Wang Te-lu
Admiral of the Qing Navy
Qing Dynasty
1770–1842
Wang Te-lu was born in 1770 in Zhuluo, near present-day Chiayi, and rose to become the highest-ranking official Taiwan produced under Qing rule. As a young man he raised local militia to help the imperial army suppress the great Lin Shuang-wen rebellion of the 1780s, and the merit he won there launched a military career that carried him from Taiwan into the wider empire's service. His defining struggle was against the pirate king Cai Qian, whose fleets terrorised the Taiwan Strait for years; Wang pursued him across the seas and, in a decisive engagement off the Zhejiang coast in 1809, finally destroyed the pirate armada. For this he was showered with honours, rising to admiral of the navy and grand guardian of the heir apparent — heights no other Taiwanese reached in the dynasty. He continued to serve as an elder statesman of coastal defence, and when war with Britain loomed, the aged admiral took up a command in the Pescadores, dying there on duty in 1842. Wang Te-lu is remembered as Taiwan's foremost military son of the Qing era; his grand tomb in Chiayi survives as one of the island's most important historic monuments.
Destroyed the fleet of the pirate king Cai Qian (1809)
Rose to admiral and grand guardian of the heir apparent
Admiral of the Qing Navy
Wang Te-lu
Era
Qing Dynasty
Lifespan
1770–1842
Wang Te-lu was born in 1770 in Zhuluo, near present-day Chiayi, and rose to become the highest-ranking official Taiwan produced under Qing rule. As a young man he raised local militia to help the imperial army suppress the great Lin Shuang-wen rebellion of the 1780s, and the merit he won there launched a military career that carried him from Taiwan into the wider empire's service. His defining struggle was against the pirate king Cai Qian, whose fleets terrorised the Taiwan Strait for years; Wang pursued him across the seas and, in a decisive engagement off the Zhejiang coast in 1809, finally destroyed the pirate armada. For this he was showered with honours, rising to admiral of the navy and grand guardian of the heir apparent — heights no other Taiwanese reached in the dynasty. He continued to serve as an elder statesman of coastal defence, and when war with Britain loomed, the aged admiral took up a command in the Pescadores, dying there on duty in 1842. Wang Te-lu is remembered as Taiwan's foremost military son of the Qing era; his grand tomb in Chiayi survives as one of the island's most important historic monuments.
Destroyed the fleet of the pirate king Cai Qian (1809)
Rose to admiral and grand guardian of the heir apparent