The Tapani incident
Recruitment
The largest group of participants came from the local
ho and
kō heads (gentry) from the mountainous areas of Tainan and Ahou prefectures, followed by numerous camphor industry workers of Nantou Prefecture. There were also a group of scholars and ex-officials from Tainan city. Only one recruit from the northern and central areas of Taiwan participated in fighting.
The revolt recruited supporters from mainland China as well, although the overall worldviews of the revolt participants seem to be largely unaware of or unaffected by recent Chinese political events such as the Xinhai Revolution, but sought to create an imperial state with either Yü or Luo as emperor.
The participants of the revolt believed that a force of "celestial troops," or troops from mainland China, would come to their aid, although they disagreed on whether these were to be from Chinese leader
Yuan Shikai or from the already-defunct Qing dynasty, and also did not agree on whether the purpose was for China to take over Taiwan or to acquire state independence.
During the height of the rebellion, Yu published an edict, reminiscent of ancient imperial Chinese legitimation ideology, based on the ideas of
Zhonghua leadership over other nations, the Mandate of Heaven, and dynastic revolution. In the edict he declared the formation of a
Da Ming Cibei Kingdom (Kingdom of Compassion and Great Luminosity). This rhetoric closely resembled those of triad or
Tiandihui rebellions.
Legacy
Modern Taiwanese
historiography attempts to portray the Tapani Incident as a nationalist uprising either from a Chinese (unification) or Taiwanese (independence) perspective. Japanese colonial historiography attempted to portray the incident as a large scale instance of banditry led by criminal elements. However, the Tapani Incident differs from other uprisings in Taiwan's history because of its elements of
millenarianism and
folk religion, which enabled Yu Qingfang to raise a significant armed force whose members believed themselves to be invulnerable to modern weaponry.
The similarities between the rhetoric of the leaders of the Tapani uprising and the Righteous Harmony Society of the recent Boxer Rebellion in China were not lost on Japanese colonial authorities, and the colonial government subsequently paid more attention to popular religion and took steps to improve colonial administration in southern Taiwan.
The aboriginals carried on with violent armed struggle against the Japanese while Han Chinese violent opposition stopped after Tapani.
See also
Notes
External links
