Lien Heng (; 1878–1936) was a Taiwanese historian, politician, poet, merchant, editor of a Tainan's local newspaper. His most representative work was the '. Some have claimed that he contributed to the creation and spread of a unified and strong Taiwanese cultural identity through his historical research and works of poetry.
Early life
Lien Heng was born on 17 February 1878 in Taiwan Prefecture,
Qing-era Taiwan (modern-day
Tainan
Tainan (), officially Tainan City, is a special municipality in southern Taiwan facing the Taiwan Strait on its western coast. Tainan is the oldest city on the island and also commonly known as the "Capital City" for its over 200 years of his ...
,
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
).
Lien grew up in a prosperous merchant family, the third son of Lien Te-Cheng. Lien's ancestors originated from the city of Longxi County (now part of
Longhai City
Longhai District () is a District in Zhangzhou, in the south of Fujian province, China.
Longhai spans an area of , and, as of 2016, it has a population of approximately 736,400.
History
Following the revocation of the sea ban (''haijin'') in the ...
),
Fujian
Fujian (; alternately romanized as Fukien or Hokkien) is a province on the southeastern coast of China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, Guangdong to the south, and the Taiwan Strait to the east. Its cap ...
Province. The family had moved to Taiwan at the end of the
Ming dynasty
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han peo ...
as they were adamantly opposed to
Manchu intrusions into China and the later foreign
Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-spea ...
. Born to a well-off family, Lien received an education in the traditional Chinese fashion, learning Chinese characters, poetry, and the
Confucian Classics
Chinese classic texts or canonical texts () or simply dianji (典籍) refers to the Chinese texts which originated before the imperial unification by the Qin dynasty in 221 BC, particularly the "Four Books and Five Classics" of the Neo-Confucian ...
. Lien gained an early interest in Chinese and Taiwanese culture and history from stories told him by his father and private tutors.When Lien was 13 years old, his father gave him a book about the introduction of Taiwan, inspiring Lien's mind for recording Taiwan's history. With this exceptional schooling, Lien quickly developed into a young scholar-poet.
Life under Japanese Rule
Lien Heng was 17 when Taiwan came under Japanese imperial rule as a result of the
Qing defeat in the 1894
Sino-Japanese War. The island falling to Japanese control in the following
Treaty of Shimonoseki
The , also known as the Treaty of Maguan () in China and in the period before and during World War II in Japan, was a treaty signed at the , Shimonoseki, Japan on April 17, 1895, between the Empire of Japan and Qing China, ending the Firs ...
and the death of his father in the same year had a great effect on Lien. Lien felt as little connection to the foreign Qing China as he did to the new
Japanese Empire, and he soon began research on the ancient history of China.In 1895, Lien helped
Liu Yongfu
Liu Yongfu () (1837–1917) was a Chinese warlord and commander of the celebrated Black Flag Army. Liu won fame as a Chinese patriot fighting against the French Empire in northern Vietnam ( Tonkin) in the 1870s and early 1880s. During the Sin ...
, the commander of
Black Flag Army
The Black Flag Army (; , chữ Nôm: 軍旗𬹙) was a splinter remnant of a bandit group recruited largely from soldiers of ethnic Zhuang background, who crossed the border in 1865 from Guangxi, China into northern Vietnam, then during the N ...
, defeat the control of Japanese army. Lien moved out from his house where the Lien family had lived for seven generations for Black Flag Army to station. After Japanese army fully controlled Taiwan, Lien's house was expropriated by the Japanese government and used as a district court, forcing Lien being homeless at that time.
Two years later in 1897, Lien's studies led him to
Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...
, a hub of progressive thought and western ideas. Due to illnesses and death in the family, he returned to Taiwan, where he began to create a genealogical record of the Lien family.
Life and work
On returning to Taiwan in 1898, Lien Heng married Lady Shen Ao. In 1899 Lien was recruited as editor-in-chief by the ''
Tainan News Daily''. Working as a journalist, Lien was exposed to the ideas of
nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
, and wrote articles and poems on his disillusionment with the Qing's backward policies and inaction.
In 1905 Lien and his family moved to
Xiamen
Xiamen ( , ; ), also known as Amoy (, from Hokkien pronunciation ), is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian, People's Republic of China, beside the Taiwan Strait. It is divided into six districts: Huli, Siming, Jimei, Tong'an ...
where he formed his own newspaper, the ''Fuchien Daily''. Lien and other intellectuals such as
Lo Hsiu-hui and
Hu Tien-p'eng wrote articles supporting the
Tongmenghui
The Tongmenghui of China (or T'ung-meng Hui, variously translated as Chinese United League, United League, Chinese Revolutionary Alliance, Chinese Alliance, United Allegiance Society, ) was a secret society and underground resistance movement ...
and other Anti-Manchu revolutionary causes. As a result of his revolutionary activities, the government deemed his newspaper a radical threat to the
Qing. Feeling disheartened with the political situation in China, Lien and his family returned once again to Taiwan.
Back in Taiwan, Lien devoted himself to the cause of writing the history of Taiwan. Through his studies of mainland Chinese history and culture, Lien realized that the Taiwanese must also awaken in themselves a love for their own distinct heritage, language, and nationalism in order to withstand foreign oppression. Lien searched the island for archaeological and written remains of the earliest settlers of the island in order to gather information. On moving to
Taichung
Taichung (, Wade–Giles: ''Tʻai²-chung¹'', pinyin: ''Táizhōng''), officially Taichung City, is a special municipality located in central Taiwan. Taichung has approximately 2.8 million residents and is the second most populous city of Ta ...
in 1908, Lien was offered a job as editor for the
Taiwan Daily. With the help of fellow intellectuals, scholars, and writers such as
Lieng Qichao,
Hung Hsu, and
Lin Hsien-tang Lin Hsien-tang (; 22 October 1881 – 8 September 1956) was a Taiwanese-born politician and activist who founded several political organizations and sat on the Japanese House of Peers.
Early life and family
Lin Hsien-tang's earliest Taiwan-based a ...
Lien gathered necessary primary sources.
General History of Taiwan
In 1921, Lien Heng published the ''Taiwan T'ung-shih'' (General History of Taiwan) covering Taiwanese history from the
Sui dynasty up until the Japanese occupation. The work was a culmination of Lien's extensive research and the most comprehensive collection of Taiwanese history up until that time.
The work begins with the poignant line, "A country may be destroyed, but never its history".
Lien divided the General History of Taiwan into three sections: 1. The Annals 2. The Records and 3. The Biographies. The scope of Lien's work was immense, covering subjects spanning from historic migrations of
Han Chinese
The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctiv ...
from the mainland to Taiwan, famous women of the island, the reign of
Koxinga
Zheng Chenggong, Prince of Yanping (; 27 August 1624 – 23 June 1662), better known internationally as Koxinga (), was a Ming loyalist general who resisted the Qing conquest of China in the 17th century, fighting them on China's southeastern ...
, pirates, and the common people. At the beginning and end of each section, Lien gives his own analysis and interpretation on the topic, modeling the style used by
Sima Qian on his
Records of the Grand Historian
''Records of the Grand Historian'', also known by its Chinese name ''Shiji'', is a monumental history of China that is the first of China's 24 dynastic histories. The ''Records'' was written in the early 1st century by the ancient Chinese his ...
. Lien used the General History of Taiwan as a way to interpret historical events and their importance in the formation of a national Taiwanese identity.
Death and legacy
After completion of the General History of Taiwan, Lien Heng continued to encourage Taiwanese nationalism through political activism, poetry, and journalism. Lien died in 1936 at 58 years of age.
Lien's poems and historical works inspire in the Taiwanese a national sense of culture and spirit. His General History of Taiwan is to this day a remarkable view into the island's rich and diverse history. His poems and works were also later compiled into a collection in 1992 called the ''Lien Ya-t'ang hsien-sheng ch'uan-chi''.
See also
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Taiwan under Japanese rule
The Geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, together with the Penghu, Penghu Islands, became a Dependent territory, dependency of Empire of Japan, Japan in 1895, when the Qing dynasty ceded Taiwan Province, Fujian-Taiwan Province in the Treaty ...
*
History of Taiwan
The history of the island of Taiwan dates back tens of thousands of years to the earliest known evidence of human habitation. The sudden appearance of a culture based on agriculture around 3000 BC is believed to reflect the arrival of the ances ...
*
Taiwan Independence
*
Lien Chan
Lien Chan (; born 27 August 1936) is a Taiwanese politician. He was the Chairman of the Taiwan Provincial Government from 1990 to 1993, Premier of the Republic of China from 1993 to 1997, Vice President of the Republic of China from 1996 to 20 ...
References
Bibliography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lien, Heng
1878 births
1936 deaths
Taiwanese people of Hoklo descent
Lien Heng family
Republic of China historians
Republic of China poets
Historians of Taiwan
20th-century Taiwanese historians
Writers from Tainan
20th-century Taiwanese poets
Taiwanese emigrants to China