NewRBGs 新型竹筷槍 - Open the capsule of time

Open the capsule of time a hundred years ago

In May 2015, the filial piety of our children took us to travel to Kyushu, Japan. Before that, we never went abroad. During the five-day trip, we saw beautiful Japanese natural scenery and rich cultural and tourist attractions, and the Japanese people's kindness and courtesy are particularly impressive. It's hard to imagine what their ancestors had done hundred years ago! Maybe God's will or some invisible power is pulling me.

It was the first time we went abroad; I got to go to the household office to go through the passport formalities. During the process, I chatted with the household registration staff; I learned that the household registration data during the Japanese period had been processed into electronic data, so I applied too.

When I got my grandfather's household registration data, I called them "The capsule of time a hundred years ago," it's caused me a strong interest in the "Tapani incident," which occurred in 1915; it was just the 100th anniversary of August, how can it be so coincidental?

First of all, I found that my granduncle's name differed from what I heard when I was a child. To verify, I began to search the Internet for information about the incident. At the time, the Tainan City Cultural Bureau is preparing memorial activities for the 100th anniversary, and appointed the Taiwanese Culture Institute of Tainan University. Prof. Dai Wun Fong, Director of the institute, and Professor Qiu Zheng Luo from the History Department of National Jinan University ( Nantou County ) to compile statistics on the victims, then I e-mailed Prof. Dai to ask for relevant information. After about half a month, Prof. Dai answered that the ancestral home had three households, and five people were suffering. Among them, the name of my granduncle was the same as the household registration information, not the word I heard when I was a child. Therefore, the name should be the nickname I heard (Fu so) because the first word of the first name is the same as my grandfather's (Fu Jin).

To inquire about the exact information about the five victims of the Chang family, I went to the National Cheng Kung University library to inquire about the archives in the book "Yu Qingfang's Anti-Japanese Revolutionary Case." The information refers to the archives of the Governor's Office during the Japanese colonial period. And was found that the Chang family had two more victims, so the number of seven people was below. Later, I e-mailed Prof. Qiu Zheng Luo was also confirmed.

▲Books of Yu Qing fang's Anti-Japanese Revolutionary Case

The following table is a list of the victims of the Zhang family which killed in the incident (Provided by Professor Qiu Zheng Luo). 張榮通- Zhang Rong Tong of no.1245th in the table is my granduncle. The story I heard as a child was that my granduncle was crammed into the wooden corpse barrel in prison when he still had weak breath. My grandfather drove an ox-cart to the Japanese Tainan Prison, which was over 30 KM one way, to bring his brother back and buried in the back hillside of my hometown. When Ching Ming Festival, the whole family would went to the grave to memorialize him.

In addition, there are four victims in No.1243rd; three are brothers, 19-year-old 張饌 is a next-generation (nephew), and their descendants are still living near my hometown.

▲The families who killed in incident, the address no.1245th is my granduncle.

※ long press the picture can be downloaded , If fonts difficult to read.

The tomb in the picture below was provided by Miss Zhang Bi Mei, a descendant of the table of address No.1243rd. Zhang Bi Mei is my cousin of a few generations. The old Mr. Chang Zheng De engraved on the tomb is her great-great-grandfather and died in 1906. The ancestral home is Quanzhou, Fujian, China, so our ancestors were determined from Quanzhou, and it is don't known when they were came to Taiwan. Below the word "男"(means son in Chinese) on the left side of the tombstone are three words "圖," "春," and "敦" are his three sons, that is, the three brothers in the above table.

Here are four words below the word "孫"(means grandson in Chinese) at the bottom left, the 「鐉」is the 19-year-old 「張饌」 in the table, the words「鐉」and「饌」are similar, 「徒」and「圖」were different but same sound in Taiwanese speaking, [ 張圖] is the great grandfather of Miss Zhang Bi Mei. I discovered them in the books mentioned above many times, but the address is the same; it might be mistaken during judgment was ongoing because misunderstanding could have happened during the nervous Interrogations or tortures or translations between Taiwanese and Japanese. Poor Mr. Chang Zheng De will never know that his three sons and a grandson had died in the same incident; it is miserable!

▲Mr. Chang Zheng De's tomb

※ long press the picture can be downloaded, If character difficult to read.

On August 22nd, 2015, the Tainan City Cultural Bureau appointed Tainan University to hold a seminar on the 100th anniversary of the event at the Taiwan Literature Museum ( the old Tainan City Hall ). I signed up and sat in the auditorium to witness many domestic experts and Scholars take the stage to give speeches and participate in seminars, including the above two professors. I benefited greatly from the two-day seminar and realized the whole incident process 100 years ago.

▲One of the 100th anniversary of the Tapani Incident seminar scene

In 1912 Linchipu incident - 林杞埔事件, the Japanese Governor's Office was forced to levy the bamboo hillside land reclaimed by the Taiwanese for hundreds years and hand it over to the Japanese Mitsubishi Paper Company, which led to bloody fighting. The cause of the Tapani Incident was the same but more complicated; mainly, the sloping hillsides of the peasants were confiscated and became public land. In addition, Japan began to lead in the Japanese sugar industry in Taiwan and strictly regulated that the sugarcane planted by the farmers should be handed to the Japanese sugar company. A large number of private sugar mill lords and workers were unemployed. At this time, Yu Qingfang and others used the folk beliefs such as Buddhism and Taoism to ignite and wanted to overthrow the tyranny in one fell swoop, which would lead to such a colossal collision.

The main event occurred in the current three districts of Zuozhen, Nanhua, and Yujing in Tainan City. Many people from the Kaohsiung mountain area near Tainan county also attended. The original name of Yujing was Tapani (噍吧哖), from the Pingpu tribe. After the incident, the Japanese wanted to cover the historical smudges, then changed to the Japanese-sound-like Chinese character 玉井﹙タマイ﹚– Tamai. The primary battle occurred on August 5th and 6th, 1915, near the Tapani Hutou Mountain, which was called the "Tapani Incident." In fact, on the evening of August 2nd, the angry Taiwanese began to attack the Nanzhuang police station (now Nanhua police station), attacked with kerosene fire, simple firearms, and many farmer tools, and killed Japanese police officers, doctors, and many other families.

The old name of Xipu is "Chenpuliau - 菁埔寮 in Taiwanese, my wife and I was Nanhua Xipu Elementary School classmates. Her great-grandfather, Huang Wan - 黃晚, was a leader in the Chenpuliau Kongkou 菁埔寮坑口area. He also led many people from the Huang family to participate in the incident. Afterward, he was sentenced to death. The information provided by Professor Qiu indicated that he was released on August 26, 1927. the participants were widespread in that year.

My wife's grandmother(mother-in-law's mother ) lived in the Gangzilin village 崗仔林 of Zuozhen; after she married her ex-husband, they moved to Tapani (now Yujing) near the Zuozhen area. He was slaughtered after the Japanese army arrived. She was already the mother of three children. After the husband died many years later, the grandmother was remarried and gave birth to my mother-in-law and other siblings; I heard those stories from my mother-in-law many times, but I didn't have the exact data from the household registration office. As above, the participants and victims were widespread at that time.

▲11 of the wife Huang’s relatives were suffering or sentenced, and three were lucky enough to be released, including my wife’s great-grandfather Huang Wan(黃晚). Information provided by Professor Qiu Zheng Luo.

※ long-press the picture can be downloaded; if fonts are difficult to read.

Additionally, I once found a paper on the Tainan Municipal Government Cultural Bureau website, [ People without history: Zuozhen and the Tapani Incident ], the author is the anthropology of Zuozhen, Dr. Ye Chunrong - 葉春榮, and there is a delete-list data in 1915 of Zuozhen Township. As shown in the table below, I found out that 4 of my grandmother's family at Zuozhen Gangzilin village - 左鎮崗林村 were on the same day, August 11th, 1915, it's means killed on the same day, item 249 Li zi - 李吉 and 251 Li han 李旱 both them appeared in my grandmother's household register column. 李吉 is my grandmother's cousin, 27 years old at the time of death; 李旱 is my grandmother's father, my great-grandfather, died at 50 years old. I have never heard the elders saying that before. The incident occurred mainly from August 2nd to 6th; the Japanese army arrived on August 5th, and most delete-list removed from August 6th to 11th. The investigation was a retaliatory massacre, and the expert field investigation data was confirmed.

▲The No.154th 4 families were deleted in the same day, item 251 李旱 is my great grandfather.

※ long press the picture can be downloaded, If fonts difficult to read.

From my grandfather's household registration information, I saw my grandmother married to my 18-year-old grandfather when she was 18 years old. Next year, the Tapani Incident occurred, granduncle and grandfather were arrested at the same time. Later, my grandfather was released. Granduncle had been sentenced to death and subsequently reduced the penalty to life in prison, but he died at Tainan prison within three years, in 1918. Next year, my 59-year-old great-grandmother also passed away. ( At that time, people were in a status of sorrow and fear; how could they live longer? )

After the granduncle's death, my grandaunt- Lee Mei, left home to go to Shanhua Tainan, and later remarried. The only family in our house who can pass on the family is my grandfather, but my grandmother had never pregnant after many years of marriage; they had to adopt a child as a son from a nearby village. We also called him elder uncle, and his descendants still have frequent contact with us. Grandmother did not give birth for nine years, until 27 years old in 1924; my first uncle was born, and then she gave birth to six children, including my father. Why didn't she have a baby before? I often guess, does depression cause it? I always thought she confronted so many changes in a short time that could cause psychological trauma in her mind for a long time.

▲Two portraits of grandparents

When I was 1 or 2 years old, my grandparents passed away in a row. I didn't have any impression of them. The only thing was that after my grandmother died, several aunts cried tombs in front of the grave ( the ancient women had the custom of crying tombs). I had heard many stories about my granduncle and Tapani Incident from elders since I was a child, but I had never heard of my grandmother's family anything; I asked my father and elders, all said that they had never heard about that. When I was a child, if people talked about the 228, they could be immediately scolded or arrested. I guess the Japanese colonial era is even worse; when you are talking about the Tapani Incident or the Taisho-4-year, you should be whispered and afraid that others will hear it.

Since childhood, there were two portraits of my grandparents hanging in the ancestral house hall: I hadn't paid particular attention to them in the past. In recent years, when I went to my hometown, I always paid special attention to them and stared for a long time, then thinking that there were so many sorrows and suffering hidden behind two portraits no one knows, then tears out.

People always say that historical events can be forgiven, but they can't be forgotten. Unfortunately, Taiwan returned to the Republic of China in 1945, only one year more; the 228 incidents occurred in February 28th 1947. After the Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan in 1949, the two sides of the strait were in a status of intense confrontation. Both sides, for different purposes or reasons, also harm many innocent people under the rule. As a family member of the Tapani Incident victims, I can truly realize the pain in the hearts of the families of the victims. I sincerely hope that similar incidents will never happen again.

Sequel

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