Illustrated Treatise on the Maritime Kingdoms

Foundational Discourse on Maritime Defense, Volume IV

Conditions change from morning to night; they are never consistent. It would be appropriate to dispatch reliable and capable officers and soldiers in rotations, disguised in plain clothes, to scout various routes and provide accurate intelligence. These should be sent as sealed, rapid reports. One must not "catch at shadows" A Chinese idiom meaning to act on baseless rumors or hearsay, which only serves to needlessly disturb people's minds. Macau is a place where Chinese and foreigners live together, and it is a gathering place for foreigners of all nations. It is where the most news can be heard and seen. It is especially necessary to secretly dispatch refined, capable, and steady individuals to act as undercover agents. By doing so, the truth or falsehood of the barbarian situation The author uses "barbarian" (夷 - yi) to refer to the British and other Westerners, standard terminology for the Qing dynasty at this time can naturally be obtained beforehand.

Furthermore, there are newspapers original: 新聞紙 (xinwenzhi) printed by the foreigners. These are printed every seven days, after each Sabbath original: 禮拜 (libai), referring here to the weekly publication cycle. They transmit news of Guangdong back to their own countries and bring news of their countries to Guangdong, so that they may inform one another. These are essentially the same as the courier reports 塘報 (tangbao): the official government gazettes used in Imperial China to circulate news and edicts of the interior. Originally, the foreigners did not allow the Chinese to read them, and since the Chinese did not recognize foreign characters, they did not read them anyway. In recent years, however, translators have been employed, and through various means, these newspapers have been purchased and secretly translated. The information regarding the barbarian situation obtained from them is truly...