page_title: Japanese invasion of Taiwan (1895)
section_title: Ruifang and Keelung
hierarchical_section_title: Japanese invasion of Taiwan (1895) / The course of the war / Phase One: Keelung, Taipei and Tamsui / Ruifang and Keelung
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa and his staff at Audi, northern Taiwan, end-May 1895 日本語: 日本の皇族であった北白川宮能久が台湾の澳底に上陸して野営している様子を撮影したもの。
context_page_description: The Japanese invasion of Taiwan was a conflict between the Empire of Japan and the armed forces of the short-lived Republic of Formosa following the Qing Dynasty's cession of Taiwan to Japan in April 1895 at the end of the First Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese sought to take control of their new possession, while the Republican forces fought to resist Japanese occupation. The Japanese landed near Keelung on the northern coast of Taiwan on 29 May 1895, and in a five-month campaign swept southwards to Tainan. Although their advance was slowed by guerrilla activity, the Japanese defeated the Formosan forces whenever they attempted to make a stand. The Japanese victory at Baguashan on 27 August, the largest battle ever fought on Taiwanese soil, doomed the Formosan resistance to an early defeat. The fall of Tainan on 21 October ended organised resistance to Japanese occupation, and inaugurated five decades of Japanese rule in Taiwan.
context_section_description: Meanwhile, the Japanese were making their preparations for occupying Taiwan in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty of Shimonoseki. The task of securing Japan's new colony was entrusted to the Imperial Guards Division, which had seen no action during the fighting in Manchuria.  7,000 guardsmen, under the command of Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa, left Port Arthur on 22 May, on board fourteen transports.  The preparations for the expedition were made in such haste that there was no time to issue the guardsmen with summer uniforms, and they left for the hot and humid climate of Taiwan in the heavy winter clothes they had been wearing against the bitter cold of Manchuria.  On 26 May the transports, escorted by the warships Matsushima and Naniwa, reached the Japanese-owned Ryukyu Islands to the northeast of Taiwan and anchored off the port of Nakagusuku on the eastern coast of Okinawa.
  On 27 May the recently appointed governor-general of Formosa, Admiral Kabayama Sukenori, joined the expedition from Tokyo.  In view of the reports that had reached Japan that the leaders of the self-styled Republic of Formosa were making preparations to resist a Japanese landing, Kabayama felt that there was no time to lose.  In consequence, he ordered the ships to set sail for Taiwan at noon the same day.  On 29 May the first troops of the Imperial Guards Division went ashore on the northern coast of Taiwan at Samtiao Point near the village of Audi (a small village in Gongliao), several miles to the east of Keelung.  The Japanese had originally intended to land at Tamsui, but finding the town strongly defended changed their plans at the last moment.  The landing marked the beginning of the war. The first major engagement took place on 2 June at Sui-hong (Ruifang). The defending Chinese forces were defeated.
  On 3 June the Japanese captured the port city of Keelung.  Following a preliminary bombardment of the city's coastal defences by the warships Matsushima, Oshima, Naniwa, Takachiho and Chiyoda, the Imperial Guards attacked the Keelung forts from the rear.  The main struggle took place around the Shih-ch'iu-ling battery (Chinese: 獅球嶺砲台; pinyin: Shiqiuling paotai).  Eleven years earlier, during the Sino-French War, Chinese forces had bottled up a French expeditionary corps in Keelung for seven months during the Keelung Campaign, and the Shih-ch'iu-ling battery had been held against the French for most of the war.  Now, in 1895, the Japanese routed the fort's garrison and captured the fort with little loss. Keelung was occupied on the afternoon of 3 June, after the Qing commanders fled the city and left the garrison force leaderless.  Japanese casualties in the battle for Keelung were 2 dead and 26 wounded.
caption: Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa and his staff at Audi during the Japanese landing
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