After the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, Britain sent more than 14,000 men from three brigades, 21 warships including aircraft carriers, and more than 80 aircraft to join the "United Nations Force" led by the United States, becoming the Western country with the largest number of troops outside the United States.
This kind of military involvement is more of a political gesture made by Britain to maintain the special relationship between Britain and the United States, and in fact exposes the embarrassing situation of the once prosperous "British Empire" in the post-war international landscape.
Prime Minister Attlee disagreed with U.S. policy in the Far East, but was forced to compromise under pressure from the Truman administration. But they clearly know that they have a lot of control in the hands of New China.
That is, Hong Kong, located on the coast of the South China Sea and separated from Chinese mainland only by a Shenzhen River, Hong Kong, as the "crown jewel" of Britain in the Far East, is also the last fig leaf of the empire, but its economic lifeline is closely connected with the mainland, it can be said that "Hong Kong is chaotic, the new Chinese government has the final say."
When the People's Liberation Army liberated Guangdong in October 1949, according to the combat effectiveness of Siye, as long as the South China Bureau gave an order, it only took a few hours to sweep away the British army in Hong Kong, but the PLA did not act.
The streets of Hong Kong in the 1950s
According to the farsightedness of Chairman Mao and other leaders, the reason why Hong Kong is not accepted is, first, to retain a window for dialogue with the West when New China is facing a blockade by the West, and second, to make the British people feel jealous and dare not completely follow the US line of thinking to be an enemy of China.
After the outbreak of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the bureaucracy of the British colonial government in Hong Kong, headed by the then Governor of Hong Kong, Alexander Graham, was in a dilemma: when the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, Hong Kong's trade with the mainland accounted for 37% of its total trade volume, and the grain and daily necessities transported by the mainland accounted for more than 60% of Hong Kong's people's livelihood needs.
The US-led comprehensive embargo on China has actually put Hong Kong in a dilemma: if the embargo is strictly enforced, Hong Kong will lose its status as a transit port; If it does, it could lead to U.S. sanctions.
This contradiction culminated in May 1951 after the passage of the United Nations embargo resolution on China, when the British authorities in Hong Kong were forced to enact the Import and Export (Strategic Commodities) Regulations, but secretly retained the "exceptional permit" system.
British government officials in Hong Kong at the time were very clear: "We have to walk a tightrope between Washington's pressure and the reality of Hong Kong." Archives show that between 1951 and 1953, Hong Kong's exports of "non-strategic materials" to Chinese mainland increased by 23% against the trend.
The wharf in Hong Kong after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War
"Gray materials" including textiles, medicines, steel, gasoline, kerosene, diesel, hardware, sacks and other "gray materials" continue to travel north through complex customs procedures.
What's more, the Marine Department of the British Government of Hong Kong has also opened its eyes to the issuance of "special permits" for specific merchant vessels with which they are concerned, and these vessels turn off their transponders after leaving the port at night and sail along the hidden channel on the west side of Lantau West to Macao.
Compared with Hong Kong's constraints, Portugal's Macau has become a key node in breaking the embargo due to its neutral status. The Portuguese authorities in Macao have made clever use of the remaining provisions of the Sino-Portuguese Treaty of Friendship and Commerce to set the standard of trade control as "goods for non-military purposes".
This policy ambiguity gave rise to a unique trade ecology: in 1951, the number of trading companies registered in Macao increased sharply compared to 1951, and Chinese-funded institutions such as Nam Kwong Company and Nam Hua Company built a procurement network covering Southeast Asia through covert control and layout.
Nam Kwong's operation is a model of a hidden front. Its Macau headquarters is located in a humble arcade building on Avenida Yin Huangzi, and through the social connections of patriotic businessmen such as Ho Yin and Ma Man-kei, it has established three independent operating systems:
Ho Yin, known as Macau's "Shadow Governor"
The purchasing team contacted suppliers in the name of "Nanyang Trading Bank", the transportation team dispatched ships through "Guangchang Shipping", and the settlement team used the Macau Silver to carry out offshore fund clearing.
In order to circumvent inspections, important materials often adopt "secondary packaging" strategies, such as labeling hardware equipment as "farm tool accessories", antibiotics disguised as "cod liver oil preparations", and so on.
In this trade game, Fok Yingdong's entrepreneurial history can be called a microcosm of the times. In 1923, a typhoon killed Huo Yingdong's two brothers, and when Huo's father died of illness in 1930, the family left only a few pieces of dilapidated fishing gear.
After Huo's mother Lau took her three children ashore, she built a tent in Kenny Tunnel in Wan Chai and lived by sewing for others. But the so-called adversity produces heroes, and the young Fok Ying-tung has already shown a business talent during his part-time work and study at Queen's College: he contracted the sale of campus sodas, and sold 100 bottles a day through the strategy of "buy 10 get 1 free".
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Fok Yingdong started with a few hundred Hong Kong dollars from his mother's pawn jewelry, purchased a small sailing ship without any power unit to engage in sea transportation, and when the Korean War broke out, the 27-year-old Fok Yingdong had just established "Xinde Shipping".
Fok Yingdong and his eldest wife Lu Yanni
With his familiarity with the sea conditions, he was the first to spot trade opportunities in Macau: rubber purchased from Singapore was transported to Hong Kong via the Straits of Malacca, converted into fishing boats, and sailed to Macao at night, with a profit of up to 300% per voyage.
Subsequently, Fok Yingdong's transportation business developed to diesel, because diesel is lighter than water, so the draft of the ship loaded with diesel is very shallow, and others cannot see what is loaded in it when driving on the sea, and it is relatively safe in the southeast coast, which is not stable at the time.
In order to deal with maritime risks, Huo's fleet has created a "three-ship joint guarantee" mechanism - the pilot ship is equipped with telescope reconnaissance, the transport ship is loaded with reinforcing steel plates, and the escort ship is equipped with armed personnel.
At first, Huo Yingdong did not know that the main buyer behind the rubber and diesel materials he transported was the "Nanguang Company", which was directly controlled by the South China Bureau of our party.
Due to the large number of times of transporting these "embargoed" materials, the fair price and the timely arrival of the goods, Huo Yingdong has attracted the attention and attention of the person in charge of Nam Kwong Company, and is listed as one of the reliable partners.
From left: Ma Man-kei, Ke Zhengping, Chan Ho-yin, Stanley Ho
Of course, the route of transporting these scarce materials was by no means smooth sailing, and because of the special type of cargo transported by Fok Yingdong's ships, it attracted the attention of Kuomintang agents, who colluded with the British government in Hong Kong to blow up and sink a cargo ship of the Huo family as a warning.
On another occasion, another cargo ship was also hit and sunk by a colonial government's marine police ship, which can be described as a heavy loss, but at that time, Fok Yingdong already knew what he was doing and what risks he would encounter, so he resolutely persevered.
In the face of obstruction and sabotage by the British authorities and Kuomintang agents in Hong Kong, the Holmes fleet converted the traditional sailing boats to hybrids, retaining the sails as a camouflage, and actually relying on modified American-made GMC engines to drive them.
The cargo compartment is designed with ingenuity: the double-deck bilge is filled with water to adjust the draft, and the interlayer is filled with cork to ensure buoyancy in the event of an accidental sinking.
The most sophisticated is the mobile cargo system, where the crew divides the cargo into detachable iron boxes, which can quickly sink to the preset seabed coordinates when inspected, and salvage after the risk is removed.
British police and Kuomintang soldiers in Hong Kong in 1949
This technological innovation has increased the transportation efficiency of the Huo's fleet by 3 times. At its peak in 1952, its fleet completed 20 voyages per month, accounting for 15% of Macao's entrepot trade.
According to the archives of the Nam Kwong Company, between 1951 and 1953, Fok Yingdong transported a total of 5,000 tons of rubber, 12,000 tons of steel, and more than 400 boxes of medicines.
Of course, the people of the white path are easy to deal with, but the unscrupulous underworld is even more troublesome, and it is dangerous to even lead people and boats.
At the mouth of the Pearl River, there is a waterway of about 60 nautical miles from Hong Kong to Macao, and this water area divided by colonizers is now cruising with three forces: Hong Kong and British patrol boats flying the rice flag, Kuomintang gunboats painted with blue sky and white sun emblems, and outlaws known as "Da Tian Er".
These armed groups, composed of Kuomintang routers, pirates, and gangsters, are like schools of sharks that smell blood, and prey on the waterways.
Macau in the 50s
They were armed with American-aided M2 heavy machine guns and Japanese-made torpedo boats, and even the Hong Kong and British sailors had to avoid three points, and the Portuguese authorities in Macao dared not speak out.
One day in the winter of 1950, Fok Ying-tung personally escorted a cargo ship carrying steel pipes from Hong Kong to Macao, but was intercepted by a group of armed men of unknown origin on the way.
The other party is well-equipped, and the speed of the speedboat is far above the cargo ship, if they are provoked, not only can the goods not be saved, but even their personal safety is in danger, Huo Yingdong knows that the heroes do not suffer immediate losses, and can only let these pirates rob the ship full of steel pipes.
Subsequently, Fok Yingdong knew through his own connections that the person who robbed the cargo ship was "Da Tianer", and he was unwilling to suffer a dumb loss, so he decided to go to Macao in person to collect evidence and accuse the other party to the colonial authorities.
After he came to Macao, he made a secret visit, and it didn't take long to find that a group of people were selling steel pipes at the wharf, which happened to be the ship of goods that he had been robbed.
Fok Ying-tung when he was young
At that time, Fok Yingdong was only 27 years old, which was the age when the newborn calf was not afraid of tigers, so he immediately went to theorize and said that he would go to the Macao police station to report this group.
Unexpectedly, the other party was unmoved, not only did he not look scared at all, but he shouted more vigorously, Huo Yingdong was furious, and was about to go over to make a move, but he didn't expect the hammer sound of a Browning pistol to suddenly come from the back of his head.
Huo Yingdong was stunned, and felt that the barrel of the gun was slowly sliding down his spine to his neck, and the person behind him sneered: "If you shout again, I will kill you." ”
At that time, in Hong Kong and Macao, where associations were everywhere and gangs were numerous, bloody vendettas on the streets were commonplace, and people were shot and killed in the streets. Huo Yingdong knew that his life was hanging by a thread now, so he had to swallow his anger and silently withdraw from the crowd.
After returning to the hotel, he thought about it and thought about it, but he still couldn't swallow this breath, so he went to the Macao police station to report the case.
In the past, the waves were stormy, but now the clouds are light and the wind is light
Many years later, Fok Yingdong still remembers this experience vividly: "I didn't expect that the sea transportation almost tasted the taste of the two bullets in the sky. ”
However, such a thrilling encounter only strengthened Fok Yingdong's determination to support New China, because he not only heard it, but also saw with his own eyes that there were no pirates, no bandits, no arrogant foreign policemen, and no ugly things such as "pornography, gambling, and drugs" in New China.
Throughout his life, Fok Ying-tung did not receive any Medal of Honor from the British Government of Hong Kong or the British Government, but he gladly accepted the post of a member of the Drafting Committee of the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and joined in the preparations for Hong Kong's return to the motherland.
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