Lai Enjue (

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

:赖恩爵, 1795-1848), also known as ''Jian Ting'' (简廷) was a late

Qing The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaki ...

military general. He was from

Dapeng Fortress Dapeng Fortress (; Dapeng dialect ) or Dapengsuocheng is a walled village in the subdistrict Dapeng, district Longgang, Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China. The village lies 55 kilometers from the center of Shenzhen. History Dapeng Fortress ...

Xin'an County Xin'an County () is a county in the west of Henan Province, bordering Shanxi Province to the north across the Yellow River. It is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Luoyang, and contains its northernmost point. History In an ...

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

(within modern-day

Dapeng New District Dapeng New District () is an administrative area under the jurisdiction of Longgang District in Shenzhen, Guangdong. It has a land area of , a coastline of and a total population of about 180,000. The district was created on 30December 2011 wi ...

Shenzhen Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern province ...

), and has ancestry from

Zijin County Zijin County ( postal: Tzekam; ; Hakka Pha̍k-fa-sṳ: Tsṳ́-kîm-yen) is a county in the east of Guangdong Province, China. It is the southernmost county-level division of the prefecture-level city of Heyuan. The county was known as Yongan Cou ...

. Lai fought the British in the

Battle of Kowloon The Battle of Kowloon () was a skirmish between British and Chinese vessels off the Kowloon Peninsula, China, on 4 September 1839, located in Hong Kong, although Kowloon was then part of the Guangdong province. The skirmish was the first arme ...

during the

First Opium War The First Opium War (), also known as the Opium War or the Anglo-Sino War was a series of military engagements fought between Britain and the Qing dynasty of China between 1839 and 1842. The immediate issue was the Chinese enforcement of the ...

in 1839 and was given the title of Baturu and an equivalent rank of

Lieutenant General Lieutenant general (Lt Gen, LTG and similar) is a three-star military rank (NATO code OF-8) used in many countries. The rank traces its origins to the Middle Ages, where the title of lieutenant general was held by the second-in-command on the ...

. On 25 December 1843, he was appointed as the Admiral () of the Guangdong Navy. He served in this post until 1848 when he died of illness. Just before Lai died, he told his family clan that his wish was to see the return of Hong Kong to China. Ten days before the

handover of Hong Kong Sovereignty of Hong Kong was transferred from the United Kingdom to the China, People's Republic of China (PRC) at midnight on 1 July 1997. This event ended 156 years of British rule in the British Hong Kong, former colony. Hong Kong was establ ...

on 1 July 1997, more than a hundred of the Lai clan descendants from different parts of the world returned to their ancestral home to mark the event. Lai worked directly under the orders of

Emperor Guangxu The Guangxu Emperor (14 August 1871 – 14 November 1908), personal name Zaitian, was the tenth Emperor of the Qing dynasty, and the ninth Qing emperor to rule over China proper. His reign lasted from 1875 to 1908, but in practice he ruled, wi ...

and

Lin Zexu Lin Zexu (30 August 1785 – 22 November 1850), courtesy name Yuanfu, was a Chinese political philosopher and politician. He was the head of states (Viceroy), Governor General, scholar-official, and under the Daoguang Emperor of the Qing dynast ...

, both prominent figures in the First Opium War. The current Kowloon Walled City's "Dapeng Association House" forms the remnants of what was previously Lai's garrison. His tomb is under the maintenance of the Shenzhen Cultural Protection Division.

References

Further reading