1895 Okumura Map of Taiwan, First Sino-Japanese War

The Japanese Occupation of Taiwan.

This is a rare 1895 Okumura Kinjirō map of Taiwan, prepared as Japanese forces were preparing to occupy the island. Published just after the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, the map met an insatiable demand in Japan for information about the empire's latest acquisition.

A Closer Look

The map presents Taiwan (Formosa) with the Penghus and other nearby islands. Color-shading is employed to denote counties (縣) and the aboriginal region of eastern Taiwan (生蕃部) that was separated from the Chinese-administered areas (by a dividing line 蕃地界, formalized in many places by ditches, trenches, and earthen mounds). Settlements are recorded throughout with both kanji and kana (in some cases both), as are roads, railways, submarine telegraph cables, telegraph offices, fortifications, garrisons, ports, waterways, mountains, and resources (such as sugar and camphor, noted within parentheses). Next to the line tracing the submarine cable between Penghu and Anping (安平 that is, Tainan 臺南) is a brief table recording the distance between Tainan and Shimonoseki, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Xiamen. Similar tables of distance off the north coast of the island provide similar information for Keelung (基隆) and Tamsui (淡水, that is, Taipei 臺北). At top-left, an inset map (大日本帝國及鄰邦國) presents Japan and Korea with portions of Qing China and Tsarist Russia.

Japan's Occupation of Taiwan

Japanese forces invaded Taiwan in May 1895, after it was ceded to them by Treaty of Shimonoseki (April 17, 1895) at the end of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894 - 1895). The fate of the island was one of the main sticking points in the negotiations. Li Hongzhang (李鴻章), who led the Chinese delegation, tried to hold on to Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan, but was forced by the reality of overwhelming Japanese military power to concede. The occupation of Taiwan fit into Imperial Japan's Nanshin-ron (南進論) or Southern Expansion Doctrine, which argued that Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines were essential to Japan's economic survival and territorial growth. Katsura Taro (1747 - 1913), a Yamaguchi Samurai, wrote of Taiwan's significance, 'It is not only the most ideal location for expanding power to southern China, but also the islands in Southeast Asia.'

Although there were some indigenous attempts at resistance and self-governance, including the founding of the 'Republic of Formosa,' arguably Asia's first republic, the Japanese were quickly able to suppress organized opposition, though guerrilla warfare would continue for several years. In less than six months, Japanese forces achieved, with the arguable exception of the tribal central highlands, full control of the island. Taiwan was Japan's first major extraterritorial holding, and Imperial Japan worked diligently to transform it into a 'model colony.' Japan lavished resources on the island's economy, including public works and industrial development, while also pursuing cultural Japanization.

Taiwan at the Peripheries of Empires

Due to its strategic location and proximity to the Chinese mainland, Taiwan has been eyed by foreign powers for much of the past four centuries. The island's early indigenous inhabitants had minimal interaction with Chinese culture until the Ming period, when larger numbers of traders, fishermen, settlers, and pirates operated on or along the coast facing Fujian. Europeans also appeared in the early 17th century, with both the Dutch and Spanish building forts on the island. However, the main power in the Taiwan Straits was prominent families of traders and officials from Fujian, especially the Zheng family, who controlled trade routes in the Straits stretching as far as Japan and Southeast Asia.

By the time of the Ming's collapse in 1644, the Zhengs had evolved their operation into a quasi-state (the Zheng Ministry 鄭部), led by the dynamic but somewhat reckless Zheng Chenggong (鄭成功 1624 - 1662, known in European sources as Koxinga or Coxinga). Zheng captured the Dutch Fort Zeelandia, refused to acknowledge the Qing, and even launched an attack on Nanjing, but was driven back to Taiwan, which the Qing eventually captured in 1683. Unsure of what to do with the island, the Qing evacuated most of the Chinese population and ruled it at arm's length, but Chinese migration increased throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, and officials in Beijing viewed it as an annoyance and a sort of lawless frontier. By the time of the First Sino-Japanese War, settlers from the Chinese mainland who lived on the west side of the island far outnumbered the aboriginal population. Although a border embankment (traced here) had been established to separate the two communities - mainly to protect aborigines from attack and exploitation by Chinese settlers and to prevent Chinese settlers from fleeing to aboriginal areas to shirk their taxes - the boundaries between them remained fluid.

Japan's Growing Clout in East Asia

The background to Japan's occupation of Taiwan can be dated to the Meiji Restoration (1868). Recognizing that one of the common elements among all foreign powers was colonies, the leaders of the Meiji Restoration set their eyes on building both an informal and formal empire in East Asia. As a distant and often-ignored vassal state of the Qing, the Ryukyu Kingdom was an obvious place to begin imperial expansion. Taiwan was likewise an enticing option. Though a part of the Qing empire, the Japanese rightly determined that the Qing were not especially interested in the island. By the time the Qing court recognized the problems that foreign rule of Taiwan would cause, it was already too late.

Following the Opium Wars, and especially after the Japanese established a de facto protectorate over the Ryukyu Islands in 1872 and launched a military expedition to Taiwan in 1874, the Qing recognized the vulnerabilities that would be created if Taiwan were captured by foreign powers (the French also tried to invade Taiwan in 1884). They established more direct administration of the island, eventually making it a province in 1887, and appointed a modernizer, Liu Mingchuan (劉銘傳), as governor. Liu oversaw the construction of schools, fortifications, and a railway, completed in 1893, seen here connecting Keelung, Taipei, and Hsinchu (新竹), with surveying completed on a further extension. It was planned to continue to Taiwan-fu (臺灣 that is, Taichung) and Tainan, but was not completed before Liu had to leave Taiwan for health reasons. After colonizing Taiwan, Japan went on a railway building spree, finishing the western coastal route and building many narrow-gauge routes to mines in the hills around Taipei and Keelung.

Publication History and Census

This map was printed and published Okumura Kinjirō (奧村金次郎) on April 10 and 25, 1895 (Meiji 28), respectively. Within the 15-day period between printing and publication, the Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed on April 17, formalizing Japan's occupation of Taiwan. This was one of several similarly titled maps of Taiwan issued in 1895 during the patriotic fervor that accompanied Japan's victory in the war and its occupation of the island. Many of these maps were prepared by overnight 'cartographers' looking to cash in on the upsurge in nationalism, with little care for the intellectual property rights of their competitors (see, for comparison, our earlier listings Taiwan-suzukishigeyuki-1895, Taiwan-sagano-1895, Taiwan-nishumuratorjiro-1895, and Taiwan-otsuka-1895).

The present map is rare and we have found no other examples; its title indicates a first edition was published, which we have been unable to locate, while another, likely later edition (titled 皇國新領地臺灣地圖) is held by the National Museum of Taiwan History (Registration No. 2020.006.0045) with an inset of the Penghu Islands rather than Japan and Korea.

Cartographer

Okumura Kinjirō (奧村金次郎; fl. c. 1886 - 1896), also sometimes written as 奧村金治郎, was a Japanese publisher and master printer based in Kyoto during the Meiji and early Taishō eras. He owned the publishing house Aigaidō (藍外堂). He also used the pennames Totsuto Koji (咄々居士) and Honrai Dōjin (奔雷道人). Born in Nagoya, into a family working in the dyeing business, he moved to Tokyo and pursued a very different path towards publishing. His publications were emblematic of the era, focusing on practical skills such as literacy as well as touching on topics related to foreign customs, technology, and military affairs. One of his earliest publications was a small 1886 booklet describing Western magic tricks (西洋手品種, digitized by the National Diet Library). From 1889 (大日本帝國地圖), he occasionally published maps. He also sometimes published ukiyo-e woodblock prints by Gotō Yoshikage (後藤芳景). Okumura also wrote a range of works under his pennames, from new style poetry to political commentaries and humorous novels. His son, Okumura Togyū (奥村土牛, 1889 - 1990), born Okumura Yoshizō (奥村義三, his penname having been given to him by his father, who took it from the Tang Dynasty poet Hanshan) became a well-known watercolor painter of the Nihonga style.   Further Details...

Condition

Very good. Light wear along original fold lines. Slight loss at a fold intersection.