Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Neither Taiwanese nor the Chinese emperors could sleep well...







The Chinese under the Ching dynasty ruled Taiwan for 212 years from 1683 to 1895. During this 212 years, Taiwanese lived a miserable life under the oppression of arrogant, less civilized, typically colonial and very corrupted Ching government officials. During this 212 years, there were at least 40 rebellions. Among them, the Lin Swan-Wen 林爽文 rebellion (1786-1788) had struggled against Ching's colonial rule for almost 2 years with at least 30,000 Taiwanese peasants participating in defending their right to live. To suppress Lin Swan-Wen's 林爽文 rebellion, the Ching government mobilized San-Hsi and Kan-Su province governor陝甘總督, Fu Kan-An 福康安, and and his army of San-Hsi and Kan-Su provinces; secretary of defense 參贊大臣, Hai-Nan Cha 海蘭察; Fu-Jen and Jei-Jiang province governor 閩浙總督, Chung-Chin 常青, and his army. Lin Swan-Wen was eventually defeated and the rebellion was suppressed. However, it was told that the Chinese emperor Chian-Long lost sleep during this rebellion period.
I visited the old battle field of this part of the history on April 18, 2009 with Professor Shi Yeng-Hong and her research group. The battle field is at Ju-San 竹山 township of the Nan-Tou county. Ju-San 竹山 literally translates as the mountain of bamboos. Yes, you can see the bamboos all over the place.

Photos show both the bamboos at Ju-San and Dr. Shih's research group at the memorial site of the battle field.

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