Tapani Incident Memorial Park (Xilai Temple Incident Memorial)

The Tapani Incident Memorial Park (噍吧哖事件紀念園區) is a memorial and museum complex in Yujing District, Tainan City, Taiwan, dedicated to preserving the memory of the Tapani Incident (噍吧哖事件, also known as the Xilai Temple Incident 西來庵事件 or the Yu Qingfang Incident 余清芳事件) of 1915.

The Tapani Incident (1915)

The Tapani Incident was the largest and deadliest armed uprising against Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan during the entire 50-year occupation period (1895–1945). It was also the first major anti-Japanese revolt to harness religious authority and millenarian prophecy as organizing tools.

By 1915, twenty years of Japanese rule had generated deep grievances among the Taiwanese population. Unjust taxation, discriminatory legal systems, and the pervasive and often brutal police apparatus (保甲制度) created fertile ground for resistance. Yu Qingfang (余清芳, 1879–1915), a former low-ranking colonial policeman from Tainan, emerged as the charismatic leader of the uprising. He was joined by Luo Jun (羅俊), a merchant who helped finance the movement, and Jiang Ding (江定), a mountain-dwelling outlaw who commanded fighters familiar with the rugged terrain of the southern Taiwan highlands.

Yu Qingfang and his co-conspirators used the Xilai Temple (西來庵) in Tainan City as their base, ostensibly raising funds for temple renovation while secretly organizing an armed rebellion. They proclaimed the establishment of the 'Great Ming Compassionate Nation' (大明慈悲國) and Yu assumed the title of 'Grand Marshal' (大元帥). Drawing on Zhaijiao (齋教, a form of lay Buddhism) traditions, folk religion, and millenarian prophecy, Yu convinced followers that divine mandate had decreed an end to Japanese rule after exactly twenty years. Recruits were issued 'bullet-repelling talismans' (避彈神符) and told they would be invulnerable to modern weaponry if they maintained vegetarian diets and carried the sacred charms.

On July 6, 1915, Yu Qingfang issued a formal proclamation under the title 'Grand Marshal Yu of the Great Ming Compassionate Nation.' Armed attacks commenced on July 9, when Yu and Jiang Ding's forces struck the Japanese police substation at Jiaxianpu (甲仙埔). On July 14, Jiang Ding's son Jiang Lian (江憐) was killed in combat. Through late July and August, the insurgents burned the Nanzhuang police station and advanced toward Damukang (大目降, modern Xinhua).

The decisive engagement came on August 6, 1915, at Tapani (噍吧哖, modern Yujing). The Japanese colonial military deployed modern infantry and artillery in coordinated operations against the rebels, who were armed primarily with traditional weapons — swords, bamboo spears, and farming implements — and relied on their religious talismans for protection. The result was a devastating rout. Hundreds of insurgents were killed in combat.

The Japanese authorities responded with extreme severity. A total of 1,957 Taiwanese were arrested. At a special temporary court convened in Tainan, 866 defendants were sentenced to death — an unprecedented mass death sentence. On November 10, 1915, Governor-General Ando Sadami (安東貞美) commuted three-quarters of the death sentences to life imprisonment, ostensibly in celebration of Emperor Taishō's enthronement. Yu Qingfang was captured on August 22, 1915, when villagers at Wanglai Village (王萊莊) seized and turned him over to the Japanese military. He was executed by hanging on September 23, 1915, at age 35. Jiang Ding held out in the mountains until April 1916, when he and 272 followers came down after the Government-General promised leniency; they were arrested in May, and Jiang was subsequently executed.

Estimates of the total death toll vary widely. A figure of 1,412 dead has been attributed to a 2015 Tainan City Cultural Affairs Bureau study, while household-register research documents hundreds of villagers killed in individual settlements (251 at Zhuwei and 185 at Zhutouqi, for example), and records for parts of present-day Kaohsiung are incomplete. The violence spanned the present-day districts of Nanhua, Nanxi, Yujing, and Zuozhen.

The Tapani Incident marked a turning point in Taiwanese resistance to Japanese colonialism. After the devastating failure of armed revolt, the Han Taiwanese anti-Japanese movement shifted decisively toward nonviolent cultural and political activism — the so-called 'civilized resistance' (文化抗日) exemplified by the Taiwan Cultural Association (台灣文化協會) founded in 1921 and the petition movement for a Taiwan parliament.

The Memorial Park

In 2015, on the centennial of the Tapani Incident, the Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Tainan City Government completed the renovation of several Japanese colonial-era wooden buildings on the grounds of the former Yujing Sugar Factory (玉井糖廠) and established the Tapani Incident Memorial Park. The park covers approximately 2,000 ping (roughly 6,600 square meters) and preserves both the historic structures and the surrounding natural landscape.

The park features a Regular Exhibition Hall (常設展廳) displaying historical photographs, weapons, legal documents, and artifacts from the 1915 uprising. The renovated Japanese-era wooden buildings include the former sugar factory guesthouse, whose barred rooms poignantly evoke the imprisonment of the condemned. An adjacent facility, the 'Amazed Tapani' Products Hall and Tourism Information Center (驚嘆噍吧哖——特產與旅遊資訊中心), offers local Yujing specialties including the district's famous mangoes.

The name 'Tapani' (噍吧哖) is derived from indigenous Formosan languages — 'Tapani' in the Taivoan language or 'Tamani' in the Siraya language — meaning 'sweet potato,' reflecting the area's pre-colonial indigenous heritage.