History from the Japanese era
Apart from mangos, the area offers many historical sites for tourists to discover.
The area offers a few “must-sees” for tourists. Yujing was a center of sugar cane production in the years after World War II. Sugar processing plants were built here, and sugar cane’s sweet odor floated in the air all year round. What’s more, a railway was built from Tainan’s Shanhua to Yujing to serve the sugar industry. It was in operation for more than 20 years, not closing until 1975.
Paying a visit to the memorial to Yu Qingfang, a martyr of the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, or to the Tapani Memorial Park on the way into Yujing, prompts visitors to consider the tragic history of opposition to Japanese rule that played out here.
Yujing was originally the Tapani community of the Tsou Aboriginal tribe. Later Sirayan Aborigines and Han Chinese migrated to the area. Thus Tapani was Yujing’s earliest name. In 1920, the Japanese renamed Tapani as the similar-sounding “Tamai,” using the characters for “jade well.” Those characters are pronounced Yujing in Mandarin.
Standing on Mt. Hutou provides a nice view of the Zengwen River snaking through the mountains. In 1915, during the early years of Japanese rule in Taiwan, the Tapani Incident, which was Taiwan’s fiercest act of rebellion against the Japanese, occurred here. So much blood was shed that the Zengwen River ran red, say local elders.
Tainan, then the administrative and cultural center of Taiwan, was home to a group of Taiwanese patriots, led by Yu Qingfang, who resented Japanese rule. They often gathered in secret at Tainan’s Xilai Temple to plan resistance activities. In August of 1915, the resistance battled with Japanese forces in Tapani on the slopes of Mt. Hutou, resulting in many casualties. Yu fled for his life, but was apprehended several days later and executed. Consequently, the uprising is also called the “Yu Qingfang Incident” or the “Xilai Temple Incident.”
When you add up both the grown men who died on the battlefield, as well the many others, including women and children, who would later die of illness as a result of displacement, the total death toll is estimated at over 1000.
In anticipation of the 100th anniversary of the Tapani Incident, it’s a particularly good time to gain a better understanding of its history. Also worth a look is the Jiang Family Compound in Yujing, which is the only Minnan-style architecture that has survived here from before the Tapani Incident. More than 200 years old, it’s a site that tourists interested in “in-depth travel” will definitely want to explore.
“Many of the farmers cultivating Irwin mangos here are descendants of those who resisted the Japanese during the Tapani Incident,” says Huang Chengqing, secretary-general of the Yujing Farmers’ Association.
Emblazoned across the memorial on Mt. Hutou to Yu Qingfang, who died resisting the Japanese, are characters that mean “loyal and righteous.”