The Battle of Changhsing (26 November 1895), popularly known in Taiwan as the Battle of the Burning Village was the last set-piece battle during the Japanese invasion of Taiwan

Japanese invasion of Taiwan (1895)

The Japanese invasion of Taiwan was a conflict between the Empire of Japan and the armed forces of the short-lived Republic of Formosa following the Qing Dynasty's cession of Taiwan to Japan in April 1895 at the end of the First Sino-Japanese War...

. It was fought by Hakka

Hakka people

The Hakka , sometimes Hakka Han, are Han Chinese who speak the Hakka language and have links to the provincial areas of Guangdong, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan and Fujian in China....

 militia and armed civilians against the invading Imperial Japanese Army

Imperial Japanese Army

-Foundation:During the Meiji Restoration, the military forces loyal to the Emperor were samurai drawn primarily from the loyalist feudal domains of Satsuma and Chōshū...

 in Changhsing village . The battle earned its name from the fact that the entire village was burnt to the ground by the Japanese during their attempts to capture it from the Formosans.

Background

After the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki

Treaty of Shimonoseki

The Treaty of Shimonoseki , known as the Treaty of Maguan in China, was signed at the Shunpanrō hall on April 17, 1895, between the Empire of Japan and Qing Empire of China, ending the First Sino-Japanese War. The peace conference took place from March 20 to April 17, 1895...

 and the establishment of the Republic of Formosa

Republic of Formosa

The Republic of Formosa was a short-lived republic that existed on the island of Taiwan in 1895 between the formal cession of Taiwan by the Qing Dynasty of China to the Empire of Japan by the Treaty of Shimonoseki and its invasion and occupation by Japanese troops...

, Chiu Feng-yang (邱鳳揚), a Hakka leader from Pingtung, called upon his supporters to form the so-called Liutui Hakka militias . The militias were organized into six units, according to the villages where they were recruited, hence the name Liutui . The militias first engaged the Japanese at Chiatung

Battle of Chiatung

The Battle of Chiatung was an important engagement fought during the Japanese invasion of Taiwan . The battle was a Japanese victory.- The battle :...

, and were defeated due to their poor training and weaponry. By the time the militia regrouped further to the south, the Republic of Formosa

Republic of Formosa

The Republic of Formosa was a short-lived republic that existed on the island of Taiwan in 1895 between the formal cession of Taiwan by the Qing Dynasty of China to the Empire of Japan by the Treaty of Shimonoseki and its invasion and occupation by Japanese troops...

 had collapsed in the wake of President Liu Yung-fu

Liu Yung-fu

Liu Yongfu was a Chinese soldier of fortune and commander of the celebrated Black Flag Army. Liu won fame as a Chinese patriot fighting against the French in northern Vietnam in the 1870s and early 1880s...

's flight to mainland China on 20 October 1895 and the capitulation of Tainan to the Japanese on 21 October. Seeing no hope of matching the Japanese in a fight in the open around Tainan, Chiu ordered a retreat to Changhsing village, Pingtung, where he planned to make a last stand

Last stand

Last stand is a loose military term used to describe a body of troops holding a defensive position in the face of overwhelming odds. The defensive force usually takes very heavy casualties or is completely destroyed, as happened in "Custer's Last Stand" at the Battle of Little Big HornBryan Perrett...

.

Chiu's forces fought alone against the Japanese. The Hakkas of the southern plains had long been at feud with the Pepohoans (the Taiwanese aborigines

Taiwanese aborigines

Taiwanese aborigines is the term commonly applied in reference to the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Although Taiwanese indigenous groups hold a variety of creation myths, recent research suggests their ancestors may have been living on the islands for approximately 8,000 years before major Han...

 who had originally owned the land on which Chinese immigrants had settled), and the Pepohoans stood aloof from the struggle. Indeed, they actively favoured the Japanese.

The battle

Soon after their arrival, the militias fortified the village and brought in supplies. When the Japanese arrived, they found that a stone wall and other strong defensive positions had been built around Changhsing, and that almost the entire population of the village were armed, most of them with primitive weapons. The Japanese attempted to storm the village, but were pushed back several times by the Formosans. Hakka villages in Taiwan at that time were often provided with elaborate fortifications, partly due to the perennial threat of raids by head-hunting aborigines, and a village might be surrounded by ditches and a wooden palisade, and perhaps also a wooden wall with towers and loopholes, which would be difficult to storm without artillery. After hours of fierce fighting but little gain, the Japanese commander resorted to a massive bombardment to set fire to the village, and was successful in his attempt. The defenses were broken up and vicious hand-to-hand fighting ensued. In the end, more than half of the defenders, including their leader, were either killed or incapacitated, and the village was burnt to the ground by the fire. The Japanese suffered 15 killed and 57 wounded.

Aftermath

The battle officially ended all formal resistance to the Japanese invasion, but sporadic insurgency continued on for several more years, ending only when the Japanese governor-general adopted a more flexible policy towards the local population. On the other hand, out of respect toward the defenders, the Japanese commander personally paid homage to the Formosan dead. In 1901, Governor-General Kodama Gentaro also paid homage at the Chung-Yi house, or the "House of the Loyal and Just Ones" , and ordered an annual commemoration to be held.

Several decades after the battle, Yu Youren, the then chairman of Control Yuan

Control Yuan

The Control Yuan , one of the five branches of the Republic of China government in Taipei, is an investigatory agency that monitors the other branches of government...

 of Republic of China

Republic of China

The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...

, visited the site of the battle and wrote a poem praising the Formosan resistance:

Original Text	Romanization	Translation
氣與河山壯 名爭日月光 煌煌民族史 照耀火燒庄	chi-yu-he-shan-chuang min-cheng-ri-yue-kuang hui-huang-min-tsu-shih chao-yao-huo-shao-chuang	Imposing as the rivers and mountains Bright as the Sun and the Moon The glorious history of our nation Shines on the Burning Village

A monument was dedicated in 1995 to the Formosans who fell in the battle.