Li Ying-chang
Physician and Farmers' Movement Leader
Japanese Colonial
1897–1954
Li Ying-chang was born in 1897 in Erhlin, Changhua, and trained as a doctor at the Medical School of the Taiwan Governor-General's Office, where he was among the students who founded the Taiwan Cultural Association. Returning to practise medicine in his home town, he saw at first hand how the sugar company cheated local cane farmers on weight and price, and he resolved to organise them. In 1925 he helped found Taiwan's first cane growers' union in Erhlin and led its demands against the Lin Pen-yuan Sugar Company. That autumn the confrontation exploded into the Erhlin Incident, the colonial era's first large-scale farmers' protest; Li was arrested and imprisoned as a ringleader. Blacklisted and harried after his release, he eventually left for China, where he practised medicine in Shanghai under the name Li Weiguang and drew close to the communist movement. He remained in China after 1949 and died there in 1954. Li Ying-chang is remembered as a doctor who turned his stethoscope aside to fight for the dignity of Taiwan's farmers.
Founded Taiwan's first cane growers' union in Erhlin (1925)
Led the Erhlin Incident and was imprisoned
Physician and Farmers' Movement Leader
Li Ying-chang
Era
Japanese Colonial
Lifespan
1897–1954
Li Ying-chang was born in 1897 in Erhlin, Changhua, and trained as a doctor at the Medical School of the Taiwan Governor-General's Office, where he was among the students who founded the Taiwan Cultural Association. Returning to practise medicine in his home town, he saw at first hand how the sugar company cheated local cane farmers on weight and price, and he resolved to organise them. In 1925 he helped found Taiwan's first cane growers' union in Erhlin and led its demands against the Lin Pen-yuan Sugar Company. That autumn the confrontation exploded into the Erhlin Incident, the colonial era's first large-scale farmers' protest; Li was arrested and imprisoned as a ringleader. Blacklisted and harried after his release, he eventually left for China, where he practised medicine in Shanghai under the name Li Weiguang and drew close to the communist movement. He remained in China after 1949 and died there in 1954. Li Ying-chang is remembered as a doctor who turned his stethoscope aside to fight for the dignity of Taiwan's farmers.
Founded Taiwan's first cane growers' union in Erhlin (1925)
Led the Erhlin Incident and was imprisoned