Book Review: Forgotten Heroes: San On County and its Magistrates in the Late Ming and Early Qing

Journal of the

Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong 香港皇家亞洲學會學報

Volume 58

2018

Books

271

Forgotten Heroes: San On County and its Magistrates in the Late Ming and Early Qing by Patrick H. Hase Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press (RAS Hong Kong Studies Series), 2017, 333 pages. ISBN 978-962-937-306-1, HK$238.00 (Reviewed by James L. Watson) Most historians of Ming and Qing dynastic China focus on the ‘big name’ officials who operated in the imperial capital and managed the empire. Patrick Hase is an outlier in the sense that he has always focused on the lives of ordinary people. After earning a Ph.D. in Anglo-Saxon history at Cambridge, he joined the Hong Kong colonial service as a D.O. (District Officer) in the New Territories, among other posts. Those who know him await his autobiography, in which we expect to learn about hog-butchers in Kowloon, teahouse politics in Sha Tin, and smugglers in Hong Kong waters.

During his 40-plus years of residence in Hong Kong, Hase has produced a large corpus of writings that his many anthropologist admirers would call ‘ethnographic history.’ His 2008 book, The Six-Day War of 1899: Hong Kong in the Age of Imperialism, is widely regarded as the definitive study of the 189899 military occupation of the New Territories by British colonial forces. He is also author of Custom, Land and Livelihood in Rural South China: Traditional Land Law in Hong Kong’s New Territories, published by the RAS in 2013.

The book under review delves into the social history of the Pearl River Delta by concentrating on the careers of two obscure imperial officials who did everything they could to ameliorate the lives of ordinary people during the chaotic period of the Ming-Qing transition. The forgotten heroes in Hase’s account are Zhou Xiyao (周希曜) and Li Kechang (李可成) who served as magistrates in Guangdong’s Xin’an County (新安縣), out of which Hong Kong and the New Territories eventually emerged. Xin’an was never a particularly important or glorious posting. Hase tracks the history of the county through a close reading of the local documents and official gazetteers—texts produced by educated residents who were charged with the responsibility of recording events of consequence.

For most farmers in Xin’an the only regular interchange with government officials involved the collection and assessment of land taxes. It is clear from Hase’s earlier book (2013 cited above) that tax matters were managed by landlords and landlord institutions, many of which were wealthy lineages.

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Ordinary villagers had little contact with imperial officials and, if they did, the results were never good. The New Territories is replete with myths and legends that warn of the wrath of the emperor and his representatives. Hase notes that villagers born during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries all reported that ‘the idea of approaching the [county magistrate’s headquarters] filled them, and their fathers and forefathers, with horror.’

An interesting feature of the book is that it contains a tour of the county yamen—the walled compound in the town of Nantou, where the magistrate and his assistants maintained offices, living quarters and security facilities.

Hase ‘walks’ the reader through the buildings and alleyways, as described in surviving documents. He speculates that the barricaded jail (a forbidding place) no doubt doubled as the county treasury where silver currency and weapons were stored. Unfortunately, all that survives of the Nantou yamen today is a building that was probably used as a gunpowder store for the military guard.

Hase also explores the role of courier soldiers, treasury guards, and the notorious ‘runners’ who worked for the magistrate. (The English term, runner, derives from the practice of literally running messages from one part of the county to another.) At the end of the nineteenth century there were 60 runners in Xin’an County. They were required to be literate in order to produce written reports of their investigations conducted in outlying regions of the county. Another interesting feature of runner training was that they had to speak at least a rudimentary level of guanhua (官話), a form of Mandarin spoken—often very badly—by officials throughout the empire.

Hase also notes that runners manned the watchtowers of the county seat on a 24-hour basis, every day of the year. Given their role as investigators and enforcers it is not surprising that they had a fearsome reputation among county residents.

One of the ‘forgotten heroes’ who gives this book its name was an ethnic Manchu born on the steppes of northern China. Li Kechang was involved in what is commonly known as the Great Coastal Evacuation of the Guangdong coast during the early Qing dynastic era (1644–1911). For several years the Xin’an region was occupied by Qing troops who forced local residents to abandon their homes and retreat several miles from the coastline. The goal was to deprive Ming loyalist forces of any possibility of support from coastal residents. The consequences were catastrophic for local people, among whom were the founders of several patrilineages that now dominate the New Territories and parts of the Shenzhen region.

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The other ‘forgotten hero’, Zhou Xiyao, was magistrate of Xin’an county from 1640 to 1644, the last years of the Ming dynasty. Hase singles out Zhou as a hero in the sense that he did all he could to ameliorate the suffering of local people during what was obviously a period of disaster and disorder. Soon after he was deposed, the region dissolved into a period that New Territories villagers still, to this day, speak of in hushed terms.

One of the best sections of this book (in this reviewer’s opinion) is the discussion of the salt production and salt workers in the Pearl River Delta.

Chapter six, ‘Salt and Fish,’ is a detailed account of the Ming salt pans that were managed and controlled by state officials. In fact, as Hase shows, the salt trade and the brackish-water ecosystems along the delta were responsible for the early Han ethnic settlement of Xin’an and the Hong Kong region. The pursuit of yellow croaker fish, a Cantonese delicacy, likewise spurred the development of local markets.

In sum, this is a book that should be read by anyone interested in Chinese frontier settlement, aquatic ecosystems, local government, or rural life in general. It delivers far more than its title conveys. Readers of this journal will also be delighted to learn that Patrick Hase is currently working on two more books about rural affairs in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta region. This reviewer looks forward to reading (and shamelessly mining) these forthcoming books, just as he has Forgotten Heroes.

Publications of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong The Journal The Society has published a Journal since 1961. It was published as the Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society from 1961 until 2003, then changed to the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch and 香港皇家亞洲學會學報 and is now Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong and 香港皇家亞洲學會學報. The Journal is available online: Volumes 1-51 at http://hkjo.lib.hku.hk/exhibits/show/hkjo/ browseIssue?book=b27720780 and all volumes at https://www.jstor.org/ journal/jroyaaisasocihkb. Members of the Society receive a copy of the Journal and a regular Newsletter.

Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Studies Series In 2005 the Society produced the first volume in this series, the aim being to help make available important studies of the local history, culture and society of Hong Kong and the surrounding region. Generous support from the Sir Lindsay and Lady May Ride Memorial Fund makes it possible to publish this series. The early volumes were published with Hong Kong University Press, but since 2016 the Society and the Ride Fund have worked with other publishers.

To date the Hong Kong Studies Series includes 26 titles. A list of titles that can be ordered from the Society is at http://www.royalasiaticsociety. org.hk/hong-kong-studies-series. A complete list appears in the Society’s Newsletter, published six times a year, available in e-copy from http:// www.royalasiaticsociety.org.hk/new-page/. An order form and price list is in the Newsletter, or may be obtained directly from the Administrator: HYPERLINK "mailto:membership@royalasiaticsociety.org.hk" membership@royalasiaticsociety.org.hk.

The Sir Lindsay and May Ride Memorial Fund was established in 2003 by the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong and is named after the ViceChancellor of the University of Hong Kong 1949-64 and his wife, both founder members of the RASHK.

Other Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Publications Since 1980, in addition to the Journal and the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Studies Series, either alone or jointly with other publishers, the Society has published occasional works written or edited by members. The titles can be consulted on the Society’s website at http:// www.royalasiaticsociety.org.hk/books/. Some volumes are out of print.