Hong Kong has gone through reclamations for 170 odd years. Since the establishment of the City of Victoria in early Hong Kong, Chinese merchants have been playing an important contributive role in land and new city development. In May 1841, the British army was only occupying a barren Hong Kong Island. According to the demographic statistics published in the “Hong Kong Gazette”, the total population of Hong Kong Island back then was only 7 450. As financial resources were limited, the Hong Kong Government soon conducted her first ever land auction in Macau, and 404 pieces of land were sold to fund government operations. In the meantime, in order to ensure that European merchants have enough land for trading activities, through the land auction, the government deliberately marked areas for Chinese people in the upper market (i.e. the vicinity of Gough Street and Hollywood Road in Central) and the lower market (i.e. near Bonham Strand in Sheung Wan), with a view to implementing the separate governance of Chinese and non-Chinese. However, with the rapid development of trading in Central and the sharp increase in the Chinese population, the government moved the Chinese people again from the upper market to the Tai Ping Shan District in Sheung Wan in 1844. Since then, more and more Chinese people lived in Sheung Wan, and it turned into a crowded environment. On December 28, 1851, a big fire broke out in the lower market in Sheung Wan, which indirectly led to the first ever reclamation in Hong Kong, thereby extending the City of Victoria to the West. Later on, the influx of refugees moving south to Hong Kong due to the Taiping Rebellion in the Mainland had led to a sharp increase in the population. To address this problem, the government began to develop Sai Ying Pun. At that time, Li Sing followed his elder brother, Li Leung, to come to Hong Kong to start their business, and they bought many land in Sai Wan in 1857. Apart from the construction of piers, godow