29/07/2026
【回顧】網上半月譚(2026年春)| 俘虜英國「公主」:𠹵哪𠸎咘事件的歷史考辨與知識環流(1840-1930s)
王澤偉,香港浸會大學
中文,歷史,宗教及哲學學部 中國語言文學系博士
王澤偉博士以1840年第一次鴉片戰爭期間英船「風鳶號」在浙江餘姚外海擱淺沉沒、英國婦女晏那.拿布被捕並羈押寧波監獄,直至1841年經外交交涉獲釋事件為核心,探討該異聞性敘事在近代東亞語境中的生成、傳播與敘事變異問題。王博士指出,該事件在中日之間流傳為英國公主被俘,並在中、日、英三方文獻與筆記、報刊及回憶錄中不斷增生細節,構成跨語際的敘事層累現象。隨後,王博士通過對清方奏報、地方志、張禧日記、英方回憶錄與《中國叢報》等材料互證,考辨了風鳶號航線、擱淺地點、俘虜釋放時間,以及「英國公主」說的來源。他強調寧波作為近代初期通商與信息流動的關鍵節點,使該事件同時嵌入「中西接觸」與「中日轉述」兩條傳播路徑,並在跨區域流通中逐步轉化為具有新聞性與知識性的公共敘事資源。最後王博士指出,該案例不僅有助於釐清鴉片戰爭相關異聞的歷史真相,更揭示近代早期東亞資訊流動的網絡化特徵,為此後晚清社會整合進入新的全球性信息流動秩序進行預演。
#網上半月譚 #王澤偉 #清代 #晏那拿布 #羅生門 #歷史考辨
【Review】Online Sinology Fortnightly (2026 Spring) | apturing the British “Princess”: A Historiographical Inquiry and Knowledge Circulation of the Anne Noble Incident, 1840-1930s
WANG Zewei
PhD, Department of Chinese Language and Literature,
Academy of Chinese, History, Religion, and Philosophy, Hong Kong Baptist University
Drawing on the 1840 incident during the First O***m War in which the British ship the Kite ran aground and sank off Yuyao, Zhejiang, and the British woman Anne Noble was captured and imprisoned in the Ningbo jail until her release in 1841 through diplomatic negotiations, Dr. Wang Zewei examined how this sensational narrative emerged, spread, and transformed within the modern East Asian context. He noted that between China and Japan the episode circulated as the capture of a “British princess,” and that details continually proliferated across Chinese, Japanese, and English sources, including official and private writings, newspapers, and memoirs, producing a cross-linguistic phenomenon of layered narrative accretion. Dr. Wang then corroborated Qing memorials, local gazetteers, the diary of Zhang Xi, British memoirs, and The Chinese Repository to reconstruct the Kite’s route, pinpoint the grounding site, determine the timing of the prisoners’ release, and trace the origins of the “British princess” claim. He emphasized that Ningbo, as a key node for commerce and information flow in the early modern period, situated the case simultaneously within two transmission paths, “Sino-Western contact” and “Sino-Japanese relay,” and that through transregional circulation it gradually became a public narrative resource with both news value and knowledge content. Finally, Dr. Wang argued that this case not only helped clarify the historical truth behind O***m War-related anecdotes but also revealed the networked character of information flows in early modern East Asia, foreshadowing the late Qing society’s integration into a new, global information order.