Qing Incorporation

In 1683, Qing admiral Shi Lang defeated the remnants of the Zheng dynasty at the Battle of Penghu, bringing Taiwan under Qing sovereignty for the first time. The annexation was far from inevitable — a fierce debate erupted at the imperial court over whether to retain or abandon this distant island. Minister Shi Lang argued that Taiwan's strategic position made it essential for coastal defense, while others viewed it as a lawless frontier not worth the administrative burden. Emperor Kangxi ultimately sided with retention, incorporating Taiwan as a prefecture of Fujian Province.

The early Qing administration treated Taiwan with cautious neglect. A garrison of rotating soldiers was stationed on the island, and a civil bureaucracy of magistrates and prefects was installed, but the court imposed strict limits on migration. A permit system required prospective settlers to obtain official approval before crossing the Taiwan Strait, and families were initially forbidden from accompanying male migrants — a policy designed to prevent permanent settlement but widely circumvented in practice. Illegal migration from Fujian and Guangdong surged throughout the eighteenth century, transforming the island's western plains into a patchwork of Hokkien and Hakka farming communities.

This volume examines how a reluctant empire absorbed a peripheral island, tracing the policies that shaped Taiwan's early Qing identity: the quarantine line (番界) separating Han settlements from indigenous mountain territories, the rotating garrison system that prevented military entrenchment, and the informal networks of kinship and commerce that bound Taiwan to the mainland despite official restrictions. These administrative choices — born of imperial ambivalence — would define Taiwan's ethnic geography and frontier character for the next two centuries.