Great Clearance

The rural people risked their lives if they ignored the government edict to move, or ventured back into the prohibited area.

Twenty-one fortified mounds, each manned with an army unit, were created along the border of Xin'an County, and at least five of them were located in present-day Hong Kong.

[8][9] The evacuation of the coast followed prolonged earlier years of miseries and had a profound effect on the lives of the population and on the pattern of future settlement.

The survivors' hardships did not end when they returned to take up their interrupted lives in their old homes, for it is recorded that destructive typhoons in 1669 and 1671 destroyed the new houses in many places.

It is recalled in the genealogies and traditions of some of the longsettled clans of the County: it is commemorated in the construction and continued repair of temples to the two officials who strove to have the order rescinded.

[3] An example is the Chou Wong Yi Kung Study Hall in Shui Tau Tsuen, in Kam Tin, Hong Kong, which was erected in 1685 by the Tang Clan in honour of Zhou Youde and Wang Lairen.

[3] Hakka dialect-speaking communities are thought to have arrived in the Hong Kong area after the rescinding of the coastal evacuation order.