Kaipi Honghuang Inscription

One of several Qing dynasty era inscriptions along the Batongguan Old Trail (八通關古道) in Jiji, Nantou. The four characters, roughly “pioneering the untamed wilderness”, were carved in 1874 by General Wu Guangliang (吳光亮), whose Feihu Army (飛虎軍) had been ordered to execute the Qing court’s “open the mountains, pacify the Indigenous” (開山撫番) policy in the wake of the Mudan Incident. The column reached this stretch of the Zhuoshui River (濁水溪) and, finding the gorge cliffs impassable, advanced along the riverbed; Wu inscribed the boulder to mark the passage through the frontier. Now situated within the footprint of the Jiji Weir (集集攔河堰), the inscription was preserved in place after local advocacy during the dam’s construction. Find it up a precarious and poorly-maintained trail next to the north side of the weir.