Post by Chips on May 23, 2010 4:37:34 GMT 9.5
Unique cruise in China on the Yangtze River
Christina Pfeiffer
May 22, 2010 6:25PM
FOR generations the mighty Tujia trackers have hauled ships, junks and now tourists up the Yangtze.
They are strong and athletic, with muscles sculpted through years of hard labour. In the past, the Tujia boatmen would strip naked to pull ships and junks while running along narrow towpaths hacked into cliffs.
Before the invention of engines, the only way ships could cross shallow sections of the Yangtze River was by being towed by hundreds of men. It was dangerous work for the men, where one misstep could send them plunging into swirling currents.
River ride
These days, life is a lot less perilous for the Tujia trackers. The Three Gorges Dam project has attracted loads of tourists keen to cruise the Yangtze. And the men who once provided the muscle to pull the ships now earn a living hauling tourists along its shallow tributaries.
The Yangtze winds its way 6300km across China from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to the East China Sea but most of the cruising occurs between Chongqing and Yichang. My cruise on the Princess Jeannie takes me to the misty ghost town of Fengdu, a complex of temples in the cliffs of the Mingshan Mountain, and to the Three Gorges Dam site at Yichang. I learn that this was the biggest infrastructure project attempted in China since the Great Wall and the largest hydroelectric dam in the world (more than five times the size of the Hoover Dam in the US).
We sail past historic landmarks that have been swallowed by the rising river, such as the ancient plank roads, a rock formation known as Hanging Monk Rock and a Song Dynasty wall with 900 political inscriptions. The scenery in the Three Gorges is a highlight. In the Wu Gorge, deep valleys and misty mountains are scenes from classical paintings.
At Badong, we board a ferry for the Shennong River, a tributary of the Yangtze. Cliffs overgrown with lush green foliage hide caverns filled with bats. High above the river are wooden boxes wedged into holes in the cliffs. These are coffins of the Ba elders, who lived in these mountains for thousands of years, and from whom the boatmen are descended.
At the jetty, the boatmen fidget by a row of long timber skiffs. These skiffs, also known as peapod boats, are handmade vessels built by master craftsmen through skills passed on from generation to generation. The boats are robust enough to hold up against surging river torrents.
Onboard a skiff
The men wear coloured shorts, sports shirts and homemade straw sandals to protect the soles of their feet. They help us aboard, about a dozen passengers to each peapod boat. We sit three astride, wearing bright orange regulation life jackets. Then there's a bellow from one of the boatmen and the others reply with a cacophony of identical calls. We're off and away, an armada of floating tourists in search of adventure along a shallow tributary of the Yangtze.
We glide past soaring cliffs carpeted with lush green trees that reach majestically for the sky. The boats slice across the river's glassy surface making ripples that turn the reflections of the forest in the river into works of art.
The captain of my boat, Wang Min Hu, steers with a long bamboo pole. Wang is lean and wiry; his skin is leathery and burned. Twenty years ago, Wang (who is over 60) would have worked naked. But today, he strips to his underpants.
"The rough fabrics used to chafe my skin. And wet clothes caused dangerous chills," Wang says.
He steers the boat towards the bank and three men leap on to a rocky ledge. They scramble along the towpath with coarse bamboo ropes knotted around their waists and slung around their shoulders. The other ends of their ropes are fastened to a pole at the front of our boat. They run until the ropes take up the slack, pulling us through the shallows.
Hauling tourists is a cinch compared with the junks these men once towed. But it's still a tough way to earn a living. Boatmen earn 50 yuan ($9) a trip, plus a share of the tips. The younger generation is gradually losing interest. But among Wang's generation, peapod boat captains are highly respected and the position is fiercely contested among the men.
At the end of our journey, Wang breaks into a haunting melody. By Western standards, the boatmen are poor but watching them sing, paddle and pull, you could conclude that true happiness comes from enjoying a simple way of life.
This article reminded me of another story that many have forgotten.
Yangtze Incident
On 20 April 1949, HMS Amethyst was on her way from Shanghai to Nanjing (Nanking) on the Yangtze River to replace HMS Consort, which was standing as guard ship for the British Embassy there due to the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communists. At around 08:31, after a burst of small arms fire, a People's Liberation Army (PLA) field gun battery on the north bank of the river fired a salvo of ten shells, which fell well short of the ship, and was assumed to be part of a regular bombardment of Nationalist forces on the south bank. Speed was increased, and large Union flags were unfurled on either side of the ship, after which there was no more firing.
At 09:30, as the frigate approached Jiangyin (Kiangyin) further up the river, she came under sustained fire from a second PLA battery. The first shell passed over the ship, but the second hit the wheelhouse, and the injured coxswain grounded Amethyst on Rose Island. The bridge was also hit, mortally wounding Lieutenant Commander B. M. Skinner and injuring First-Lieutenant Geoffrey Weston, before he could pass on the captain's order to return fire. Other PLA shells exploded in the sick bay, the port engine room, and finally the generator, just after the injured Weston's last transmission: "Under heavy fire. Am aground in approx position 31.10' North 119.50' East. Large number of casualties." The loss of power also disabled the gyrocompass, and electrically controlled firing circuits. Amethyst was now a helpless target.
The frigate grounded in such a way that neither of the two gun turrets at the front of the ship could be brought to bear on the PLA batteries, leaving the single stern turret to return fire with some thirty shells before it was hit, knocking out one of its two guns. The remaining gun returned a few more shots until ordered by Weston to cease fire in the hope that this would cause the PLA to do likewise. The shore batteries, however, continued to fire both medium and heavy artillery, causing more damage and casualties to the ship. Weston ordered the uninjured crewmen to take up defensive positions with Lee-Enfield rifles and Bren guns, and prepare to repel boarders.
Some time between 10:00 and 10:30, Weston ordered the immediate evacuation of most of the crew. Everyone capable of swimming was ordered over the side, while the non-swimmers and walking wounded used the only one of the ship's boats left undamaged. Fifty-nine ratings and four Chinese mess boys made it to the Kuomintang-controlled Southern bank, but several more were cut down in the water by PLA machine gun and artillery fire before reaching safety. Those that survived were taken to a nearby Nationalist Army hospital, and afterwards trucked back to Shanghai. Remaining on board were about 40 unwounded men, 12 wounded, and 15 dead. The shelling had stopped, but no one could move without drawing the attention of PLA snipers.
By the time the shelling stopped at about 11:00, 22 men had been killed and 31 wounded in all. Amethyst had received over 50 hits and holes below the waterline were plugged with hammocks and bedding. During this time HMS Consort was sighted, flying seven White Ensigns and three Union flags, steaming down from Nanking at 29 knots. Consort came under fire from the shore batteries and returned fire with her 4.5 inch (114 mm) guns, destroying the enemy shore batteries before she attempted to take Amethyst in tow. HMS Consort turned about with all guns blazing at the north bank batteries, destroying an enemy position. However, Consort came under heavy fire, and the attempt was abandoned with 10 killed and three injured.
Lieutenant Geoffrey Weston refloated Amethyst on 22 April and moved her out of range of the PLA's artillery. The British Naval Attaché Lieutenant-Commander John Simon Kerans joined the ship later that day and assumed command.
On 26 April an attempt to free the Amethyst from the mud was successful, the ship then proceeded to move up river and anchored off Fu Te Wei. Later that day a signal was received: "HM ships London and Black Swan are moving up river to escort the Amethyst down stream. Be ready to move." The cruiser London and the frigate (ex-sloop and Amethyst's sister ship) Black Swan were heavily shelled as they attempted to help Amethyst and retreated with 3 killed and 14 wounded. In Chinese records this battle happened on 22 April.[citation needed] The PLA's casualties were 252 in these artillery duels.[1]
Amethyst remained under guard by the PLA for ten weeks, with vital supplies being withheld from the ship. Negotiations were stuck because Kerans would not accept Major Kung's demand that the British state that they had wrongly invaded Chinese national waters and had fired upon the PLA first. Because the communists (and later the People's Republic of China) did not acknowledge any treaties between the previous Chinese government and British, they insisted that it was illegal for Amethyst to cruise in the Yangtze river. On 30 April, the PLA demanded that Britain, the United States, and France quickly withdraw their armed forces from any parts of China. As it was only in 1988 that the PLA commander Ye Fei admitted that it was his troops that fired first[2], during the negotiations the Communists kept insisting that the British ship fired first.[3]
On 30 July 1949 Amethyst slipped her chain and headed downriver in the dark, beginning a 104-mile dash for freedom running the gauntlet of Communist guns on both banks of the river. She followed the merchant ship Kiang Ling Liberation, which showed the way through the shoals and distracted the PLA. At 0500 hours of 31 July, Amethyst approached the PLA forts at Wusong (Woosung) and Par Shan with their searchlights sweeping the river. The Amethyst, at full speed ahead, broke through the boom at the mouth of the river and made contact with HMS Concord before arriving in Hong Kong on 11 August 1949[4], the signal transmitted: "Have rejoined the fleet off Woosung...God save the King."
Chinese records state that the PLA warned the Amethyst to stop, "but she opened fire on, collided with, and sank a number of junks and escaped from the Yangtse River."
The American Suspense radio series included an episode entitled Log of the Marne (22 October 1951), largely based on the events of the Yangtze incident.[5]
In the 1957 film Yangtse Incident: The Story of HMS Amethyst (released as Battle Hell in the US, and also as Escape of the Amethyst and Their Greatest Glory) starring Richard Todd as Kerans, Amethyst re-enacted her role. As her engines were no longer operational, shots of the ship moving used her sister ship, Magpie.
Christina Pfeiffer
May 22, 2010 6:25PM
FOR generations the mighty Tujia trackers have hauled ships, junks and now tourists up the Yangtze.
They are strong and athletic, with muscles sculpted through years of hard labour. In the past, the Tujia boatmen would strip naked to pull ships and junks while running along narrow towpaths hacked into cliffs.
Before the invention of engines, the only way ships could cross shallow sections of the Yangtze River was by being towed by hundreds of men. It was dangerous work for the men, where one misstep could send them plunging into swirling currents.
River ride
These days, life is a lot less perilous for the Tujia trackers. The Three Gorges Dam project has attracted loads of tourists keen to cruise the Yangtze. And the men who once provided the muscle to pull the ships now earn a living hauling tourists along its shallow tributaries.
The Yangtze winds its way 6300km across China from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to the East China Sea but most of the cruising occurs between Chongqing and Yichang. My cruise on the Princess Jeannie takes me to the misty ghost town of Fengdu, a complex of temples in the cliffs of the Mingshan Mountain, and to the Three Gorges Dam site at Yichang. I learn that this was the biggest infrastructure project attempted in China since the Great Wall and the largest hydroelectric dam in the world (more than five times the size of the Hoover Dam in the US).
We sail past historic landmarks that have been swallowed by the rising river, such as the ancient plank roads, a rock formation known as Hanging Monk Rock and a Song Dynasty wall with 900 political inscriptions. The scenery in the Three Gorges is a highlight. In the Wu Gorge, deep valleys and misty mountains are scenes from classical paintings.
At Badong, we board a ferry for the Shennong River, a tributary of the Yangtze. Cliffs overgrown with lush green foliage hide caverns filled with bats. High above the river are wooden boxes wedged into holes in the cliffs. These are coffins of the Ba elders, who lived in these mountains for thousands of years, and from whom the boatmen are descended.
At the jetty, the boatmen fidget by a row of long timber skiffs. These skiffs, also known as peapod boats, are handmade vessels built by master craftsmen through skills passed on from generation to generation. The boats are robust enough to hold up against surging river torrents.
Onboard a skiff
The men wear coloured shorts, sports shirts and homemade straw sandals to protect the soles of their feet. They help us aboard, about a dozen passengers to each peapod boat. We sit three astride, wearing bright orange regulation life jackets. Then there's a bellow from one of the boatmen and the others reply with a cacophony of identical calls. We're off and away, an armada of floating tourists in search of adventure along a shallow tributary of the Yangtze.
We glide past soaring cliffs carpeted with lush green trees that reach majestically for the sky. The boats slice across the river's glassy surface making ripples that turn the reflections of the forest in the river into works of art.
The captain of my boat, Wang Min Hu, steers with a long bamboo pole. Wang is lean and wiry; his skin is leathery and burned. Twenty years ago, Wang (who is over 60) would have worked naked. But today, he strips to his underpants.
"The rough fabrics used to chafe my skin. And wet clothes caused dangerous chills," Wang says.
He steers the boat towards the bank and three men leap on to a rocky ledge. They scramble along the towpath with coarse bamboo ropes knotted around their waists and slung around their shoulders. The other ends of their ropes are fastened to a pole at the front of our boat. They run until the ropes take up the slack, pulling us through the shallows.
Hauling tourists is a cinch compared with the junks these men once towed. But it's still a tough way to earn a living. Boatmen earn 50 yuan ($9) a trip, plus a share of the tips. The younger generation is gradually losing interest. But among Wang's generation, peapod boat captains are highly respected and the position is fiercely contested among the men.
At the end of our journey, Wang breaks into a haunting melody. By Western standards, the boatmen are poor but watching them sing, paddle and pull, you could conclude that true happiness comes from enjoying a simple way of life.
This article reminded me of another story that many have forgotten.
Yangtze Incident
On 20 April 1949, HMS Amethyst was on her way from Shanghai to Nanjing (Nanking) on the Yangtze River to replace HMS Consort, which was standing as guard ship for the British Embassy there due to the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang (KMT) and the Chinese Communists. At around 08:31, after a burst of small arms fire, a People's Liberation Army (PLA) field gun battery on the north bank of the river fired a salvo of ten shells, which fell well short of the ship, and was assumed to be part of a regular bombardment of Nationalist forces on the south bank. Speed was increased, and large Union flags were unfurled on either side of the ship, after which there was no more firing.
At 09:30, as the frigate approached Jiangyin (Kiangyin) further up the river, she came under sustained fire from a second PLA battery. The first shell passed over the ship, but the second hit the wheelhouse, and the injured coxswain grounded Amethyst on Rose Island. The bridge was also hit, mortally wounding Lieutenant Commander B. M. Skinner and injuring First-Lieutenant Geoffrey Weston, before he could pass on the captain's order to return fire. Other PLA shells exploded in the sick bay, the port engine room, and finally the generator, just after the injured Weston's last transmission: "Under heavy fire. Am aground in approx position 31.10' North 119.50' East. Large number of casualties." The loss of power also disabled the gyrocompass, and electrically controlled firing circuits. Amethyst was now a helpless target.
The frigate grounded in such a way that neither of the two gun turrets at the front of the ship could be brought to bear on the PLA batteries, leaving the single stern turret to return fire with some thirty shells before it was hit, knocking out one of its two guns. The remaining gun returned a few more shots until ordered by Weston to cease fire in the hope that this would cause the PLA to do likewise. The shore batteries, however, continued to fire both medium and heavy artillery, causing more damage and casualties to the ship. Weston ordered the uninjured crewmen to take up defensive positions with Lee-Enfield rifles and Bren guns, and prepare to repel boarders.
Some time between 10:00 and 10:30, Weston ordered the immediate evacuation of most of the crew. Everyone capable of swimming was ordered over the side, while the non-swimmers and walking wounded used the only one of the ship's boats left undamaged. Fifty-nine ratings and four Chinese mess boys made it to the Kuomintang-controlled Southern bank, but several more were cut down in the water by PLA machine gun and artillery fire before reaching safety. Those that survived were taken to a nearby Nationalist Army hospital, and afterwards trucked back to Shanghai. Remaining on board were about 40 unwounded men, 12 wounded, and 15 dead. The shelling had stopped, but no one could move without drawing the attention of PLA snipers.
By the time the shelling stopped at about 11:00, 22 men had been killed and 31 wounded in all. Amethyst had received over 50 hits and holes below the waterline were plugged with hammocks and bedding. During this time HMS Consort was sighted, flying seven White Ensigns and three Union flags, steaming down from Nanking at 29 knots. Consort came under fire from the shore batteries and returned fire with her 4.5 inch (114 mm) guns, destroying the enemy shore batteries before she attempted to take Amethyst in tow. HMS Consort turned about with all guns blazing at the north bank batteries, destroying an enemy position. However, Consort came under heavy fire, and the attempt was abandoned with 10 killed and three injured.
Lieutenant Geoffrey Weston refloated Amethyst on 22 April and moved her out of range of the PLA's artillery. The British Naval Attaché Lieutenant-Commander John Simon Kerans joined the ship later that day and assumed command.
On 26 April an attempt to free the Amethyst from the mud was successful, the ship then proceeded to move up river and anchored off Fu Te Wei. Later that day a signal was received: "HM ships London and Black Swan are moving up river to escort the Amethyst down stream. Be ready to move." The cruiser London and the frigate (ex-sloop and Amethyst's sister ship) Black Swan were heavily shelled as they attempted to help Amethyst and retreated with 3 killed and 14 wounded. In Chinese records this battle happened on 22 April.[citation needed] The PLA's casualties were 252 in these artillery duels.[1]
Amethyst remained under guard by the PLA for ten weeks, with vital supplies being withheld from the ship. Negotiations were stuck because Kerans would not accept Major Kung's demand that the British state that they had wrongly invaded Chinese national waters and had fired upon the PLA first. Because the communists (and later the People's Republic of China) did not acknowledge any treaties between the previous Chinese government and British, they insisted that it was illegal for Amethyst to cruise in the Yangtze river. On 30 April, the PLA demanded that Britain, the United States, and France quickly withdraw their armed forces from any parts of China. As it was only in 1988 that the PLA commander Ye Fei admitted that it was his troops that fired first[2], during the negotiations the Communists kept insisting that the British ship fired first.[3]
On 30 July 1949 Amethyst slipped her chain and headed downriver in the dark, beginning a 104-mile dash for freedom running the gauntlet of Communist guns on both banks of the river. She followed the merchant ship Kiang Ling Liberation, which showed the way through the shoals and distracted the PLA. At 0500 hours of 31 July, Amethyst approached the PLA forts at Wusong (Woosung) and Par Shan with their searchlights sweeping the river. The Amethyst, at full speed ahead, broke through the boom at the mouth of the river and made contact with HMS Concord before arriving in Hong Kong on 11 August 1949[4], the signal transmitted: "Have rejoined the fleet off Woosung...God save the King."
Chinese records state that the PLA warned the Amethyst to stop, "but she opened fire on, collided with, and sank a number of junks and escaped from the Yangtse River."
The American Suspense radio series included an episode entitled Log of the Marne (22 October 1951), largely based on the events of the Yangtze incident.[5]
In the 1957 film Yangtse Incident: The Story of HMS Amethyst (released as Battle Hell in the US, and also as Escape of the Amethyst and Their Greatest Glory) starring Richard Todd as Kerans, Amethyst re-enacted her role. As her engines were no longer operational, shots of the ship moving used her sister ship, Magpie.