When the storm over the amendment of the SPECIAL Administrative Region in 2019 first began, a "Hong Kong Hongmen Article, Announcing the Book of Hongmen Kunzhong" from the "Hongmen" of Hong Kong spread throughout the country.
Among them, the words are earnest and sharp, which is called:
If we take the name of Dugang Island in the name of the amendment, then we can be independent everywhere in China, and if we restore the covenant of the Manchu Qing Dynasty with the banner of Hong Kong and Britain, then the unequal treaties of the former powers can be restored, and it seems that the Hong Kong people are striving for independence, but in fact, they did not die if the great powers devoured our Chinese heart as they wished, and colonialism resurged.
He therefore warned the Triad, the Red Flower Society, the League, the Brotherhood, the Hongmen Society, and the Ho Sang Wo Society on Hong Kong Island that they should not organize and participate in any assembly or other action that would plague Hong Kong Island.
The warmth of the national righteousness in the article makes people feel the great righteousness of the Hongmen, but it also exposes a fact that people cannot understand: looking at the meaning of the article, it is 2022, how can there still be gangs in Hong Kong?
Well, today we're going to talk about Hong Kong gangsters.
1，
Speaking of Hong Kong gangsters, the first picture that comes to mind is that it may be Andy Lau who "wants to be a good person" in "Infernal Affairs", or Chow Yun Fat, the "little brother" in "The True Colors of Heroes", of course, the most perhaps the most is chen Haonan in Causeway Bay, who has led a generation of "wind and current".
I have to say that after the new wave of Hong Kong films in the 80s, the image of gang members in Hong Kong films has gradually penetrated the hearts of the people. However, if we talk about the development of Hong Kong gangsters, we can inevitably start with their origins, the long-lasting Hongmen.
In the previous video about the "Taiwan gangsters", we mentioned that Hongmen, a special group established with the purpose of "anti-Qing and restoration" and gradually spread throughout the country in the subsequent development process. It was precisely because the members of hongmen crossed the sea to Taiwan after Zheng successfully liberated Taiwan in the past years that a number of "provincial hangings" such as the Tiandao League, which still have great influence on the island today, have been created.
Speaking of which, you naturally understand where the Hong Kong gang originated, yes, it is Hongmen.
The Hongmen Triad is a branch of the Hongmen Tiandi Society in Guangdong, and it is unknown when its sphere of influence spread to Hong Kong, but after the signing of the Sino-British Treaty of Nanjing in 1842 and the Occupation of Hong Kong by the British, the Triad has already opened its altar in Hong Kong, and they are also the immediate relatives of the Hong Kong gangs since then.
To this day, the triad is still a well-known gang in Hong Kong, and gangs such as New Ngee Ann, 14K, and Ho Katsuwa are still nominally subordinate to the triad. After the British occupied Hong Kong, the city soon became an important stronghold for the British to maintain their interests in the Far East, and with the British building it and opening ports for trade, Hong Kong's economy began to prosper.
The economic boom has stimulated the influx of foreign workers, especially in the Western And Sheung Wan areas, and in the second half of the 19th century, the above-mentioned areas gathered a large number of labor groups from Haifeng, Dongguan, and even Chaozhou, Fujian, and Hainan.
Then, naturally, the laborers formed many factions and fought for business on the docks.
At that time, the Hong Kong police were basically powerless to interfere with such a group fight between two or more groups, as long as no human life was caused, then there was never any "rule of law" on the docks. As a result, the fierce market competition in the dock labor force has become a hotbed for the growth of triads and the birth of Hong Kong gangsters in the future.
According to the archives of the British government in Hong Kong, in the mid-1880s, there were about 20,000 underworld members in Hong Kong, and by the end of the 19th century, about one-third of the adult chinese men in Hong Kong were "ancient puzzle boys", and the proportion was quite touching. If the "bravery" on the docks after the influx of laborers diluted the original Hongmen atmosphere in the Hong Kong gangs, then "Black Bone Ren" is the key figure in pulling the Hong Kong gang back to the "morality" of Hongmen.
In 1909, in the first year of the qing dynasty's reunification, the Hong Kong "Yongyitang" big man "Black Bone Ren" found that the Hong Kong gangs had become too much and too chaotic after half a century of disorderly development, so they played the banner of "blessed sharing, there are difficulties in sharing", believing that even if there is trouble between the gangs, they should first try to solve it through consultation.
The big man's proposal was supported by most of the gang leaders in Hong Kong, so that year, during the Dragon Boat Festival, the first "Hongmen Assembly" of the Hong Kong underworld was held at the call of "Black Bone Ren" in a fish drying farm in Shau Kei Wan.
In this "Hongmen Conference", the Hong Kong gangs re-established a relaxed system headed by the "dragon head" or "sitting pavilion", and then introduced many rituals and hierarchies in the mainland Hongmen. At the same time, under the call of Hei Bone Ren to make peace precious, a number of gangs with the word "He" in front of the name of the church appeared in Hong Kong, such as "Hong Sheng Hui" renamed "and Hong Sheng", "Yong Yi Tang" renamed "and Yong Yi", which is the origin of the "He" characters in hong Kong gangs.
I have to say that the difference between gangs and unorganized is really a heaven and an underground.
Originally, the gang group was a helpless move for the low-level laborers to survive, but after the Hongmen Assembly, the members of these gangs made clear about each other's existence, no longer "infighting", and turned their attention to the "business" that disrupted society.
It is precisely because of the organization that the Hong Kong gang can continue to grow and develop in the coming years.
2，
In 1925, the "May Thirtieth Massacre" broke out in the mainland, and when the social fluctuations caused by the massacre affected Guangdong and Hong Kong, a "provincial and Hong Kong general strike" in solidarity with the mainland workers' movement was vigorously launched.
Under the influence of the strike, the British government of Hong Kong sent real-gun military police to patrol the streets, and Hong Kong was also becoming more and more depressed, and a large number of unemployed people led to great turmoil in Hong Kong society, and also allowed the gangs to see the opportunity to grow stronger. In this one-year and four-month strike movement, some Hong Kong gangs not only made a fortune in "national disasters", but also wantonly absorbed brave and ruthless unemployed vagrants, which eventually led to the first large-scale development and growth of Hong Kong gangs since the 20th century.
The reason why "Heshenghe" can become one of the four major gangsters in Hong Kong in the future is due to this.
In the winter of 1941, when the Japanese invaded Hong Kong, many gang members who did not want to join the invaders left Hong Kong and returned to the mainland to make a living, but if some gangs left, there were naturally gangs that defected.
After the Japanese occupied Hong Kong, the hehe, Heshenghe, Hehongsheng, Tongxinhe, Fuyixing and other gangs defected to the Japanese stationed in Hong Kong at that time with the idea that milk was a mother. Subsequently, these people assisted the Japanese in establishing "comfort stations", robbing shop goods and forcing civilians to buy goods at high prices.
It was also under the deliberate connivance of the Japanese army that by the eve of the end of World War II, the major gangs in Hong Kong had basically demarcated their respective spheres of influence, such as the Mong Kok area was the territory of "Peace and Happiness", Sham Shui Po was controlled by "He Sheng He", the Central area was under the "Harmony Map", and Causeway Bay was "New Ngee An" with only one hand covering the sky...
This is another opportunity for hong Kong gangsters to grow.
Compared with the "Heshenghe" that has existed since the Hongmen Conference in 1909, the qualifications of both "New Ngee Ann" and "14K" are shorter.
Among them, after the establishment of the "Ngee An Chamber of Commerce and Industry" officially born in 1921, its leading boss Qian Qian was once a major general in the intelligence agency of the national army, and because of this, its organization was favored by the National Government from Nanjing. It is worth mentioning that today's Hong Kong entertainment industry bigwig Xiang Huaqiang and Xiang Huasheng two brothers are his descendants.
As for the "14K", it was born later than the "New Ngee An", and correspondingly, the organization's relationship with the Kuomintang is also closer.
In the spring of 1949, when the Kuomintang regime's rule on the mainland was already in jeopardy, Mao Renfeng, the head of the military command, secretly contacted the "Hongmen Organization" in the coastal areas at the behest of the kuomintang high-level personnel, paving the way for the future "tigers to occupy the treasure island" in the future.
Among them, Ge Zhaohuang, a member of the military command who served as a company commander in the Kuomintang 93rd Division, was ordered to go to Guangzhou to organize the "HongfaShan Zhongyi Association", and because its organizational headquarters was set up at No. 14 Baohua Road in Guangzhou, it was called "Fourteenth", which was the predecessor of 14K. On the eve of the liberation of Guangzhou, Ge Zhaohuang, who knew that the general trend had gone, did not have the determination to "sacrifice his life for the results", so he led the gang to abscond to Hong Kong and established "14K".
During the Liberation War, many "diehards" who maintained the rule of the Kuomintang but failed to join the "principal" in the southeast were exiled to Hong Kong and Macao, and these "fresh forces" greatly enhanced the strength of the "New Ngee Ann" and "14K", and they were thus able to elevate their status to the point of sitting with such old seniority as "Heshenghe".
In this context, coupled with the "righteous group" that rose up in the 60s and 70s of the last century due to the sale of D, the four major gangsters in Hong Kong, which are talked about, were born.
3，
Disturbing social order has always been the "inherent mission" of gangsters, in other words, gangs in Hong Kong represent organized crime. In order to grab profits, in the 1960s and 1970s, a large number of Hong Kong gangsters poured into the D-selling, casino and pornography industries.
At the same time, they also "operate" smuggling and smuggling. As for the traditional industries of extortion of protection fees, usury, printing counterfeit money and fake credit cards, they will naturally not let go. Of course, in addition to these obvious "black-related" industries, they will also infiltrate into legitimate industries through "gray" means.
If they control a construction site, they will charge protection fees depending on the length of the construction period and the size of the site, ranging from thousands of yuan to tens of thousands of yuan;
For example, controlling the real estate industry, gangsters often send people to occupy 50 to 100 positions before the sale of louhua through "connections" and "knives and guns", and then sell at a high price;
Such as the use of various means in real estate transactions to force away residents, and then high prices to reverse; charging "line entry fees" to minibuses, 1 to 150,000 yuan per car and other "wealth-aggling" means, they are emerging in an endless stream. In addition, if you want to ask which legitimate industry is the hardest hit area infiltrated by gangsters, then there is only one answer, that is, the Hong Kong showbiz circle.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Hong Kong cinema entered the golden age of its development, giving birth to a large number of movie stars such as Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li. However, the golden age of Hong Kong cinema has also become a "golden age" in which gangsters exert influence on show business.
For a long time, Hong Kong mafia groups have been extorting "protection fees" from producers and using threats and inducements to force movie stars to work for the studios they control.
Remember the "Xiang Brothers" we mentioned earlier?
In the Hong Kong showbiz circle, the Xiang brothers of New Ngee Ann are big people who call the wind and rain, and many well-known directors such as Wang Jing, Xu Ke, Du Qifeng, and the early works of stars Jet Li, Stephen Chow, Andy Lau, Mui Yanfang and others are mostly produced by Yongsheng and China Star founded by the Xiang brothers.
Moreover, even Jackie Chan's eldest brother was controlled by New Ngee An in the past years, and finally entrusted the blessing of Wang Yu, a big man of the Taiwan Bamboo Gang, to "get rid of the sea of suffering".
In fact, as long as we check the Internet for a while, the news that Hong Kong gangsters have invaded and secretly controlled the Hong Kong showbiz circle will be overwhelming, Liu Yuling, Lan Jieying, Zeng Zhiwei, Hong Jinbao... These movie stars who have made a big name in the mainland have actually been controlled by gangsters to a greater or lesser extent, or have had an affair with gangsters.
A producer once complained under the camera: every time he completed a film, he had to "pay tribute" to the gangsters.
This is the true portrayal of the Hong Kong showbiz circle in that era.
Speaking of this, I believe many people will ask, Hong Kong gangsters are so arrogant, what about the police? Do the police eat empty pay?
belch......
In 1991, a film produced by the Xiang brothers' Yongsheng Film Company, supervised by Wang Jing and starring Andy Lau, was called "The Biography of Inspector Leiluo of Five Hundred Million". The so-called "500 million inspectors" Leiluo in this alludes to the former Inspector Lu Le of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon.
Within the British government system in Hong Kong, The Inspector General of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon is the highest position that a Chinese person can reach in the Hong Kong police system, second only to the British Superintendent of Police.
From his appointment in 1958 to his resignation in 1968, Lu Le Na was famous for "how much money is it, how big things to do", whether it was New Ngee Ann, 14K, or HeShenghe, he Anle, all had to give face to the "half a billion inspectors", and it was he who single-handedly created the "corruption system" in the Hong Kong police community.
In fact, under the tireless "money offensive" of the Hong Kong gangsters, not only Lu Le, but also several hong kong police departments, and a large number of police superintendents and judges in Hong Kong courts have become the umbrella of the gangs, including even British superintendents and justices.
After the Double Ten Riots in 1956, the British government in Hong Kong finally recognized the harm of gangsters to social stability, and launched several large-scale searches and arrests of gangsters. Unfortunately, at that time, the gangsters had already blended with the interests of the police and political circles, and the intertwined relationship between them made several efforts of the Hong Kong and British governments fruitless.
In 1974, in order to reverse the above situation, the British government in Hong Kong set up an anti-corruption organization that did not belong to any existing institution, called the "Independent Commission Against Corruption". Thanks to the efforts of the Independent Commission Against Corruption, the situation of rampant corruption in Hong Kong has finally changed, and the crackdown on the underworld has finally begun to bear fruit. However, due to the trend of Hong Kong gangsters at that time, the efforts of the Independent Commission Against Corruption, although not in vain, were ultimately limited in effect.
What is even more disdainful is that under the wash of the historical torrent of that era, the British wanted to leave, so they hoped to leave a mess for China according to their consistent "colonial independence policy", so the period from the 80s to the handover became the most glorious period of Hong Kong gangsters.
End:
Hong Kong gangsters arose in Hongmen and grew up in the midst of the colonial era, and their prosperity in Hong Kong depends on the special sky of Hong Kong.
However, the sky will change.
In 1982, "Iron Lady" Thatcher visited China, and then personally "starred" in the "falling head" drama outside the Great Hall of the People.
Two years later, the Sino-British Joint Statement was issued, and Hong Kong would be officially returned in 1997, which was the inflection point of the "prosperity and development" of Hong Kong gangsters, and after that, the gangs active in that land began their scramble to "transfer" and "whitewash".
On July 1, 1997, the People's Republic of China resumed the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong, and since then, this land, which has been a land outside the territory of Shenzhou for hundreds of years, has finally returned to the embrace of the mother of the motherland in the song of the Seven Sons.
And the once arrogant Hong Kong gangsters are also no longer arrogant in "whitewashing" and "transfer".
As the Hong Kong gangster who has participated in films such as "Ancient Puzzle Boy", the former 14K gold medal fighter, the double-flowered big red stick Chen Huimin said:
It's different, I used to talk about the underworld in Hong Kong, but now I have returned to our motherland.
How can China have a triad? Right.