1895 Ōtsuka Usaburō Map of Taiwan, Sino-Japanese War

This is a very rare 1895 Ōtsuka Usaburō map of Taiwan, the Penghu Islands (also known as the Pescadores), and the Ryukyu Islands. It was made in the midst of Japan's conquest of Taiwan and includes a range of information that would be useful from an administrative perspective.

A Closer Look at the Map

By the time this map was made, Japanese troops controlled most of northern and central Taiwan, and were preparing to occupy the southern part of the island. The map provides important information on the infrastructure, population, and geography of Taiwan. Although not indicated in the legend, the purple shaded areas most likely represent regions of relatively heavy settlement. The entire eastern half of the island south of Yilan (宜蘭) is noted as aboriginal territory. These areas were not totally uncharted; mountain ranges are named and elevations are given for some, while rivers, some coastal settlements, and the names of some groups/tribes are provided. But the level of detail in the Chinese settled west of the island is much greater, even listing the approximate population (either as population 人口 or households 戶) in different cities and towns. The inset at left depicts a sketch map of the East China Sea (日清韓三國略圖, 1 : 6300000) and the one at bottom-right higlights the Ryukyu Islands (琉球諸島全圖, 1 : 3100000). The box at bottom-left gives the distances by land and sea between various cities or towns and ports, respectively.

Taiwan at the Peripheries of Empires

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

By the time of the Ming's collapse in 1644, the Zheng had evolved their operation into a quasi-state (the Zheng Ministry 鄭部), led by the dynamic but fairly reckless Zheng Chenggong (鄭成功 1624 – 1662, known in European sources as Koxinga). 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 eighteenth and nineteenth 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 to the east, and, although a border (seen here as 番地境界綫) had been constructed 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 these communities were actually quite 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 the foreign powers was colonies, the leaders of the Meiji Restoration set their eyes on building up 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. Although 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 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 realized the vulnerabilities that would be created if Taiwan were captured by foreign powers (the French also tried to invade Taiwan in 1884). The Qing 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 a schools, fortifications, and a railway, completed in 1893, seen here connecting Keelung (基隆), Taipei (臺北), and Hsinchu (新竹), ending at Xiangshan (香山). It was planned to continue on to Taiwan-fu (台灣府 that is, Taichung), and to Tainan, but was not completed before Liu had to leave Taiwan for health reasons. Liu also had telegraph lines installed, including an undersea line connecting Tamsui (淡水港, the port of Taipei) to Fujian Province, seen here.

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 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 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 guerilla warfare would continue for several years. In less than six months, Japanese naval 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 showpiece 'model colony.' Japan lavished resources on the island's economy, including public works, industrial development, and cultural Japanization.

Publication History and Census

This map was edited and distributed by Ōtsuka Usaburō (大塚宇三郎), distributed in conjunction with Tanaka Taemon (田中太右衛門), and printed by Sonoda Tōsaburō (園田藤三郎), all based in Osaka. It was printed on September 14, 1895 and released on September 18. It is not known in any institutional collection or to the market.