Battle of Changhsing The Battle of Changhsing ( 26 November 1895 ) , popularly known in Taiwan as the Battle of the Burning Village ( ) was the last set - piece battle during the Japanese invasion of Taiwan . It was fought by Hakka militia and armed civilians against the invading Imperial Japanese Army in Changhsing village ( ) . The battle earned its name from the fact that the entire village was burnt to the ground by the Japanese during their attempts to capture it from the Formosans . Background . After the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki and the establishment of the Republic of Formosa , Chiu Feng - yang ( 邱鳳揚 ) , a Hakka leader from Pingtung , called upon his supporters to form the so - called Liutui Hakka militias ( ) . The militias were organized into six units , according to the villages where they were recruited , hence the name Liutui ( ) . The militias first engaged the Japanese at Chiatung , and were defeated due to their poor training and weaponry . By the time the militia regrouped further to the south , the Republic of Formosa had collapsed in the wake of President Liu Yung - fu ' s flight to mainland China on 20 October 1895 and the capitulation of Tainan to the Japanese on 21 October . Seeing no hope of matching the Japanese in a fight in the open around Tainan , Chiu ordered a retreat to Changhsing village , Pingtung , where he planned to make a last stand . Chiu ' s forces fought alone against the Japanese . The Hakkas of the southern plains had long been at feud with the Pepohoans ( the Taiwanese aborigines who had originally owned the land on which Chinese immigrants had settled ) , and the Pepohoans stood aloof from the struggle . Indeed , they actively favoured the Japanese . The battle . Soon after their arrival , the militias fortified the village and brought in supplies . When the Japanese arrived , they found that a stone wall and other strong defensive positions had been built around Changhsing , and that almost the entire population of the village were armed , most of them with primitive weapons . The Japanese attempted to storm the village , but were pushed back several times by the Formosans . Hakka villages in Taiwan at that time were often provided with elaborate fortifications , partly due to the perennial threat of raids by head - hunting aborigines , and a village might be surrounded by ditches and a wooden palisade , and perhaps also a wooden wall with towers and loopholes , which would be difficult to storm without artillery . After hours of fierce fighting but little gain , the Japanese commander resorted to a massive bombardment to set fire to the village , and was successful in his attempt . The defenses were broken up and vicious hand - to - hand fighting ensued . In the end , more than half of the defenders , including their leader , were either killed or incapacitated , and the village was burnt to the ground by the fire . The Japanese suffered 15 killed and 57 wounded . Aftermath . The battle officially ended all formal resistance to the Japanese invasion , but sporadic insurgency continued on for several more years , ending only when the Japanese governor - general adopted a more flexible policy towards the local population . On the other hand , out of respect toward the defenders , the Japanese commander personally paid homage to the Formosan dead . In 1901 , Governor - General Kodama Gentaro also paid homage at the Chung - Yi house , or the " House of the Loyal and Just Ones " ( ) , and ordered an annual commemoration to be held . Several decades after the battle , Yu Youren , the then chairman of Control Yuan of Republic of China , visited the site of the battle and wrote a poem praising the Formosan resistance : A monument was dedicated in 1995 to the Formosans who fell in the battle .