Batongguan Traversing Trail (Japanese Era)

The Batongguan Traversing Trail (八通關越嶺道) is a colonial-era mountain road that crosses Taiwan's Central Mountain Range, connecting Nantou County in the west to Hualien County in the east. Built between June 1919 and March 1921 by the Japanese Government-General of Taiwan, it was constructed simultaneously from both ends — a western team advancing from Nanzijiaowan (楠仔腳萬, today's Jiumei in Xinyi Township, Nantou) and an eastern team from Yuli (Hualien) — meeting at Dashuiku near the mountain crest; the eastern section was finished on January 23, 1921 and the western on March 31.

The trail was built as a direct instrument of the Japanese "aboriginal control" (理蕃) policy. By the 1910s, headhunting raids and indigenous resistance, particularly from the Bunun people, had become increasingly problematic for the colonial administration. The government determined that a cross-mountain patrol road lined with police stations would enable surveillance, rapid troop deployment, and the forced relocation of indigenous communities from remote mountain strongholds. Construction was carried out under heavy armed police escort.

The completed trail stretched approximately 125 kilometers and featured dozens of police guard stations (駐在所) at regular intervals, connected by telephone lines. Unlike the earlier Qing Dynasty Batongguan Trail of 1875, the Japanese route was engineered with gentler gradients to accommodate pushcart transport of supplies and ammunition. Key infrastructure included suspension bridges over deep gorges, fortified positions at strategic passes, and supply depots.

The trail is closely connected to the Dafen Incident (大分事件) of 1915, in which Bunun warriors attacked the Japanese police station at Dafen on May 17, 1915, killing twelve Japanese policemen. This and the other Bunun attacks of 1915 in the Lakulaku River valley prompted the decision to build the road, and they demonstrated the fierce opposition of indigenous communities to Japanese colonial encroachment. The trail remained in active use for patrol and administration until 1944, when wartime resource shortages forced its abandonment.

Today, the Batongguan Traversing Trail lies within Yushan National Park and is maintained as a historic hiking route (the separately routed Qing-era Batongguan Trail is the one designated a national monument). Substantial portions of the Japanese-era infrastructure survive, including stone-walled police station ruins, suspension bridge abutments, and the commemorative plaque erected at the trail's completion. The trail is popular with hikers and researchers, serving as both a challenging mountain trek and an open-air museum of colonial history and indigenous resistance.