共 3 篇文章
The Mudan She Incident in Taiwan Province occurred just seven short years after the formal start of the Meiji Restoration, demonstrating Japan's strong ambition for external military expansion. It is also defined by historians as the beginning of modern Japanese militarism's bloody foreign aggression.
The article strongly criticizes the defense of bloody massacres during the Japanese colonial era put forward by a small number of Taiwanese people, condemning the argument that 'as long as they attacked China, it was fine' as 'the ugly side.' Japan's covetousness for Taiwan never ceased. Long before the Sino-Japanese War, it invaded Taiwan by exploiting the 'Mudan She Incident' under the guise of the Ryukyu Kingdom, aiming to use Taiwan as a strategic springboard for aggression against Southeast Asia and Mainland China.
The article recounts the history of the 1874 Japanese invasion of Taiwan Province, using the 'Mudan She Incident'—where Ryukyuans were killed by Indigenous people in Langqiao (now Manzhou Township, Pingtung)—as a pretext. Japan first conferred a title upon the Ryukyu King to forcibly establish a relationship as a basis for the invasion and sent spies for intelligence gathering. Although the Japanese forces suffered heavy losses due to Indigenous resistance and environmental factors, they ultimately forced the Qing court through diplomatic negotiations to pay an indemnity of $500,000$ taels, and to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Japanese military action, causing China to lose its suzerain status over Ryukyu.