Xiatamsui Battalion Gate Ruins

The remains of a north gate from the Qing dynasty era Xiatamsui Battalion (下淡水營), a military camp first established around 1733 at the mouth of the Ailiao River in nearby Yanpu to mediate conflict between Han settlers and the Paiwan Indigenous peoples of the Shanzhumao community (山豬毛社). After repeated flood damage destroyed the original site the battalion was rebuilt here at Yandunjiao (煙墩腳) in 1885, with the commanding officer’s compound known as the Dusi Office (都司署). Unlike the brick or rammed earth of larger Qing walled cities such as Tainan, Hsinchu, or Hengchun, the gate was built from rocks gathered from the surrounding riverbanks, a technique typical of Pingtung’s alluvial plain. Identified and verified through fieldwork in the 2010s, the surviving gate fragment was designated a Pingtung county monument in 2016.