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Taiwan's dynasty history
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The Qing dynasty ruled over the island of Taiwan from 1683 to 1895. The Qing dynasty sent an army led by General Shi Lang to defeat the Ming loyalist Kingdom of Tungning in 1683. Taiwan was then formally annexed in April 1684.
Taiwan was governed as Taiwan Prefecture of Fujian Province until the establishment of Fujian–Taiwan Province in 1887. The Qing dynasty extended its control of Taiwan across the western coast, the western plains, and the northeast over the 18th and 19th centuries. The Qing government did not pursue an active colonization policy and restricted Han migration to Taiwan for the majority of its rule out of fear of rebellion and conflict with the Taiwanese indigenous peoples. Han migrants were barred from settling on indigenous land, and markers were used to delineate the boundaries of settled areas and mountain dwelling aborigines. Despite Qing restrictions, settlers continued to enter Taiwan and push the boundaries of indigenous territory, resulting in the expansion of Qing borders in Taiwan to encompass all of the western plains and the northeast. The lack of state-sponsored colonial administration led to frequent rebellions by Han settlers. By the end of Qing rule in 1895, Taiwan's ethnic Han population had increased by over two million, with some estimates suggesting over three million, making Hans the majority demographic on the island. Taiwan was ceded to the Empire of Japan with the Treaty of Shimonoseki in April 1895, following the Qing dynasty's defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War.
After the defeat of the Kingdom of Tungning at the Battle of Penghu in 1683, the 13-year-old ruler Zheng Keshuang surrendered to the Qing dynasty. The Kangxi Emperor celebrated the defeat of the Ming loyalist regime in Taiwan which had troubled the Qing for decades. He composed two poems in celebration of the victory. Admiral Shi Lang, who had led Qing forces against the Zheng in naval battle, was awarded a hereditary title, the "Marquis of Sea-Pacification," on 7 October 1683.
Shi Lang remained in Taiwan for 98 days before returning to Fujian on 29 December 1683. His stay in Taiwan made him feel that annexing the island was of greater importance than expected, due to its economic potential. At a conference in Fujian to determine Taiwan's future, some officials from the central government advocated to transport all of Taiwan's inhabitants to the mainland and abandon the island. Prior to 1683, Taiwan was associated with traditional stereotypes of a wild barbarian island beyond the sea. It bore monikers such as the "Island of Dogs" and "Island of Women" or was situated near those places on maps. Kangxi regarded the island as "a ball of mud beyond the pale of civilization" which did not appear on any map of the imperial domain until 1683. Their primary concern was the defeat of the rebels which had already been accomplished. One argued that defending Taiwan was impossible and increasing defense expenditures was highly unfavorable.
Shi, however, vehemently opposed abandoning Taiwan. Yao Qisheng had also been strongly in favor of annexing the island. On 7 October 1683, Yao stated that though Taiwan had not been part of China, the Zhengs had wreaked havoc on the mainland for 20 years after seizing it from the Dutch, and if Taiwan was relinquished, it would once again be occupied by rebels threatening the Chinese coast. Shi argued that to abandon Taiwan would leave it open to other enemies like criminals, adventurers, and the Dutch. He assured that defending Taiwan would not be exorbitant and would only take 10,000 men, while garrisoned forces on the South China coast could be reduced. Shi convinced all the attendees at the Fujian conference, with the exception of the special commissioner from Beijing – Subai – that it was in their best interests to annex Taiwan. On 7 February 1684, Shi sent a memorial to Kangxi with arguments to keep Taiwan, including descriptions of the island's economic products, the cost of relocating Taiwan's inhabitants, and a map of its geography. Prior to the Qing dynasty, China was conceived as a land bound by mountains, rivers and seas. The idea of an island as part of China was unfathomable prior to the Qing frontier expansion effort of the 17th century. With the official inclusion of Taiwan in an imperial map of the Qing dynasty, local officials were instructed to collect information about the island's geography and compile them into a gazetteer. Documentation of Taiwan's geography proceeded in a piecemeal fashion and local officials rarely ventured beyond Taiwan's prefectural capital in the early years. As a result, most of the earliest travel writings were confined to centers of Chinese settlement. Jiang Yuying was put in charge of Taiwan's first draft gazetteer in 1688 and the first official gazetteer was published in 1696.
I have personally traveled through Taiwan and seen firsthand the fertility of its wild lands and the abundance of its natural resources. Both mulberry and field crops can be cultivated; fish and salt spout forth from the sea; the mountains are filled with dense forests of tall trees and thick bamboo; there are sulfur, rattan, sugarcane, deerskins, and all that is needed for daily living. Nothing is lacking .... This is truly a bountifully fertile piece of land and a strategic territory.
On 6 March 1684, Kangxi accepted Shi's proposal to set up permanent military establishments in Penghu and Taiwan. The final recommendation for annexing Taiwan was presented on 27 May. It was accepted by Kangxi, who authorized the establishment of Taiwan Prefecture as a new prefecture of Fujian Province, including three counties: Taiwan, Zhuluo, and Fengshan. Yang Wenkui was appointed chief commander of Taiwan.
Lin Qianguang was from Changle County, Fujian Province. He held office in Taiwan Prefecture from 1687 to 1691 but lived in Taiwan for several years beforehand and wrote an account of it in 1685.
According to Lin, Taiwan was a place of outlaws. Most of the people near the prefectural capital were from Zhangzhou and Quanzhou, and beyond, there were mostly indigenous "barbarians," whom he described as incalcitrant, uneducated people without family names or ancestral sacrifices. They did not have a calendar or know their own ages, had no terms for their grandparents, and practiced headhunting. The men and women wore no shoes and covered their upper bodies with shirts and simple cloths for their lower body. The women wrapped their shins in blue cloth and wore flowers or grasses in their hair. Males from the age of 14 or 15 wore rattan girdles. They used fresh grass to stain their teeth black. They pierced their ears and tattooed their bodies. Some tattooed their bodies with Western writing (Dutch). They wore metal bracelets on their arms, sometimes as many as ten, used bird wings to adorn their shoulders, and hung seashells on their necks.
Local governments included a chief and his deputies, around six or seven individuals in a large village, and three or four in a small village. They were divided according to their families in the common-house where matters were discussed. The youths slept outside. Some were able to write Western characters (Dutch). They were called jiaoce and handled the accounting.
Girls were preferred, since boys left the family upon marriage. Lin recounted similar courting rituals as described by Chen Di. A feast was held for fellow villagers upon marriage. Tilling was done by the wife. It was common to have multiple sexual partners even when married and there was no shame in sexual activities around children.
They did not have medicine, but bathed in the river when ill. They said that Dashi (bodhisattva) would heal them by putting medicine in the water. They bathed in water even during winter. Upon death, they festooned the door and divided the belongings to the survivors. Some belongings were buried with the corpse beneath the bed. After three days, the body was taken out, liquor forced down its throat, and buried without a coffin. If the family moved, the body was exhumed and reburied beneath the house.
Their houses were four or five feet high with no partitions between front and back. They were shaped long and narrow like a boat. The beams and posts were painted in various colors. They kept the floor clean of dirt. Behind the house, they planted coconut trees and bamboos in dense groves to avoid the heat. They did not have bedclothes but slept in their garments. There was no kitchen except a cooking pot with a three-legged stand on the ground. They ate gruel around the pot by scooping portions out with a coconut ladle. Rice was rolled up into lumps when eaten. They fermented rice by chewing uncooked rice into paste and then putting it into bamboo tubes. Both rice and clothing were stored in gourds.
They rode on ox-drawn carts. They crossed mountain valleys with the help of vines and crossed streams by jumping from rock to rock. Their spears were about five feet long and effective within a distance of a hundred paces. Their bows were made of bamboo and hemp. The arrows were long and sharp but unfeathered. The fields were ploughed when grass appeared in spring and after the harvest day in the fall, they said a year had passed.
Deeper in the mountains, the people "look like monkeys, less than three feet tall." When spotted, they climbed to the tops of the trees. They had crossbows. Some of them lived in holes.
The Qing initially forbade mainlanders from moving to Taiwan and sent most of the Fujianese living in Taiwan back to the mainland, after which only 30,229 remained. With 546 inhabitants in Penghu, 8,108 aborigines, and 10,000 troops, the official population of Taiwan Prefecture was only 50,000. The shortage of manpower compelled local officials to solicit migrants from the mainland despite restrictions imposed by the central court. Sometimes even warships transported civilians to Taiwan. By 1711, illegal migrants from Fujian and Guangdong amounted to tens of thousands yearly. After 1760, restrictions were relaxed, and by 1811 there were more than two million Han settlers in Taiwan.
The first recorded regulation of the permit system was made in 1712, but it probably existed as early as the formal annexation in 1684. The permit system existed to reduce population pressure on Taiwan. The government believed that Taiwan was unable to support too large a population before conflict would erupt. Regulations banned migrants from bringing their families to Taiwan so that settlers would not take root in Taiwan. Another consideration was the migration of unruly people to Taiwan. To prevent undesirables from entering Taiwan, the government recommended only allowing those who had property in mainland China or relatives in Taiwan to enter the island. A regulation to this effect was implemented in 1730, and in 1751 the regulation was reiterated in slightly different terms.
Over the 18th century, regulations on migration remained largely consistent with minor alterations. Early regulations centered on the good character of permit receivers while later regulations reiterated measures such as patrolling and punishment. The only changes were to the status of migrant families. Families in particular were barred from entering Taiwan to ensure that migrants would return to their families and ancestral graves. The overwhelmingly male migrants had few prospects in war-weary Fujian and thus married locally, resulting in the idiom "has Tangshan father, no Tangshan mother" (Chinese: 有唐山公，無唐山媽; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Ū Tn̂g-soaⁿ kong, bô Tn̂g-soaⁿ má). Although there is a narrative of widespread intermarriage, this is not supported by historical sources, which only report specific cases of intermarriage. The majority of Han men went back to the mainland to seek marriage, and the gender imbalance only lasted until the end of the early Qing period. Due to mass migration, within a few decades, the Han population vastly outnumbered the indigenous people so that even if intermarriage did happen, it would have been impossible to meet demand. The fact that indigenous tribes survived all the way up until Japanese colonization indicates that the women did not marry with Han men en masse. Marrying aboriginal women was prohibited in 1737 on the grounds that it interfered in aboriginal life and was used by settlers as a means to claim aboriginal land.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Taiwan under Qing rule”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.