yangtse river (4 Ergebnisse)

Later edition, mapping the river's course from Shanghai to Chongqing in sections and incorporating new information on the unfolding Sino-Japanese war. Issued by Japan's China Area Fleet, the work also includes plans of key ports, showing wharfs, railway lines, and other riverside infrastructure. Yosuko annai was first published under this title in 1935 but draws heavily on earlier reports written by Okino Matao (1898-1978), the head of Japanese naval intelligence in China during the Second World War. Okino was captured by Allied forces in 1944 and was the most senior Japanese POW brought to the US during the war for interrogation. Landscape quarto. With 18 half-tone plates, 75 maps and diagrams (most colour). Text in Japanese, leaf printed on pink paper. Original card wrappers, green cloth backstrip, front cover lettered in black against illustrative background. Recent bookseller's ticket on inner rear cover. Wrappers with central vertical crease, staining and foxing, contents clean: very good.

An appealing group of photographs, the unnamed photographer perhaps an oil consultant sent upriver to Jiujiang to evaluate the impact of the Battle of Wuhan, a four-month engagement that saw one million Chinese troops defend five provinces. Japanese troops took Jiujiang in summer 1938 and killed almost 100,000 civilians. According to the accompanying booklet of captions, the images were taken between December 1938 and May 1939 while travelling with Wenchow, a steamer built in 1923 for the China Navigation Company. The ship travelled under the protection of HMS Ladybird, a British gunboat with experience of clashing with the Japanese on the Yangtze. The images are far more varied than typical travel albums, documenting the impact of Japanese aggression. Four show members of the crew dealing with a Chinese mine in the river. After attempts to blow it up with gunfire fail, they try TNT. "We didn't get a big bang, because it was found to be water-logged, and therefore, a dud." Other photographs picture one of the many unexploded Japanese destroyer shells encountered during the cruise and ongoing minesweeping activities. Elsewhere, they encounter houses destroyed by the Japanese advance. The Jiujiang oil installation of the Asiatic Petroleum Company is visible in the distance of the third image. Heading to the installation, they see the village that sprang up around the installation as Chinese residents fled the Japanese advance. The Japanese are suspicious of guerilla attacks and order the village dismantled. "They also accused us of being spies, and receiving information about the conditions in Kuling, and that wasn't a bad guess either." Wenchow offers refuge to 400 refugees. As a foreigner, he can still find escape from the local suffering, documenting the sights and sounds of his journey and exploits with foreign friends. On leaving Jiujiang for Shanghai, he is seen off "with the usual firecrackers on the end of a bamboo pole. Thought once or twice they were a bit nearer to the seat of my pants than was necessary. However, there was nothing singed." But the voyage back to Shanghai is made not by steamer but by gunboat. Landscape quarto album (200 x 260 mm). Original black and silver textured paper, 8 card leaves with window mounts on both sides, holding 79 gelatin silver amateur snapshots (c. 55 x 80 mm or reverse), one photograph now lacking. Each image numbered below in pencil, corresponding to 16-page booklet of typed captions secured with metal pins and loosely inserted. Album with some wear and rubbing, inner hinges sometime strengthened with paper, photographs generally bright and well preserved, occasional silver mirroring and fading: a very good collection.

A scarce handbook, unrecorded institutionally, issued by the Nanjing port authorities after the 1955 modernization of signals in the 1,000-kilometre lower Yangtse. The charts and tables give information on every light, as well as distances, wind signals and anchorages for shelter, tides, and traffic control markers. Between 1953 and 1955, the government oversaw changes along the entire stretch of the river, introducing Soviet-style systems and, for the first time, making the whole of the middle and lower stretches safely navigable at night. Octavo. Text in Chinese, signals printed in colour. Original blue cloth wallet binding with popper clasp, front cover lettered in silver, contents unfolding concertina-style, including charts of channel, diagrams, and tables. Light toning, occasional foxing: near-fine.

First edition, first printing, of this report published in the wake of the devastating 1931 Yangtse floods. In 1930, the Yangtse River Commission focused on hydrological engineering and regulating the channel, with surveys conducted at ten of the river's eleven bars. We have traced a single institutional copy of this detailed report held by the Chinese Academy of Sciences Natural Science Library. In keeping with the commission's Chinese and expatriate membership, the same information is presented in both English and Chinese. This copy is bound without pages 39-44 of the Chinese-language portion, with the corresponding data and text appearing on pages 26-31 of the English section. The bilingual plates employ both English and Chinese. While the English title page dates the report to 1931, this is more accurately a reference to when the text and data were compiled. Quarto (255 x 185 mm). With 130 plates, tables in text. Text in English and Chinese. Near-contemporary brown card post-binder, purple linen backstrip, part of original front wrapper laid down on front cover, rear wrapper bound in. Chinese-language section missing pages 39-44. Post-binder worn but still sturdy, chipping to first leaf and rear wrapper, text generally fresh. A very good copy.