Wu Sha
Pioneer of the Kavalan Plain
Qing Dynasty
1731–1798
Wu Sha was born in 1731 in Zhangpu, Zhangzhou, on the Fujian coast, and crossed to Taiwan as a young man to seek his fortune on the northern frontier. Settling near the mountain pass at Sandiao, he made his living trading with the Kavalan people of the plain beyond the ranges, learning their ways and earning a reputation for fair dealing. Where others saw only forbidden and dangerous country, Wu saw the last great expanse of unclaimed farmland in Taiwan. In 1796 he gathered a band of Han and Hakka settlers, armed and provisioned, and led them over the pass to build a fortified camp at Toucheng — the first Han foothold on the Kavalan plain. The Kavalan resisted the intrusion fiercely, and the early years were bloody; the turning point came when a smallpox epidemic struck the villages and Wu used his knowledge of variolation to treat the sick, winning a trust his weapons could not. He laid out the pattern of communal, walled settlements that would define the plain's development, but died in 1798, only two years into the enterprise. His kinsmen carried the work southward until the Qing, confronted with the accomplished fact, annexed the region as Kavalan Sub-prefecture. Wu Sha is remembered as the man who opened Yilan — a pioneer whose achievement, like all on the frontier, came at the cost of the people who were there first.
Led Han settlers over the pass to found Toucheng (1796)
Used variolation to win the trust of the Kavalan people
Pioneer of the Kavalan Plain
Wu Sha
Era
Qing Dynasty
Lifespan
1731–1798
Wu Sha was born in 1731 in Zhangpu, Zhangzhou, on the Fujian coast, and crossed to Taiwan as a young man to seek his fortune on the northern frontier. Settling near the mountain pass at Sandiao, he made his living trading with the Kavalan people of the plain beyond the ranges, learning their ways and earning a reputation for fair dealing. Where others saw only forbidden and dangerous country, Wu saw the last great expanse of unclaimed farmland in Taiwan. In 1796 he gathered a band of Han and Hakka settlers, armed and provisioned, and led them over the pass to build a fortified camp at Toucheng — the first Han foothold on the Kavalan plain. The Kavalan resisted the intrusion fiercely, and the early years were bloody; the turning point came when a smallpox epidemic struck the villages and Wu used his knowledge of variolation to treat the sick, winning a trust his weapons could not. He laid out the pattern of communal, walled settlements that would define the plain's development, but died in 1798, only two years into the enterprise. His kinsmen carried the work southward until the Qing, confronted with the accomplished fact, annexed the region as Kavalan Sub-prefecture. Wu Sha is remembered as the man who opened Yilan — a pioneer whose achievement, like all on the frontier, came at the cost of the people who were there first.
Led Han settlers over the pass to found Toucheng (1796)
Used variolation to win the trust of the Kavalan people