FORMOSA A Study in Chinese History By the same author • THE DEMOCRACY OF SUN YAT-SEN TAIWAN, A CHINESE PROVINCE (in Chinese) THE STORY OF FORMOSA THE MAKERS OF TAIWAN E A S T C H I N A '\l ~ --<; 0 c- " A~ , 1> S i ,~ F u K "' E ," o ~ C \\ . ~ \. \Ü (; '" "t- b: ~ O Amo'y ~~,.l' oTaichuns ~'''' -: X oChan,9hUa. A ~. FORMOS O~", c: Peikans ,I .'Pcscadorcs<l 0 ' (Benkon,!J1 s; : '.. L ~ "• '>.- Q:'r An'P. ln,9~ Talnon ait uns ,...~1'I'tiJ. ~O 0 J r .. ~ 0 /(n Oh" iunS ~ (Fen9 s han... \0 Hen,9chun q, Lu'!Ju o Mi/es 100 ! I Formosa FORMOSA A Study in Chinese History w. G. GODDARD Order o[th« Brilliant Star (China) Palgrave Macmillan 1966 ISBN 978-1-349-81660-6 ISBN 978-1-349-81658-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-81658-3 © W. G. Goddard 1966 Softcover reprint of the hardcover ist edition 1966978-0-333-08223-2 MACMILLAN AND COMPANY LIMITED L ittle Essex Street London WC 2 also Bomhay Calcuua Madras Melhourne THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA LHdlTED 70 Bond Street Toronto 2 TO JESSIE my companion in Formosa Contents List ofIllustrations page viii [ntroduction ix CHAPTER I. The Beginnings I 2. Captain China and his Corsairs 35 3· The Dutch Interlude 49 4· The House of Cheng 63 5· The Age of Unrest 92 6. The Literati at Panch'iao 111 7· Liu Ming-ch'uan the Master Builder 124 8. The First Asian Republic 140 9· The Japanese Occupation 15 8 10. Sun Yat-sen and Formosa 168 11. Formosa since 1945 177 Postscript 202 Books Consulted hy the Author 222 Index 225 vii List ofIllustrations Reconstruction by Hata Sada-nori in 1803 of a primitive sea-going Taitung raft as used on the eastern coast of Formosa page 4 Chief Mao of the Tsou tribe with the author in 1959 facingpage 63 Cheng Cheng-kung (Koxinga) 78 Shen Pao-chen, the architect of modern Formosa 111 Liu Ming-ch'uan, first Chinese Governor of Formosa 126 Lien Heng, anthologist of the Japanese occupation period 159 Ch'iu Feng-chia, founder of the Republic of Formosa in 1895 159 Chen Cheng, pioneer ofland reform in Formosa 174 Chang Chi-yun, former Minister of Education and now Director of the Institute of Advanced Chinese Studies 191 Chiang Kai-shek and the author in 1956 206 MAPS Formosa Frontispiece Mountains of Formosa 9 Distribution of aboriginal tribes in Formosa 18 Regional distribution of migrants and aborigines 27 Formosa, as it was known to the House of Cheng 79 viii 1ntroduetion WHAT is Formosa? An island, just under 14,000 square miles in area, or slightly larger than Holland, shaped like a huge tobacco leaf, and with a range of high mountains running like a spine through the centre from north to south, somewhere in the western Pacific? A place of refuge for Chiang Kai-shek and his followers, from which they hope, forlornly or otherwise, to return one day to the Chinese mainland? Or is there a deeper meaning? Islands have played a decisive role in past history, There was Salamis. In our own time there was Britain. Both saved civilization. Can it be that Formosa has a significance, far beyond the fate of any individual or group, some connection with the future of the hundreds of millions on the mainland of China? Has it any relation to the Asia of tomorrow and indeed to the lands beyond, such as Australia for instance ? If so, what is this meaning ? It was in search of some answer to this question that the author of the following pages went to Formosa in 1953 and since then has made six visits to the island, each of protracted length, During these visits the whole island has been traversed, from Keelung in the north to Hengchun in the south. There have been many talks with Chiang Kai-shek and high officials, past and present, in both the National and Provincial Governments. Long hours have been spent with scholars of the Academia Sinica at Nankang, outside Taipei. As for the ordinary people­ the wharf-labourers at Keelung and Kaohsiung, cigarette-sellers on the streets of the main eities, farmers, factory-workers­ their views have been sought. Every section of the population has been interviewed, with the aim of presenting as complete a picture of Formosa as possible. ix x FORMOSA The picture ernerging gradually over the past ten years will be seen by the reader as he turns the following pages. However, this can only be understood and appreciated when set against the background of the past. Formosa today is not just an accident. It has not come about by chance. Whatever rneaning it has is the result of centuries, and the Formosa of the present cannot be divorced from the Formosa of the past. Its significance did not erupt into history with the coming of the Nationalists in 1945 in the same way as the island itse1fsuddenly appeared above the waters of the Pacific in prehistory. The historical significance of Formosa has been a cumulative process, each century adding its own dynamic urge. No attempt is made in the following pages to write a history of Formosa as that term is generally understood, with dates, with the story of battles lost and won, and with the clash of personal­ ities and the struggles of rival groups. Formosa, too, has had all these. Our search has been not for details of these dramas, but rather for the vital mainstream, which, Arethusa-like, flowed on through the centuries, at times underground, then in the full glare ofthe sun, at times slowly between broad banks, then strong and turgid through the narrows, ever gaining strength, till at last it spread over the vast plain with its life-giving water, This is not a history of Formosa, but an interpretation of Formosa. To trace the course of this stream, we must know something of its source and the nature of the land through which it flowed, for Formosa has it own peculiar geographical setting, geological structure, and subjeetion to the typhoons that have done so much in shaping both the physical nature of the island and the course of this vital national stream. Geologists tell us that Fonnosa was not always as it is today. It was born out of violence, and turbulence brought it into the world. At some remote period in the T ertiary Era an extensive subsidence had taken place along the eastern seaboard of the Asiatic continent. The waters now known as the Okhotsk, Japan, Yellow, and China Seas, together with the Strait of Fonnosa, cover the submerged lands. It is a fact that the INTRODUCTION xi maximum depth of water between Formosa and the Chinese mainland is 100 fathoms, whereas the soundings on the eastern side of Formosa fall suddenly to 1,000 fathoms, then to 2,000, till farther out the unsounded depths of the Pacific Ocean are reached. There is a vast difference between the depth of the ocean bed on the eastern side and that of the continental shelf at the hottom of the Strait of Formosa. Later, in geological time, terrific volcanic action flung up huge igneous rock-masses as high as 1,500 feet above the ocean, carrying with them vast amounts of coraI. This was the birth of Formosa, shaped then not as the island is today, but as ranges of high mountains above the level of the ocean, isolated in the vast expanse of water, Then came the typhoons. Through the centuries torrential rains carried out to sea, especially on the western side, the debris, the wear and tear of the mountain-sides, and the coral, gradually forming the rich and fertile plains, one of which now extends the length of 100 miles along the western side of Formosa. In the great cosmic drama Nature's anger was to prove a blessing to man. Through subsequent centuries, in the historie period, man was to claim what in prehistoric times Nature had disclaimed and then sought to rectify - that Formosa is an integral part of China. But it did not end there . Great physical changes have been transforming the face of Formosa since the first wanderers landed on its shores. They saw in the north of the island, berween what is now Taipei and Keelung, a vast lake in the mountains, around which they built their rude dwellings and formed their villages. They lived mainly on fish from the lake. But Nature did not take kindly to this intrusion. The succession oftyphoons brought the detritus down from the mountains and deposited it in the lake till the bottorn began to rise higher and higher. Today what was once that lake is a plateau, During this process of transformation, Nature, in another of her whimsical moods, rent a spur in the surrounding mountains, with the result that the remaining water rushed towards the sea in wild abandon, cutting xii FORMOSA what is now the channel ofthe Tamsui River. Still the increasing ravages continue. What the earthquake begins the typhoon carries on, Mountain slopes are cut into precipitous valleys, destroying what man has cultivated. And the field of activity is vast, for 68 per cent of the area of Formosa is mountainous or hilly country. Born in the mountains, the rivers, swollen with typhonic rains, rush into the plains, threatening to hold everybody and everything to ransom. But the skill and ingenuity of man have now combined to meet this challenge.