Loading summary
Transcript11 lines
- [00:00]
Narrator
There are more ways than ever to listen to History Daily ad free. Listen with Wondry plus in the Wondery app as a member of Noiser plus at noiser.com or in Apple Podcasts. Or you can get all of History Daily plus other fantastic history podcasts at IntoHistory.com way back in college I took a course on the history of China and I'll be Frank, it was 100% unfamiliar to me then and I've retained none of it since. The only thing I really remember is being given the option to write a historical dramatization in lieu of a research paper, an option I eagerly took. I don't think I got a very good grade, though. Turns out it would take me another 20 years to get good at telling a compelling version of history. All this to say, my knowledge of the history of China is pretty thin. Good thing there's a podcast that's been running for almost 15 years that covers this topic explicitly. The China History Podcast. And on today's Saturday matinee, we're sharing the first episode from their 15 part series on the history of Taiwan, from the geological formation of the island all the way up to the recent elections of 2024. I hope you enjoy While you're listening, be sure to search for and follow the China History Podcast. We put a link in the show notes to make it easy for you.
- [01:25]
Advertiser
This new year, why not let Audible expand your life by listening? Explore over 1 million audiobooks, podcasts and Exclus Audible originals that'll inspire and motivate you. Tap into your well being with advice and insight from leading professionals and experts on better health, relationships, career finance, investing and more. Maybe you want to kick a bad habit or start a good one. If you're interested in learning how to master your emotions and hearing scientifically backed advice for using your emotions as a tool, may I suggest Shift by psychologist and bestseller author Dr. Ethan Krause? Trust me, listening on Audible can help you reach the goals you set for yourself. Start listening today when you sign up for a free 30 day trial at audible.com wondery that's audible.com wondery this is a mini meditation guided by Bombus. Repeat after me. I'm comfy. I'm cozy. Cozy. I have zero blisters on my toes. Blisters. And that's because I wear Bombus, the softest socks, underwear and T shirts that give back. One purchased equals one donated. Now go to bombus.com wondery and use code wondery for 20% off your first purchase. That's B O M B-A-S.com wondery and use code wondery at checkout.
- [02:47]
Laszlo Montgomery
Hey everyone across the universe, thanks for tuning in to the China History Podcast. Laszlo Montgomery with you once again welcoming you all to this long running family program well into its 13th year, offering you some of the greatest hits and rarities from ancient and modern Chinese history. I launched the CHP back in June of 2010 and it wasn't long after that I started getting requests to cover certain topics. And a lot of topics presented as CHP episodes throughout the years actually came from many of you who took the time to reach out to me with your entreaties. But the history of Taiwan? I'd say by a long shot, this has been the most requested topic, and the frequency to cover Taiwan's history has accelerated over the past few years. In particular, I've even been contacted by listeners in Taiwan generously offering me their assistance with the episode's research if I was willing to cover it. So I thought as soon as I finish up this Guangzhou history series and the standalone episode on Aida Khan and Mary Stone, I'll launch Part one of this Hot Topic. I say Hot Topic because it gets requested so often. You wouldn't know this from all the bluster on Twitter regarding Taiwan, but its history actually goes back much farther than the mid 20th century. If you go onto Google Earth and peer at the Big Picture map of Taiwan and East Asia, you'll see clearly from about the Kamchatka Peninsula in the north, all the way down along the east coast of Japan and the Ryukyu Islands to the east coast of Taiwan and down the entirety of the eastern continental shelf of the Philippine Islands. You can see these edges of massive tectonic plates. Taiwan was formed and continues to be shaped by the pressures of the Eurasian Plate to Taiwan's west and north. There's also the Philippine Sea Plate on the east and south of Taiwan, and it's the boundaries of these two plates in particular that are the most striking and visible. Because of this and other plates converging, this part of our planet is rife with volcanic and seismic activity. It's part of the famous Ring of Fire, and Taiwan has had its share of some rather big earthquakes in 1935 and 1946, 1951, 64, and in 2010. And there was a 7.3 trembler that happened on September 21, 1999. This was the 1999 Jiji earthquake in Nantou county in the center of the island. And just this morning I woke up to News of the 6.8 earthquake in Taitung county in the southeast. So when you're looking at this satellite view, it's as plain as day. You could see the convergent boundaries of these sea plates subducting over and under each other. And it was marine geology and plate tectonics from more than a hundred million years ago that placed Taiwan about 130 to 150 kilometers off the coast of Fujian province. Geologists have pegged the creation of Taiwan island itself to about 4 to 5 million years ago. And it was from the pressures of these two lithospheric plates, the Eurasian plate pushing to the east into the Philippine plate, that formed the island. With mountains running north to south from the center of the island all the way to the southeast coast in the western third of the island of Taiwan, it's all lowlands and coastal plains. Humankind always had a thing for these flat plains, and this is where most of the great civilizations of the world got their start. It's a lot easier to engage in agriculture on a flat surface rather than in the mountains. All the major cities of Taiwan, Taipei, Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Jiayi, Tainan, and Kaohsiung, they're all along the western coastal plain of the island. You had the same exact thing with the Indian plate and the Eurasian plates grinding into each other. Such were the pressures of these two plates. At their convergent boundaries, they form the Himalayan mountains. These longitudinal mountains in Taiwan are nowhere near the height of the Himalayas, but they do have 258 peaks over 3,000 meters. So this is how that happened. And into our day, these tectonic plates are still moving very slowly, of course, but with all the earthquakes and volcanoes we read about in our news feeds or experience ourselves down on the marine floor, it's moving just fast enough to let us know the Earth is still a work in progress. People started showing up in Taiwan during the Pleistocene Epoch. That's a fancy way of saying the Ice Age. This era began roughly two to two and a half million years ago and ended about 10,000 years ago with the appearance of us humans. This is also called the Paleolithic Age. In the timeline of prehistory, when humans lived in caves, teepees, simple dwellings, and lived a hunter gatherer life and used basic stone tools and axes for hunting. Homo sapiens were present on Taiwan. From early times, the continents were all still moving around. And because of all the glaciers, water levels were not what they are today. These kinds of water levels allowed people to migrate overland from place to place, including from the Chinese mainland to Taiwan. So during the Paleolithic age and from the oldest known stone tools dug out of the ground, we know with certainty, at least around 15,000 years ago, people were wandering around Taiwan. No one could say with any degree of certainty who these first people were. Thanks to all the efforts of archaeologists, linguists, geneticists and other brilliant scientists going Back to the 1930s, a lot has been figured out about Taiwan during Neolithic times. The Paleolithic age preceded the Neolithic Age, which was just another way of saying the New Stone Age when the land started to be cultivated and settled on in Chinese history. These were the times known as Yangshao, Longshan and Arlitou cultures and the Xia Dynasty as well, from about 5000 to 1500 BC. This was the most ancient and mythical part of China's prehistory that developed along the Yellow river and its tributaries from so many past CHP episodes. We all know what was going on in the south of the country was a whole other thing from what was starting to evolve along the rivers of the northern Central plain. Though scientists are still trying to add more pieces to the puzzle. For lack of any specificity, we call these inhabitants of southern China the Bai Yue, the Hundred Yue. These are the aboriginal people of southern China and like in Taiwan, were spread out across a wide area. Following what were known as pre Austronesian cultures came the proto Austronesians who spoke Austronesian languages and became what are today referred to as Austronesian people. These people were the ones who started the oft called Great Migration into the Pacific and and South China Seas. And because of this main reason, they are referred to as the ancestors of all the people who populate the island. Stretching from Southeast Asia to the most distant islands of Oceania, the Marianas, Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga, Tuvalu and Samoa. And even as far as Easter island, which is closer to South America than it is to Asia. Groups of these Austronesian voyagers and discoverers even made it to Madagascar during the 5th century AD the official language of this island country, Malagasy, is part of the Austronesian language family. They all share many similarities or cognates. And because the island of Taiwan was the location where you had the greatest number of these diverse Austronesian languages spoken, linguists for the most part agree that that was the mothership. Taiwan was where these languages originated from and were carried far and wide by these people who took these epic voyages. And not so long ago, relatively speaking, that is to the period I just mentioned in the 14th century, probably Ren or Ming Dynasty in China, some of These Polynesians from around Samoa, the Solomon Islands and other islands in eastern Polynesia, they got in their now much more advanced sailing craft and sailed south and west and chanced upon the land of the long White cloud, or Aotearoa as the local people came to call it. In 1769 following the visit by Captain James Cook, this same place would be called New Zealand. And these first time arrivals in Aotearoa or New Zealand became the Maori people. And they too were among these Austronesian speaking people, who by now were spread out from Africa to farthest Oceania. And who all spoke languages that trace their origin back to the earliest Austronesian languages still spoken on Taiwan. It's believed that maybe 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, over a thousand years before the time of the Yellow Emperor, these people in Taiwan, who spoke these Austronesian languages and lived along the mountainous east and southern coasts, took to their bamboo rafts and outrigger canoes and started exploring the world around them. An outrigger canoe had these support floats fastened to one or two sides of the canoe that provided more stability on the water. And these were among the first oceangoing vessels that we know of. How many of these journeyers perished in storms or died at sea, we'll never know. But some of them made it to distant lands. And these visitors from today's island of Taiwan mixed with the people who were already present on these islands, who probably had been developing there independently since the days of homo erectus over 100,000 years ago. Though in most cases, Austronesian seafarers were the first ever humans to set foot on these islands. Whoever these unknown people might have been existing and living very primitive lives, they began to be visited by these earliest sailors in human civilization. All speakers of these Austronesian languages. And wherever they sailed to, they began mixing with these people and creating new cultures and new languages that became branches and sub branches of the original proto Austronesian languages that originated in Taiwan. So 4000 BC is when things really started to happen. This was the beginning of Dapenkhung culture. This neolithic culture that first showed up in northern Taiwan, it's thought probably came from somewhere in and around Fujian Province, when water levels were such that you could walk from Fuzhou to Taipei without getting wet.
- [14:58]
Advertiser
This message comes from Greenlight. Ready to start talking to your kids about financial literacy? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app that teaches kids and teens how to earn, save, spend wisely, and invest with your guardrails in place. With Greenlight, you can send money to kids quickly, set up chores automate allowance and keep an eye on your kids spending with real time notifications. Join millions of parents and kids building healthy financial habits together on Greenlight. Get started risk free@greenlight.com wondry you sign.
- [15:32]
Up for something, forget about it after the trial period ends. Then you're charged month after month after month. The subscriptions are there, but you're not using them. In fact, 85% of people have at least one paid subscription going unused each month. Thanks to Rocket Money, you can see all your subscriptions in one place and cancel the ones you're not using anymore. Now, boom, you're saving more money. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all of the app's premium features. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket money. Go to rocketmoney.com wondery today that's rocketmoney.com wondery rocketmoney.com wondery these Neolithic people of.
- [16:30]
Laszlo Montgomery
Dapenkang culture had nothing to do with the Neolithic people who were developing along the Yellow river who served as the most ancient ancestors of the Han Northern Chinese. These proto Austronesian people in Taiwan became the earliest ancestors of the 2.3% of Aboriginal people who make up the island's modern day population. Dabangkang culture spread out all over the coasts of Taiwan as well as to Penghu. Penghu, by the way, is also known by its Portuguese name, the Pescadores Islands. This is a small island chain off the southeast coast of Taiwan. Today it's a county of Taiwan. As the story unfolds, you'll see just as early Guangzhou history started off in Panyu, a lot of Taiwan's earliest history happened in this small archipelago of 90 small islands located 30 miles off the Taiwan coast. Again, when this Dabangkang culture started to evolve, there were already pre Austronesian people living in Taiwan. Though we don't know exactly who they were, recent finds coupled with tribal myths suggests there was a sizable Negrito population. Negrito was a 16th century Spanish word to describe those first people they encountered on the Philippines, the Andaman Islands, and a few other locations in maritime Southeast Asia. Over the next couple thousand years, these people who crossed over from Southeast China began to spread out all over Taiwan and formed a myriad of Neolithic cultures The number of these different cultures is quite large and spread out all over the island, including on Panghol. It's believed around 3000 BC or thereabouts. The water levels on the planet were about the same as where we are today, and the shape of all the islands on a map would be recognizable to us. And what began and existed for a very long time as a collection of unitary clans spread out sparsely around Taiwan, really began to transform into something much bigger. Why? Probably because of the food security that was the secret to growing a population. Rice and millet farmers were by then quite advanced and able to grow a surplus of food, and fishermen were able to make the most out of the sea's bounty. So without the need to live as a nomad or hunter gatherer, Neolithic settlements proliferated and the island's population began to take off. Maybe it was this, maybe it was something else. We can't know for sure. But here is where the indigenous people warmed to this idea of searching for new lands. It was also a period where so many of these wenhuas, or cultures, expanded all around the island. Which one of these dozens of Neolithic cultures were the earliest ones to look beyond the horizon of the waters they were familiar with and risk their lives to find out that we don't know for certain. Most scientists and researchers speculate that whoever they were, it's likely they came from the south and eastern parts of the island rather than the coastal plains of the west. In this subtropical paradise on the western part of Taiwan, people most likely found no need to look for greener pastures elsewhere. So they stayed put and enjoyed their perfect little agrarian part of the island. But on the eastern part of Taiwan, it's a great place to grow tea, but not so great if you're trying to cultivate rice or millet or engage in animal husbandry. For this reason, it's thought these people to the east were the first to hop in their outrigger canoes and explore the great unknown. Their first journeys may not have had migration in mind and may have been simply for establishing trade relations. We know, for instance, that jade and pottery that originated in Taiwan was traded all along the island chain of the Ryukyus. If you look on a map, you'll see the easiest place to sail to from southern Taiwan, other than across the Taiwan Strait to China, is directly south to the island of Luzon in the Philippines. From the nephrite jade that's found locally in Taiwan and dug up from graves all over Southeast Asia, it appears likely that trade networks were already forming. I mentioned in that six part Guangzhou history series that long before the Han Chinese started showing up in Guangdong Province, there was a long established non high trade going on. Nanhai again just means South Seas or more precisely the South China Sea and the smaller seas adjacent to this body of water. This Nanhai trade was carried out by these Austronesian dominated trade networks. A lot of the same kinds of artifacts discovered in eastern Taiwan can also be found in the northern Philippines, again North Luzon. And we think it was sometime around 2200 BC or thereafter that these people in south and East Taiwan migrated to the Philippines. We know this not only from archaeological finds, but also from linguistic study over in China. This period of migration of these Austronesian indigenous people from Taiwan to the Philippines was the mythical time of Yao and Xun, the legendary Chinese rulers so beloved and respected by Confucius. So these people went from south and east Taiwan to Northern Luzon, with intermediate stops in the Batanes Islands. And once settled there, they started their incredible expansion. Some went southward throughout the Philippine Archipelago and beyond into the Celebes Sea, Molucca Sea, Banda Sea Pass, Sulawesi. And they mixed with those mysterious people who were already living there since who knows when and after these Austronesian speaking people got settled in the Philippines. One group went west in the direction of Indonesia and beyond. And another group, perhaps the bravest of them all, sailed all the way to the farthest reaches of Polynesia. The Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New guinea, including the surrounding islands and Australia had been inhabited for millennia. When this great Austronesian migration commenced. However, the islands further east and north, namely New Zealand, Micronesia, Fiji and everything east, were uninhabited. So these arrivals were the first humans to populate the islands. And they braved every single kind of danger that the high seas could throw at them. Storms, rogue waves, strong winds, giant fish or whales, and all other manners of extreme weather. And we'll never know how many perished before they got a handle on the weather patterns and the currents. But today we know those who made it to those far flung places executed extraordinary feats of navigation with only the stars, birds, seaweed and ocean currents to guide them. And the original people who made that first voyage to Northern Luzon in the Philippines, they spoke what we call the Malayo Polynesian branch of this Austronesian language family that had long existed in Taiwan. For this reason, Taiwan is often referred to as the Austronesian homeland and the Philippines as the Malayo Polynesian homeland. And as time went by, century after century, from the moments those first courageous souls bid farewell to their clansmen and pushed their canoes off the edge of the beach, to infinity and beyond. Maritime technologies and navigation got better and better, which allowed them to push the envelope with each voyage. Let me also say that some of these people also found their way to the Southeast Asian mainland, where these Austro Asiatic languages were spoken in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and parts of the Malay Peninsula. And during the 20th century, all manners of brilliant scientists, geneticists, archaeologists and linguists started putting all the pieces to the puzzle together. With each discovery. They knew that indeed, what began to happen in northernmost Philippines originated in Taiwan. And today, 400 million speakers of these Austronesian languages, who are part of all the cultures that were created when this great mixture of peoples was happening, are spread out today over 30 countries. I'm reluctant to drill down any deeper than this as far as these theories of Austronesian origins and dispersal go, because there are a lot of disagreements that still exist about which theory is the correct one. So roughly 2000 to 1500 BC this Austronesian dispersal was well underway. So let's trace the skittles back to where we came from, the island of Taiwan. As I said previously, there was no small number of Neolithic cultures stretching from Taipei to the most southern point of Pingdong County. I mentioned Dapengkang culture. There were several others, all differentiated by their pottery and other tools and artifacts. And these people from so many Neolithic cultures were all the ancestors of Taiwan's indigenous people. The Taiwanese indigenous people go by a few names. Taiwanese Austronesians, Taiwanese Aboriginal people, Yuanzhu Minzu, Kaoshan people, as well as by their individual tribal names. As I said, today they make up roughly 2.3% of Taiwan's population. And much more than that if you figure in all the mixed marriages that have occurred since non Austronesian people started showing up. The indigenous people of Taiwan once spoke a couple dozen or so different Austronesian languages. Some are extinct and some of them are on their way towards extinction. And some are still spoken today. Some lived in the mountains and others were known as the Plains indigenous people, the Pingpu, Zu Qin. They lived in the lowlands and coastal plains where all the main population centers would end up and where the Europeans and Chinese would go to in the greatest numbers. And for this reason, of all the Taiwan indigenous people, they were the ones who assimilated the quickest. If you look at any simple tourist map of Taiwan, you'll count about 23 tribes and clans of indigenous people. Currently, the government recognizes 16, with a few more fighting for recognition, since in varying degrees they all play a role throughout Taiwan history. I'll introduce some of them later on in the series. So let's skip ahead to what we know from official records. Chinese historians from the earliest times had this knack for keeping great records. We can only imagine how much information was lost and how all the upheavals that litter world history. But thanks to Chinese historians and scholars whose passion it was to preserve China's historical past, we know a lot about the history that went on beyond China's borders. There isn't much prior to the year 230, 10 years into the Three Kingdoms period. And from the San Guo Chi, the record of the Three Kingdoms, we know it was Sun Quan, by then the Emperor of Eastern wu, who had two of his men, Wei Wen and Zhuge Chi, lead 10,000 people in the direction of Taiwan to find the legendary islands of Yizhou and Danzhou. Now I checked my Pleco app to see what Michael Love said about Yizhou. It's the name of an ancient barbarian country, possibly Taiwan or among the Ryukyu Islands. As for Danzhou, it's suggested that this was the very same legendary island of the immortals that Qin Shi Huang sent Xu Shi to go find and bring back the elixir of life. We don't know for sure what these two places were, but that's where Sun Quan instructed his people to go and seek out. They didn't have any luck where Danzhou was concerned, but they did manage to locate Yizhou and captured a bunch of indigenous people that they brought back to China. Most all of them died en route. The back end to this expedition to Yizhou was a an exploratory mission to Zhuya or Hainan Island. That ambitious voyage ended up in a disaster and most everyone died from disease or ill fortune. And Sun Quan wasn't all too pleased and had Wei Wen and Zhuge Zhi executed. And the great historian Chen Shou duly recorded this in the Record of the Three Kingdoms. As tenuous as some may consider it, some point to this story from almost 18 centuries ago as China's oldest political claim to the island of Taiwan. Some call the sun quan story from 230, 231 mighty thin gruel, with no way of saying for sure if the Yizhou they discovered was Taiwan or one of the ryukyus from the Three Kingdoms period. We have to wait almost 400 years before Taiwan appears as a blip on the China history radar. During the Sui Tang, Song and Yuan, there were a number of events that took place in the history of interaction with the mainland. During the Sui Emperor Yang was quite determined to add Taiwan to his list of conquests. And he sponsored three unsuccessful expeditions to Liuqiu, which may have been Taiwan or may have been the Ryukyu Islands to Taiwan's north. The first expedition in 605 failed due to language problems. The second one in 607 went a little smoother. But the purpose of the trip was to get the folks on Taiwan to agree to tributary relations with the Sui. But Taiwan was still an island filled with a bunch of individual tribes that all had their own things going on. There was no one spokesperson for the whole island yet. So that second mission terminated unsuccessfully.
- [31:30]
Advertiser
If you're tired of endlessly scrolling through multiple streaming apps to find your favorite movies and shows, then it's time to simplify your entertainment with subscriptions on Prime Video. Now you can add over 100 subscriptions, including Macs, Apple TV and Paramount, all in one app. Imagine the convenience of accessing all your favorite streaming subscriptions in your Prime Video account with just one login and one password. No more app switching or forgotten credentials. From binge worthy original series to blockbuster movies and live sports, everything you love is at your fingertips. Streamline your streaming today. Check out add on subscriptions on Prime Video.
- [32:11]
Laszlo Montgomery
This is a Reese's Peanut Butter cup sound experiment. We're looking to find the perfect way to hear Reese's so you'll buy more of them. Here we go. Reese's, Reese's. Reese's. Reese's. Reese's. Hey, get out of here, you little stinker. Reese's, Reese's.
- [32:35]
Narrator
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.
- [32:38]
Laszlo Montgomery
That breathy one sounded very creepy, am I right? After learning their lessons from the two past failed attempts in this third expedition, in 610, the Sui military came much better prepared and in much greater numbers. They were able to inflict some serious damage on the aboriginal forces they clashed with. But the losses to the Sui army were also considerable. And after sailing back to the mainland with several thousand captives, someone was able to convince Sui Yangti to declare victory and give up on this island of little strategic value. The Tang dynasty emperors surprisingly showed little interest in Taiwan. The island didn't contain any particular commodities that were considered important enough. Nor was the island located in the immediate seaways of the maritime Silk Road. Starting here in the Tang, more and more people from the mainland will sail across the strait and explore opportunities. But not on Taiwan. The destination of choice was on Penghu Tang poet Shijian Wu, who was immortalized thanks to one of his poems being included in the Tang Shi san Baishou, or 300 Tang poems retired to Penghu in the early 9th century during the reign of Tang Emperor Xuanzong. In his poetry, Shijianwu played up the merits of this Penghu paradise. Though many Chinese tried their luck on Penghu during the Sui and Tang, it wasn't until the Song where the numbers started to pick up. You might find it as no surprise that it was the fishing in and around Penghu that attracted the earliest arrivals there. As I said, without any one single political entity to negotiate with, it was somewhat of a lesson in frustration for China's diplomats to negotiate for relations. There were too many indigenous people to deal with, all speaking different languages, and many were quite hostile to any kind of entreaty originating from the mainland. But in the Northern Song, more and more Chinese started coming to Penghu and Taiwan. All the abundance in Song China started to show by the 11th century. And as it happened in China, from time to time, following a sustained period of peace and economic prosperity, some people, to escape population pressures, began migrating across the strait. And these Song era people heading in the direction of Penghu in Taiwan were mostly Hokkien people from southern Fujian who spoke their Minnan dialect. And hot on their heels were the Hakkas from southeastern Guangdong. Today, there are no small number of Hokkien and Hakka people long residing in Taiwan who can look back on these Song dynasty arrivals as their earliest ancestors. This particular wave that came during the Song was just the beginning of more migrations to come. In 1171, the Southern Song Emperor Xiaozong had Penghu placed under the jurisdiction of Quanzhou, Fujian Province. And with Penghu now part of the Song Empire, authorities dispatched troops to these islands to protect the Chinese inhabitants there. The primary antagonizer to these Chinese migrants to Penghu were Japanese Wokou pirates, who throughout the Ming Dynasty remained a constant menace. And besides this, Song records also wrote about occasional raids from Taiwan by aboriginal people who attacked residents on Penghu armed with bows and arrows, spares and knives. Between 1174 and 1189, there were even attacks by fearless Taiwanese natives who sailed across the Taiwan Strait to raid coastal villages on Fujian. As more Chinese continued to homestead on Penghu, the Song government beefed up its forces there and built military installations. The Song was the first Chinese dynasty to have its own navy, and they used it to patrol around Penghu and Taiwan. And after the Mongol takeover of China, beginning with Kublai Khan in 1271, those migrants from China who had settled in Taiwan in Penghu, with things looking grim on the mainland, decided to make their temporary visit Permanent. The Yuan government set up an administrative post on Penghu to control things there and and on Taiwan. But this was on paper only, and this office had little impact on the affairs of those places. And as more Chinese arrived from the mainland, setting themselves up on the western coastal plain, they inevitably began having confrontations with aboriginal people who had populated these areas for centuries. Now it was the turn of the Taiwan indigenous people to face this all too common phenomenon in world history. The Yuan dynasty's interaction with Taiwan mostly concerns the story of Wang da Yuan. From 1328 to 1333, he traveled throughout the South China Sea, Java Sea, Andaman Sea, Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea 300 years before Admiral Zheng he. And he wrote about every place that he visited. In his Daoy Zhi Lue, a brief account of island barbarians, Wang Da Yuan wrote about Penghu and noted the presence of Chinese engaged in fishing. He also visited Liuqiu, which was probably Taiwan, and described the topography of the place, noting that he did not encounter any Chinese living there. Among Wang's observations about Taiwan was that the people wore their hair in tufts, tattooed their bodies, and wore red silk and yellow cloth wrapped around their heads. The travels of Wang Da Yuan are more celebrated for his other discoveries elsewhere in Southeast Asia, particularly during his 1330 stopover in Singapore, which was then called Temasek. During the Ming from 1602 to 1603, we have another traveler, literatus and soldier who once fought under Qi Jiguang. This was Chengdi. He joined up with an expedition led by one Shen you Rong, who who was embarking on an expedition to Taiwan from the island of Kinmen, 6.2 miles off the coast of Xiamen. More about that tiny island later. The purpose of this voyage was to deal with the problem that seemed to have no eradicating the Japanese Wok Kou pirates from their Taiwan lair. As far as ridding the place of pirates, the expedition was quite successful. And as a kind of cherry on top, they also chased away a number of Dutch sailors based on Penghu who were scouting around the place. Chased away they were, but they'd be back later and we'll look at them in part two of this series. Not long after returning from this exciting voyage to Taiwan and back, Chun Di, 62 years old at the time, wrote a book about his 21 days spent on Taiwan and his observations regarding the aboriginal people there. This was called the Dongfan Ji, an account of the Eastern Barbarians, also later known as the Record of Formosa. This was one of those lost books that thankfully lived on in later compendia, but in 1955 a copy of the entire text was discovered in the Tokyo Imperial University. This work, the Dongfan Ji, is hailed as the first detailed account of Taiwan's indigenous people, their language, customs, description of their person, their society and all kinds of other interesting observations. Chandi referred to them as Yi, which means barbarian and carries all the well traveled baggage of cultural chauvinism. His descriptions of the indigenous people exudes a strong whiff of primitivism and obviously looks down on their relative backwardness. He noted they tattooed their bodies, ate a lot of daire meat, were extremely physically fit, could run as fast as a horse, and remarkably had no calendars or chieftains to rule them. In fact, he was sort of incredulous that such a place so close off China's coast could be so backward relative to such a sophisticated, refined and culturally advanced place as China. There were many more observations such as their architecture, agriculture methods, marriage and funeral customs, and vivid descriptions of their cuisine. There's no mention about which one of the multitude of tribes it was that he was mixing with. It's believed as his few weeks stay there was limited to the southwest part of Taiwan between Tainan and Kaohsiung, that it was the Suraia or Shillaya people who were the ones he encountered. The Shilla Ya were among the Ping Po, or Plains Aboriginal people who lived in the west of Taiwan in the lowlands and coastal plains. When the Dutch start showing up in force, it will be these Ping Poo people who they interact with. Mostly we thank these Shillaya people for giving us the name Taiwan. It came from their language which pronounced it Taio Wang. From that we get the name Taiwan and the Chinese characters chosen to name the place. The language of these Sillaya people belong to the same family as Indonesian, Malay and Tagalog. More about them as we wander through the Taiwan history timeline. So let's close up shop for now. Almost 100 million years we covered. I'd say that's enough for one single episode. A CHP thankful shout out to Messrs Toby Openshaw and Josh Brown for their kind assistance. I thank you all for tuning in, especially if you made it this far, and I don't see why you wouldn't have. This is Laszlo Montgomery signing off from Southern California and living the life somewhere in the city of Los Angeles. My friends do consider coming back again next time for another exciting episode of the China History Podcast.
- [43:18]
Advertiser
Find your American Express card and start earning rewards with cash back and bonus points on your everyday purchases, like dining in or eating out, shopping at your favorite retail stores, or picking up groceries. You can earn rewards when you use Amex. See if you pre qualify with no impact on your credit score. Learn more about our offers@americanexpress.com American check -4 offers. Your credit score may be impacted if you submit an application. Terms apply.