Introduction by Cheng Weichung

==== Chinese Sources of Maritime History Related to Taiwan 9-19th century ====

A brief Account on Taiwan and Maritime China

Taiwan Island is located off the Southeast coast of China in a distance of 130 kilometers at nearest shores and is far away from most of the costal islands. Aborigines in Taiwan are Austronesians without developing any literate skills. In ancient texts it is occasionally called “Liuqiu 琉球” in various character variants and is referring to Taiwan and the Liuqiu or Ryūkyū Islands. The name of “Taiwan 臺灣” seems not to have been used before the 1630s. This geographical awareness about the island was firstly recorded in the Chinese official documents in the Sui period. The earliest record about this island occurred when the Sui Emperor Yangdi 煬帝 (r. 605–617) dispatched a fleet on a military expeditions to Liuqiu 流求. The famous Dutch scholar Gustav Schlegel (1840–1903) argued that the Liuqiu is referring to Taiwan in 1895. His research initiated the academic discussions about whether Liuqiu was referring to Liuqiu or Taiwan in the following one hundred years. Ts’ao Yung-ho summarized those arguments and pointed out that ‘Liuqiu’ may mostly refer to Taiwan before the Ming period, while it gradually became certain as the geographical name of Liuqiu nowadays since the beginning of Ming period in 15th century. Professor Ts’ao argued that the crucial factor, which causes all this diversification, was the Hongwu 洪武 Emperor’s (r. 1368–1398) decision to include Liuqiu into China’s tributary trading system while excluding Taiwan from it.

  Taiwan was thus felt out of the Chinese attentions and was not noticed by surrounding countries until in the 16th century when the increasing commercial communication across East and South China Seas brought it back to vision. Since the beginning of 17th Century, the Dutch and Spanish colonized its harbours and initiated the Chinese immigrations on the island. When the Chinese Ch’ing dynasty incorporated the Chinese settlement on the southwest corner of Taiwan, the Chinese immigrants slowly expanded to the plain areas of Taiwan in the following two centuries. In the middle of 19th century most of western plain had inhabited by Chinese settlers rather than aborigines under the Ch’ing court. After the conflict between English and China in 1840, the court activated military reforms in Taiwan in order to utilize its strategic position on maritime defence.