in a retrenchment so complete that less than a century later, it was a crime to go to sea in a multimasted ship.
In Search of a Legendary Armada
James P., Delgado
In 1279, near what is now Hong Kong, Mongol ruler Khubilai Khan fulfilled the dream of his grandfather, Genghis Khan, by conquering China.
The Grand Khan now ruled the largest empire the world has ever seen—one that stretched from the China Sea to the plains of Hungary. He also inherited the world's largest navy—more than seven hundred ships. Yet within fifteen years, Khubilai Khan's massive fleet was gone. What actually happened to the Mongol navy, considered for seven centuries to be little more than legend, has finally been revealed. Renowned archaeologist and historian James P. Delgado has gone diving with a Japanese team studying the remains of the Khan's lost fleet. Delgado pieces together the fascinating tale of Khubilai Khan's maritime forays and unravels one of history's greatest mysteries: What sank the great Mongol fleet?
Chinese Sailed to America Before Columbus: More Secrets from the Dr. Hendon M. Harris, Jr. Map Collection
Charlotte Harris Rees
Douglas Kerr, Julia Kuehn, Editors
Hong Kong University Press
China: The World's Oldest Living Civilization Revealed.
Thames & Hudson Publishers
China's recorded history dates back more than 3,500 years. "China" examines the turbulent history of this immense nation, including the inventiveness of the Bronze Age society, the Barbarian invasions, the conquest by Genghis Khan, the rise and fall of the dynasties, and the Opium Wars. It takes in the architecture of the emperors; the magnificent buildings of the Forbidden City; the imperial tombs, and the mysterious entombed warriors
A Borrowed Place:
The History of Hong Kong
Frank Welsh
The tumultuous history of Britain's last major colony. In 1842 a "barren island" was reluctantly ceded by China to an unenthusiastic Britain. "Hong Kong", grumbled Palmerston, "will never be a mart of trade". But from the outset the new colony prospered, its early growth owing much to the energy and resourcefulness of opium traders, who soon diversified in more respectable directions. In 1859 the Kowloon Peninsula was sold to Britain, and in 1898 a further area of the mainland, the "New Territories", was leased to Britain for 99 years.
The Man Who Loved China:
The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom
Simon Winchester
Toby Musgrave, Will Musgrave
Stories of seven plants - tea, tobacco, sugar, opium, quinine, cotton and rubber - whose discovery and cultivation changed the destinies of countries from America to China, India to Brazil. It investigates the complex legacy of trade routes overseas, the engine and imperative for colonial expansion, and shows how great fortunes were built upon a dark history of espionage, slavery, danger and conflict. Illustrated.
China and Maritime Europe
1500-1800: Trade, Settlement, Diplomacy, and Missions
John E. Wills, Jr., John Cranmer-Byng
A view of China in some of its most complicated and intriguing relations with a world of increasing global interconnection. New World silver, Chinese tea, Jesuit astronomers at the Chinese court, and merchants and marauders play important roles here. A full and clear summary, based on sources in Chinese and in European languages, making this information accessible to students and scholars interested in the growing connections among continents and civilizations in the early modern period.
An Exotic History of Tea, Drugs, and Money in the Age of Sail
Eric Jay Dolin
Ancient China collides with America in this epic tale of opium smugglers, sea pirates, and dueling clipper ships.
Brilliantly illuminating one of the least-understood areas of American history, best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin traces our fraught relationship with China back to its roots: the unforgiving nineteenth-century seas that separated brash, rising naval powers from ancient empires. It is a prescient fable for our time, one that surprisingly continues to shed light on our modern relationship with China. Indeed, the furious trade in furs, opium, and bêche-de-mer--a rare sea cucumber delicacy--might have catalyzed America's emerging economy, but it also sparked an ecological and human rights catastrophe. Peopled with fascinating characters--from the "Financier of the Revolution" Robert Morris to the Chinese emperor Qianlong, who considered foreigners inferior beings--this saga of pirates and politicians, coolies and concubines becomes a must-read for any fan of Nathaniel Philbrick's Mayflower or Mark Kurlansky's Cod. Two maps, and 16 pages of color and 83 black-and-white illustrations.
Historical Fiction
Hung Lou Meng: Book I
Cao Xeugin
Translated by H. Bencraft Joly
First appearing 1791, it is a masterpiece of Chinese literature and one of China's Four Great classical novels. It was composed during the Qing Dynasty and is generally acknowledged to be a pinnacle of Chinese fiction. The novel is believed to be semi-autobiographical, mirroring the rise and decay of author's own family and, by extension, of the Qing Dynasty. It is intended to be a memorial to the women the author knew in his youth - friends, relatives and servants. At the center of the story is Bao-yu, a precocious boy and his romantic affinity to his poetry-loving, orphaned cousin, Dai-yu. The novel is remarkable for its huge cast of characters and psychological scope, its precise and detailed observation of the life and social structures typical of 18th-century Chinese aristocracy.
The Honored Dead
Robert N. Macomber
Seventh in the award-winning Honor Series. Lt. Cmdr. Peter Wake, in French Indochina in 1883, meets up with opium warlords, Chinese-Malay pirates, and French gangsters. Perfect for armchair historians and adventurers. It has been compared to the best historical sea fiction ever written by Patrick O'Brian and C.S. Forester as well as the historical fiction of Bernard Cornwell.
Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker was born on June 26, 1892, in Hillsboro, West Virginia. Her parents were Southern Presbyterian missionaries, most often stationed in China. From childhood, Pearl spoke both English and Chinese. She returned to China shortly after graduation from Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1914, and the following year, she met a young agricultural economist named John Lossing Buck. They married in 1917, and moved to Nanhsuchou in rural Anhwei province. In this impoverished community, Pearl Buck gathered the material that she would later use in her other stories of China. Her first novel, East Wind, West Wind, was published in 1930.
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