Zhu Yigui Rebellion

The first mass uprising against Qing rule in Taiwan, touched off in 1721 by the extortionate levies that the prefect Wang Zhen (王珍) and his son imposed on Fengshan County. Zhu Yigui (朱一貴), a duck farmer from what is now Neimen, emerged as a figurehead for sharing the surname of the Ming imperial house; he took the prefectural capital at Tainan, was enthroned at the Grand Mazu Temple as Zhongxing Wang (中興王), and lost the island to Qing reinforcements barely two months later. His alliance with the Chaozhou leader Du Junying (杜君英) had already split along ethnic lines, and the Hakka settlements of Pingtung, joined by their Taiwanese Plains Indigenous allies, repelled his army with what became the Liudui (六堆) militia system, commemorated since 1722 at the Liutui Martyrs’ Shrine.