preface
850 kilometers north of Vancouver, Canada, there is a ghost town called Buckville. The small town is open to adventurous tourists during the tourist season, but the rest of the time it is almost empty. There is no cell phone signal, let alone Wi-Fi. To get from Vancouver to Buckville, it takes at least 8 to 10 hours by car, and it is not convenient to fly, because there is no direct flight between the two places, so you can only fly two hours to the surrounding Knell and then an hour by car to Buckville. If you choose to travel by rail, Canada has not yet built a high-speed rail, so you can only take a regular train, depart from Vancouver, and a day later you can reach Knell Station, and then change trains to Buckville.
But despite Buckville's distance from major transportation routes and treacherous roads, the ghost town has been home to Chinese populations for more than a hundred years. More than half of the local population is Chinese, forming the second largest Chinatown community on the west coast of North America after San Francisco, and the largest Chinatown community in Canada. What is even more surprising is that these earliest Chinese immigrants turned out to be remnants loyal to the Taiping Rebellion.
The elopement of the last king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom
The story takes place in 1863. At that time, the Taiping Rebellion had already been defeated, losing outlying fortresses such as Suzhou and Changzhou, and even Tianjing (today's Nanjing) was facing the crisis of running out of food. Hong Xiuquan, the leader of the Taiping Army, and his followers relied on weeds and vegetables every day to make ends meet. In order to preserve the fire of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Wang Ye, named Huang Lianggui, took advantage of his absence in Nanjing to lead the generals and families of the Taiping Army from Guangdong, first to Hong Kong, and then to Canada by boat, joining the North American gold rush that was sensational around the world at that time.
At present, it is impossible to verify the specific title of Huang Lianggui and the official position in Taiping Tian, we only know that he is from Kaiping, Guangdong. After all, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom began to blindly grant titles after the Tianjing Incident, and there were as many as 2,700 people who claimed the title of king alone. In addition, because Zeng Guofan burned a large number of historical archives of the Taiping Rebellion after occupying Nanjing, the original information was lost. However, Huang Lianggui chose to travel to Canada and settle in Buckville for the following reasons.
As Chinese immigrants who have returned to a foreign country to start their lives again, their primary concern is how to make money quickly in order to survive. And Buckville has exactly that. A year before Huang Lianggui and his party arrived in Canada, a British gold digger named William Barker discovered rich gold deposits in the interior of British Columbia. In just a few hours, he found 10 pounds of gold and became rich overnight. The area then became a mecca for global gold diggers, and the town named after Buck was formed here, also known as Buckville.
Buckville also has a strong Chinese community base, especially during the first gold rush in the 40s and 50s of the 19th century, when a large number of gold prospectors from Guangdong gathered in Canada. In 1861, Canada gave birth to the first Canadian-born Chinese, Wen Jinyou, whose parents were gold diggers. With a total population of 6,000 and more than 3,000 Cantonese at the time, this huge Chinese community was exactly what Huang Lianggui needed.
In addition, Canada was not yet independent at that time and was still a British colony. Relatively speaking, the Canadian government has no policies that openly discriminate against Chinese, such as poll taxes and Chinese exclusion laws. In contrast, the United States was the first country in North America to enact a Chinese exclusion law and implement a poll tax. Therefore, Huang Lianggui's choice of Canada is also based on Canada's relatively friendly attitude.
However, due to the inconvenience of transportation, Huang Lianggui and his subordinates faced many difficulties after arriving in Canada. They first arrive in Victoria, on Vancouver Island, and pay an official gold rush permit fee of $5 per person. Next, take a boat trip to New Westminster on Vancouver's Lower Mainland to shop for necessities after disembarkation. Finally, they need to take another boat ride to Yaletown. Once they arrived at Yaletown, they could only walk along the Fraser River Valley, with only humble transit resting places on the way. The whole process took more than two months of walking to finally reach Buckville.
Canada's first Hongmen Zhigong Hall was established in Buckville
Although Huang Lianggui was a new immigrant to Buckville, with his social status and wealth, he soon became an indispensable force in the local Chinese community. Therefore, Huang Lianggui chose to cooperate with the Heaven and Earth Society, which supported the anti-Qing Dynasty and restored the Ming Dynasty, and established Canada's first Hongmen Zhigong Church - Hong Shun Tang in Buckville, with Huang Lianggui as the first hall master. The meaning of Hongmen is to be loyal to Emperor Hongwu, the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty, and at the same time uses the word breaking method to interpret the character "Hong", that is, the Han people lose Middle Earth, and the Manchus have no head.
In fact, after the Taiping Rebellion captured Nanjing and renamed it Tianjing, Hong Xiuquan went to the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum to pay homage to Zhu Yuanzhang. Therefore, it is understandable that Huang Lianggui became the hall master of the Hongmen Zhigong Hall instead of continuing to display the banner of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
Soon after the establishment of Hung Shuntang, it completely monopolized the management of the Buckville Chinatown neighborhood. Huang Lianggui became the de facto ruler of the local Chinese, and every Chinese merchant was required to pay protection fees to Hung Shuntang, and disputes between Chinese were also decided by Hong Shuntang. In order to fight crime and establish authority, Hung Shuntang even invented lynching to intimidate the Chinese public.
However, as a Chinese in a foreign country, Hong Shuntang played a more of a role in solidarity and mutual assistance. For example, helping Chinese gold miners send letters and money back to their hometowns, and acting as a work and rental agent for newcomers. When there are white people bullying Chinese, Hong Shuntang will stand up for the interests of Chinese. Even during periods of unemployment, Chinese can provide free food and lodging in Hong Shuntang until they find a job and pay it back with their wages.
As the situation changed, Hong Shuntang's political stance also changed. At first, they were completely anti-Qing, but then pinned their hopes on the Guangxu Emperor to lead China to great power. In 1888, Hong Shuntang invited the Cantonese opera class in Guangzhou and held a grand banquet in Longfutang in the town to celebrate the wedding of the Guangxu Emperor and enshrine the portrait of the Guangxu Empress for Chinese worship.
Immediately after the founding of Canada in 1867, Hung Son Tong declared allegiance to the federal government of Canada and warmly welcomed the Governor General's visit. They even built a simple archway at the entrance to Buckville's Chinatown, modeled after the ancient Chinese format for welcoming emperors.
However, beginning in 1885, Canada introduced a policy of discrimination against the Chinese. Not only is every new Chinese immigrant arriving in Canada subject to a mandatory poll tax, but also faces employment discrimination and racial segregation from whites, and is excluded from Canadian politics. Therefore, Hong Shuntang took the lead in holding a protest rally and sent representatives to petition in the hope that the Canadian government would reverse the measures.
However, due to the weakness of the Qing government, Canada simply ignored Hong Shuntang's request. From then on, Hong Shuntang, like other Hongmen organizations, strongly supported Sun Yat-sen and the revolutionary party, believing that only by overthrowing the imperial system and establishing a republic could China become a world power. To raise funds for the Huanghuagang uprising in Guangzhou, the building of the Chinese Hongmen Minzhi Party in Vancouver's Chinatown was mortgaged, including a stake in Hung Shuntang. When signing, Deputy Huang Lianggui did not hesitate to sign it in his own hand. The building was not redeemed until 1945, 34 years after the Huanghuagang Uprising.
The hometown that can go back and the hometown that cannot be returned
As Huang Lianggui and his party arrived at Buckville, some of the remnants of the Taiping Rebellion did become rich. For example, in 1866, a Chinese man collected $7,000 worth of gold; The following year, another discovered an untapped gold deposit capable of collecting at least 50 pounds of gold per day. After these Chinese became rich by panning for gold, they not only sent money back to their hometown in Guangdong, but also successfully got married, had children and purchased property, and entered the Chinese upper class.
Among them, the most representative Chinese is Hong Biao, a second-generation Chinese who has been independently starting his own business since the age of 25. In addition to his department store and gold mining business with partners running a number of businesses such as the Lee Chang, he was politically active, serving as a director of the Buckville Power Company and town fire chief after Canada repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act. In 1976, Hong Biao visited Beijing and died in 1985 at the age of 85, ending his legendary life.
However, the reality is always harsh, and most of the Taiping remnants and Chinese laborers who settled in Buckville are unknown, and some are even impoverished for life. One of them, a Chinese miner named Huang Maiding, had only enough income to make ends meet, and lived in a simple log cabin. It wasn't until half a century later that he became acquainted with the prostitute Jiji.
Because of the severe imbalance between men and women in Buckville, a dance with a dancer cost $1, which was enough to buy 1 pound of flour at the time. As a result, cross-border trafficking chains involving this trade continue to emerge. Ji was one of the women who were abducted from Guangdong to Buckville and became a dust woman. Later, she earned enough money to successfully redeem herself.
After the redemption, Ji became a partner with the lonely Huang Maiding, and in 1928 he was sponsored by Hong Shuntang, and was expected to return to Guangdong to enjoy his old age together. However, before departure, Ji died suddenly, leaving Huang Maiding alone. There has been no news since.
Chinese who died in Buckville were often unable to return to their homeland. In the era of Chinese exclusion in Canada, Chinese were not allowed to be buried in the same cemetery as Westerners, and Chinese cemeteries were usually located in the middle of nowhere. Usually a few days before their deaths, the Chinese are sent to the morgue in Hong Shuntang, where they are cared for so that they can die with dignity.
After the death is officially confirmed, Hong Shun Tong prepares the coffin for burial, but the tomb usually has only simple mounds, and the tombstones are replaced by simple wooden plaques. According to the Guangdong tradition of second burial, after a few years the body is completely decomposed, Hong Shuntang will make a new sacrifice, wash and dry the ashes, put them in clay jars, wrap them in red cloth, and transport them back to Guangdong, and then the family will be responsible for permanent burial to show their return to their homeland.
In the 30s of the 20th century, Buckville's mineral resources were gradually depleted, residents continued to flow out, and the trend of ghost towns could not be reversed.
The last second burial took place in 1949. However, there are still a very small number of Chinese like Ji who cannot get in touch with relatives in China, and because of the changing situation, they can only sleep in Buckville forever and never go back.