Armed Resistance

The early decades of Japanese rule were marked by persistent armed resistance, revealing the depth of opposition to colonial authority across both Han and indigenous communities. In the first years after annexation, guerrilla fighters known as 'righteous bandits' (義匪) waged a sustained insurgency across the countryside, prompting the colonial government to launch massive 'bandit suppression' campaigns that killed thousands.

The most significant uprisings punctuated the colonial period like recurring tremors. The Beipu Incident of 1907 saw Hakka and indigenous Saisiyat fighters briefly seize a Japanese police station in Hsinchu. The Tapani Incident of 1915, led by Yu Qingfang under the banner of a syncretic religious movement, was the last major Han armed revolt — its suppression resulted in nearly 900 death sentences, later commuted under public pressure. The Wushe Incident of 1930 sent shockwaves through the empire: Seediq warriors led by Chief Mona Rudao attacked a Japanese sports day gathering, killing over 130 settlers and officials. The colonial government's retribution was devastating — deploying aircraft, poison gas, and allied indigenous groups in a campaign that nearly annihilated the Seediq communities involved.

This volume traces the arc of armed resistance from the guerrilla campaigns of the 1890s through the watershed Wushe Incident, examining how each uprising reshaped colonial policy — from military suppression toward increasingly sophisticated systems of surveillance, co-optation, and assimilation — and how the memory of resistance became foundational to Taiwanese identity.