Ensuiko Sugar Manufacturing Co. — Xinying Sugar Factory

The Ensuiko Sugar Manufacturing Company (塩水港製糖株式会社, Ensuikō Seito Kabushiki Kaisha) was founded on 25 December 1903 at Kishiuchi (岸內庄) in the Yanshui Port District (鹽水港廳) of Japanese-ruled Taiwan. It was initially capitalized by prominent Taiwanese merchants, led by the Tainan magnate Wang Xue-nong (王雪農), making it one of the few major sugar enterprises with significant local Taiwanese investment at its inception. The company name derived from the old name of the Yanshui area — 鹽水港 (Ensuikō), literally 'saltwater harbor.'

In 1907 (Meiji 40), Ensuiko acquired 24 jia (甲, approximately 23 hectares) of land on the right bank of the Jishui River (急水溪) in Xinying (新営/新營) to build its second factory (第二工場/新營工場). Warehouses, dormitories, and offices were completed by August 1907, and the main sugar mill began construction in October. The factory commenced trial operations on 3 November 1908 — Japan's Emperor Birthday (天長節) — with a crushing capacity of 1,000 English tons of cane per day, producing centrifugal sugar (分蜜糖). In 1909 the company's Kishiuchi mill produced plantation white sugar (耕地白糖) for the first time in Taiwan, and the Xinying mill was later equipped to make it as well. With the completion of this modern facility, Ensuiko relocated its corporate headquarters from Kishiuchi to Xinying, which became the permanent seat of the company.

By the 1930s, Ensuiko had grown into one of the 'Big Four' sugar companies (四大製糖會社) dominating colonial Taiwan's sugar industry, alongside Taiwan Sugar (臺灣製糖), Dai Nippon Sugar (大日本製糖/日糖興業), and Meiji Sugar (明治製糖). The company's Taiwan operations comprised four sugar mills — the original Kishiuchi mill (岸內製糖所), the Xinying mill (新營製糖所), and mills at Xizhou (溪州) and Hualien (花蓮港); the Qiwei mill at Qishan (旗山) had been sold to Taiwan Sugar in 1927 — served by an extensive narrow-gauge railway network (762mm/2ft 6in gauge) for cane transport. In 1936, a Second Mill (第二工場) was added at Xinying, and the original factory was redesignated as the First Mill (第一工場). The company also operated two refined-sugar factories in the Japanese home islands at Tokyo and Osaka.

During the Pacific War (1941-1945), the colonial government directed Taiwan's sugar companies to convert a portion of their production capacity to wartime needs. In 1936 (the heritage register dates the plant's construction to 1938, with expansion completed in 1942), Ensuiko established the Xinying Alcohol Plant (新營酒精工場) at nearby Liuying (柳營庄), which used sugarcane molasses — a byproduct of the refining process — to produce industrial ethanol through fermentation. This alcohol was a critical strategic material: blended with gasoline to create fuel for military vehicles and, in anhydrous form, used as a component of aviation fuel substitutes as Japan's petroleum supplies were strangled by the Allied blockade. Ensuiko's three alcohol distilleries formed part of a larger island-wide mobilization of sugar factories for alcohol production, reflecting the desperate wartime fuel economy.

In the final year of the war, the Xinying complex became a target for Allied strategic bombing. Repeated Allied air raids inflicted severe damage on the factory infrastructure, rendering the Xinying mill inoperable. Raw sugarcane that would normally have been processed at Xinying had to be diverted to the neighboring Kishiuchi mill (岸內製糖所) for emergency crushing. The factory's narrow-gauge railway lines and rolling stock also suffered extensive destruction.

Following Japan's surrender on 15 August 1945, the Republic of China government confiscated all Japanese sugar industry assets in Taiwan. On 1 May 1946, the four major sugar companies were merged into the state-owned Taiwan Sugar Corporation (臺灣糖業公司, Taisugar). Ensuiko's former domain was reorganized as the Fourth District Branch (第四區分公司), headquartered at Xinying. The Xinying Alcohol Plant was later converted by Taisugar into a yeast factory (酵母工廠) in 1957, and then expanded into a feed and by-products processing plant (新營副產加工廠); its office building was designated as a Tainan City Historical Building in 2019 under the name 'Taisugar Liuying Yeast and Feed Factory' (台糖柳營酵母暨飼料工廠).

The Xinying Sugar Factory continued operating under Taisugar through the postwar decades, becoming one of Taisugar's three major regional headquarters (三大總廠). On 1 May 2000 it was officially renamed Xinying Sugar Factory (新營糖廠), but the sugar mill ceased production on 31 March 2001 as Taiwan's domestic sugar industry declined. Much of the original factory infrastructure was subsequently demolished.

Today, the site has been partially repurposed as the Xinying Railway Cultural Park (新營鐵道文化園區), which preserves Taisugar's heritage narrow-gauge railway. Visitors can ride restored 'five-compartment trains' (五分車) along the sugar railway's Baweng Line (八翁線) from Zhongxing Station to Balaoye Station in Liuying District. The former diesel locomotive depot houses a collection of vintage narrow-gauge diesel locomotives. The most significant surviving colonial-era structure is the Former Ensuiko Sugar Company Headquarters Office (原鹽水港製糖株式會社總社辦公室), a handsome European classical-style building constructed in 1908 (Meiji 41), which was designated a Tainan City Monument (市定古蹟) on 25 January 2010. Now located at No. 42 Zhongxing Road, Xinying District, the building is open to the public only on special activity days.