Women were used in placed of yaks and incidently were treated like yaks. If any group were to claim that they lost Hong Kong, then it would be the Tanka people who live on the coastal harbor speaking their own brand of Yue Cantonese dialect. A reminder is that nobody is forcing anybody to assimilate into Cantonese. It is difficult for me to grasp the concept of how your discussions have painted Cantonese to be an enemy. One thing for sure, the TangRen identity does not exist in the Mandarin culture.
Succession is a bad idea.