The Takao Club

Lin Shao-mao

The End of the Tale

The Beginning of the Tale

Partisan Days

The Japanese Response

The End of the Tale

Map of Southern Taiwan

After surrender

A band of surrendered rebels around 1898 (Davidson)

     After surrender Lin Shao-mao lived at Hou-pi-lin [ 後壁林 ], a fishing community in then Fengshan Cho (today it is on the slopes of Feng-shan Hill not far from China Steel Corporation in the Hsiaokang District of Kaohsiung City). His old followers stayed with him and he was able, under the terms of surrender, to rule a virtual feudal fiefdom. They developed the land, and carried out business in fishery, agriculture and wine-making. As a result, Lin Shao-mao became a rich man with a reported annual income of over 10,000 yen.

     However, it is claimed that even after the surrender the base at Ta-lun still existed and Lin Shao-mao received a steady stream of admirers there. Indeed, the same source asserts that many local traders were wont to display the flag of Lin Shao-mao when they made deliveries in the Fengshan area to allow them to pass freely.

   
     Reports also show the level of mutual distrust following the surrender, with Lin Shao-mao's men digging earthworks and building bamboo palisades as Japanese policemen watched from a distance. 

     It is further reported that around this time (1900) when Lin Shao-mao celebrated his mother's birthday, three rich families of Wantan sent a very big gift to Ta-lun and were brazen enough to sign their names in attendance. This indicates the power that Lin Shao-mao held in south west Taiwan. However, it also proved a mistaken underestimation of the Japanese power, for after Lin Shao-mao was killed in 1902 the information was discovered and the men were hunted down and killed by the Japanese.


The Last Stand

      Accounts vary about the fate of Lin Shao-mao.

      In May 1902 the Japanese authorities had decided to rein in the power of those 'bandits' who enjoyed such an affluent autonomy under the terms of their surrenders, yet continued in their 'brigandage' thus breaking their oaths of surrender. The Japanese ordered many such 'pacified bandits' to assemble at six points in the south of the island on 26 May 1902. Those that obeyed the order were simultaneously gunned down on the evening of that day, ostensibly for 'rowdy behaviour'. Some, such as Lin Shao-mao, either did not obey or rather incredibly did not receive the fatal summons.      

   

    The Japanese went in search of him on the spurious grounds that his community was 'spreading disease'.

    On 30 May, Mr Oshima, the Inspector-General of the Police Department, led a detachment of A-kou and Fengshan (Hozan) police reinforced by part of the Japanese Third Brigade in an attack on Lin Shao-mao's stronghold at Hou-pi-lin [ 後壁林 ], which is located adjacent to the China Steel plant in Hsiao-kang District of Kaohsiung City [ 高雄市小港區 ]. 

     There were some 600 people inside the fortified palisade of Lin Shao-mao at the time of the overwhelming Japanese assault. After four hours of fierce fighting and a steady rain of Japanese mortars the small fortified community was in flames. At around 5 pm the some of the fighters surrendered to the Japanese. However, Lin Shao-mao, together with his cohorts Oo Wan-hien and Lin Tien-fu, fought on believing that surrender meant certain death.

Today's military camp at Hou-pi-lin 

where Lin Shao-mao made his last stand

      As the Japanese forces began to enter the compound, Lin Shao-mao and his followers endeavoured to make a final sortie to freedom from the front gate. All were killed. His body was found some 300 metres outside the gate of his stronghold in Hou-pi-lin ('Au-piah-na' in Hokkien) where he had been gunned down by Japanese troops on 31 May 1902. He had been hit by five bullets and lay dead together with some 41 fighters, 25 women and 10 children. 

     Lin Shao-mao was 37 years old.

The corpse of Lin Shao-mao

   
     One sole 'rebel' brigand escaped. This was Huang Wen-hsing. He fled first to Heng-chun then on the Taitung where he assumed the name of a women before moving on to central Taiwan and another identity. Huang Wen-hsing was never captured   

     In the aftermath from 31 May to 4 June the Japanese forces had killed or hunted down all the 600 who had fought with Lin Shao-mao and a further 400 people connected to him were killed, including those rich family heads from Wantan and his young nephew. 

     It was the end of any idealism about a Taiwan Republic rebellion, which the Japanese authorities declared officially ended on 4 June 1902. But the legend had been born and has now entered the textbooks of Taiwanese Junior High School students.


Ghost Story 

     Lin Shao-mao had, around 1895, kidnapped two women to be his concubines. One was from Yu-chan Village [ 玉成 ], the other from the Yen family near the Yu-chan bridge. The woman from Yu-chan Village had had a child from Lin Shao-mao. 

      When Lin Shao-mao was killed by the Japanese this child was 5 years old. The Yu-chan village leader was afraid that this child’s parentage would bring him trouble, so he sent some men from the village to dig a hole and bury the child alive. 

     The deed was duly carried out. Yet, not two years later, in 1904, the village leader became blind and died.

      However the child was to become a ghost that always appears in Yu-chan village. 


The End


The author expresses his gratitude for the kind help given by Thomas Chiang [ 江海 ] and 'Teacher Lee' (Lee Ming-chin) [ 李明進 ] in preparing this document.

Other major sources are Yosaburo Takekoshi's 'Japanese Rule in Formosa'; James W Davidson's 'The Island of Formosa Past and Present'; and Yukiko Hayase's 'Career of Goto Shinpei'.

The Beginning of the Tale

Partisan Days

The Japanese Response

The End of the Tale

Map of Southern Taiwan

The Takao Club

Lin Shao-mao

The End of the Tale