The 1895 Taiwan Resistance War: 148 Days of the Republic of Formosa

30-Second Overview: In April 1895, the Qing court ceded Taiwan to Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Officials and gentry on the island declared the establishment of the "Republic of Formosa" on May 25, calling it Asia's first republic. But President Tang Ching-sung fled back to the mainland within ten days, and poet Chiu Feng-chia followed four days later. The real resistance to Japanese forces was carried out by Hakka militia in central and southern Taiwan and Liu Yung-fu's Black Flag Army. After 148 days, Japanese forces occupied the entire island. Japan lost 164 soldiers killed in battle and 4,642 dead from disease. The republic disappeared, but its yellow tiger flag is still in the National Taiwan Museum today.

A Nineteen-Year-Old

In August 1895, Beipu, Hsinchu. Chiang Shao-tsu scattered his entire family fortune, assembled several hundred Hakka militia, and fought Japanese forces in the Miaoli area.¹ He was nineteen years old.

He was not a soldier. He was the young master of the prominent Chiang family of Beipu, whose father had died young, leaving the family well-off. When the "Republic of Formosa's" president and poet had already fled to the mainland, this youth took his own money and his own men into the mountains to fight.

In late July, he was captured by Japanese forces in the Battle of Jianbi Mountain. In prison, he composed a final poem: "Alone guarding the frontier, an army of one; nine turns of gut-wrenching events that all know well. A man must reckon for the nation's sake; how could I live on in shameful surrender to the enemy?" ² After writing it, he swallowed opium and died. His wife, Chen Man-mei, was pregnant at the time.

Chiang Shao-tsu was not the most famous person in this war. But he was one of the few who did not run.

The Cession

The story begins four months earlier.

On April 17, 1895, Li Hung-chang signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki at Shimonoseki, Japan, permanently ceding Taiwan and the Pescadores to Japan.³ When news reached Beijing, the court was shaken. When it reached Taiwan, there was widespread panic.

The Qing court had governed Taiwan for over two hundred years. Liu Ming-chuan had elevated it to provincial status ten years earlier, building railways and telegraph lines. Now, a single treaty had given all of this away.

Taiwan Governor Tang Ching-sung had submitted memorials opposing the cession before the treaty was signed. Taiwanese-born licentiate Chiu Feng-chia in Beijing also organized a petition campaign, protesting in unison. But the Qing court had already decided.⁴ Chiu Feng-chia composed the verse later endlessly quoted by posterity: "The prime minister holds power enough to cede lands; this lone official lacks the strength to turn back heaven."

The Republic: A Ten-Day Presidency

On May 23, gentry and officials in Taipei decided to establish the "Republic of Formosa." Nominally an act of independence, the reign title chosen was "Eternal Qing," meaning "forever belonging to the Qing dynasty."⁵ This contradiction was written into the state's name from the very first day.

On May 25, Tang Ching-sung was inaugurated as Grand President. The national flag was a blue field with a yellow tiger. The Republic of Formosa issued postage stamps and adopted a national anthem. Some called it "Asia's first republic."⁶

📝 Curator's Note
The claim of "Asia's first republic" is disputed. The Lanfang Republic of Borneo preceded it by more than a hundred years in 1777. But the more fundamental question is not ranking but nature: whose "democracy" was the republic's? Tang Ching-sung was a governor appointed by the Qing court, not an elected president. The reign title "Eternal Qing" tells the whole story: this was not an independence movement but a political operation packaged as a "republic," intended to obstruct Japanese takeover and solicit international intervention.⁷

On May 29, Japanese forces landed at Audi on the northeastern coast.⁸ By June 3 they had captured Keelung. Seeing the situation was hopeless, Tang Ching-sung disguised himself as an old woman the night of June 4 and fled by German merchant vessel to Xiamen. He had been president for ten days.⁹

Chiu Feng-chia held out four days longer. On June 8, Chiu Feng-chia took his family and 100,000 taels of silver and left Taiwan for Guangdong.¹⁰ The poet who wrote "this lone official lacks the strength to turn back heaven" ultimately chose the path that came after such helplessness.

Three Days with No Government in Taipei

After Tang Ching-sung fled, Taipei fell into three days of anarchic chaos. The strangest thing was: there were no enemies during those three days — Japanese forces were still in Keelung.¹¹

In the chaos, soldiers looted and set fires. Order within the city collapsed. On June 7, Dadaocheng merchant Ku Hsien-jung and Wanhua gentry member Chen Fa, along with representatives of the Tea Merchants' Association, went out of the city to meet the Japanese forces, opening Taipei's gates.¹²

Was Ku Hsien-jung a "collaborator" or a "pragmatist"? This debate has lasted a hundred and thirty years. His logic was simple: the city was already being looted; if Japanese forces didn't enter soon, what would be destroyed were Taipei residents' property and lives. But he later became one of the most powerful Taiwanese figures of the Japanese colonial era, and the Ku family of Lukang rose from that moment.¹³

On June 17, Japan held the "Inauguration Ceremony" in Taipei, and the Taiwan Governor-General's Office officially began operations. The Japanese colonial era had begun.

The War in the Mountains

After Taipei fell, the center of resistance shifted to central and southern Taiwan. Those who were truly fighting were not the "president" and the "poet," but three groups: Hakka militia, the Black Flag Army, and local militia scattered across the land.

Hakka militia formed the most brutal chapter of this war. Hakka communities in Hsinchu, Miaoli, and Changhua organized large-scale resistance. Beyond Chiang Shao-tsu, there were also Wu Tang-hsing and Hsu Hsiang.¹⁴ Wu Tang-hsing was killed in action at the Battle of Baguashan. Hsu Hsiang fought from Miaoli all the way to Chiayi and Tainan, dying in battle at Douliou. The three were later collectively called the "Three Heroes of the Anti-Japanese Resistance."

📝 Curator's Note
The most overlooked dimension of the 1895 war is ethnicity. The fleeing Tang Ching-sung and Chiu Feng-chia were mainlander officials and literati; those who stayed to fight were primarily local Hakka people. This was no coincidence. Hakka communities were located in hilly areas — their farmland, ancestral halls, and clan networks were all there. They could not flee, nor did they want to. Before going to battle, Wu Tang-hsing said something to his wife Huang Hsien-mei; she subsequently threw herself into a well and drowned.¹⁵

On August 27, the Battle of Baguashan. This was the largest pitched battle of the entire 1895 war. The Japanese Imperial Guards Division and Taiwan's militia engaged in fierce combat at Baguashan in Changhua; Wu Tang-hsing was killed, and Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa of Japan was also wounded in this battle (some say he contracted malaria) and died at Tainan on October 28.¹⁶

✦ "In the entire 1895 Taiwan Resistance War, Japanese forces suffered 164 killed in battle and 4,642 dead from disease. A ratio of 1:28. What truly defeated the expeditionary force was not guns — it was malaria and cholera."

Liu Yung-fu's End

Liu Yung-fu was a veteran commander of the Black Flag Army who had fought French forces in Vietnam during the Sino-French War. After Tang Ching-sung fled, he was pushed to become the Republic of Formosa's second Grand President at Tainan.¹⁷

He publicly swore to "live and die with Taiwan." But privately he repeatedly sent telegrams to Viceroy Chang Chih-tung in Guangdong, desperately pleading for ships to come and take him away.¹⁸

On October 19, Japanese forces closed in on Tainan. Liu Yung-fu ultimately fled in disguise the night of October 19, boarding a British merchant vessel to Xiamen. According to Japanese records, he left with five pet dogs.¹⁹

On October 21, Japanese forces entered Tainan. The Republic of Formosa formally came to an end. From May 25 to October 21: 148 days.

A Flag, and a Question

That blue-field yellow tiger flag is now housed in the National Taiwan Museum.²⁰ It is one of the most famous flags in Taiwan's history, representing a nation that existed for 148 days.

Chiu Feng-chia later settled in Guangdong, founded schools, and became an educational reformer in the late Qing. After the 1911 Xinhai Revolution he served as Director of Guangdong Education. He never returned to Taiwan.²¹

US Consul at Tamsui James W. Davidson witnessed the Republic of Formosa's entire trajectory firsthand, later writing The Island of Formosa, Past and Present (1903) — the most complete English firsthand account of this period in history.²²

The reign title of the Republic of Formosa was "Eternal Qing." A republic that used an empire's name. The president ran, the poet ran, and the general ran too.

What remained was a nineteen-year-old Hakka youth, and the four-line poem he wrote in prison.

The yellow tiger flag sits in a glass case in the museum. It is very quiet. All 148 days of the story are folded into that cloth. Nobody knows whether the outcome would have been different if Tang Ching-sung had not fled. But Chiang Shao-tsu's posthumous son grew up and became a local leader in Beipu during the Japanese colonial era.²³ Some people's stories do not end when the war ends.

Further Reading:

• Three Foreigners Witness 1895: A Photographer's Album, a Reporter's Notes, a Pastor's Diary — Series D-2. Japanese photographer Endo Makoto, American reporter Davidson, Japanese pastor Hosokawa Nagashi — three of the most important foreign-language eyewitness documents from the 1895 Resistance War, and the perspective limitations behind each.
• Qing Dynasty Rule of Taiwan — The 1895 Resistance War was the endpoint of the Qing period; understanding two hundred years of governance context.
• Japanese Colonial Era — After the republic disappeared, the starting point of fifty years of Japanese rule over Taiwan.
• Sino-French War — Ten years earlier, French forces attacked Taiwan; Liu Ming-chuan held Keelung. Ten years later, the province he built was ceded.
• Robert Swinhoe — Thirty years earlier a British consul recorded natural history on the same island; by the time of the 1895 Resistance War that world had ended.

References