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# The information of this site is based on the book "KNOW TAIWAN" 
, the Jr.High school history text book in Taiwan.
prehistoric age People were hunting first. At the end stage of Neolithic era, they were farming.
12th century Han people, Chinese, had already been living in Penghu archipelago.
14th century Large number of Chinese had emigrated to Taiwan. They met the Taiwanese aborigines and called them who lived in the flatland as Pepo zu or Popo zu*1(meaning: the people in the flat land), and also called the high mountain barbarians as Gao shan zu (the people in the high mountain).
It is alleged that the Chinese people started to interact with the aborigines.
In the latter half of the 14th century, Penghu archipelago and Taiwan Strait (Between Taiwan and Mainland China) were the foothold of the Japanese and Chinese pirates, and illegal traders as well.
16th century In the end of the 16th century, Ming Dynasty sent troops to Penghu to disperse Japanese prirates in the Taiwan Strait. Consequently Japanese pirates and traders moved to some part of Taiwan island.
1604 Dutch sent miliary and occupied Penghu. Their intention was to expand business potential in the far east for Dutch East India Company. The general of Ming Dynasty, Shen Yourong, was defeated.
1624 Ming Dynasty assembled vast army to Penghu. Consequently Dutch moved to Tainan, Southwestern Taiwan.
Dutch built Fort Zeelandia there, and started to attack Taiwanese aborigine's villages. They built church and school for propagate Christianity. Let the leaders of each village to take an oath of loyalty to Dutch once a year, and also forced young boys and girls to understand the Christian faith and protcol with using Roman characters.
Dutch also called large numbers of Mainland Chinese for immigration to Taiwan. Dutch needed peasants. However, Dutch charged harsh and severe tax to Chinese.
1624 Zheng Chenggong*2 was born in Japan, between Zheng Zhilong, a Chinese merchant and pirate, and Tagawa Matsu, a Japanese woman.
1626 Spain sent military from Phillipines, and occupied some part of the north Taiwan. They built Fort Santo Domingo in Tamsui.
1642 Dutch drived Spain out of Taiwan.
1644 Qing Dynasty, founded in mainland China by the Manchu people.
1652 Anti-Dutch riot, led by Guo Huaiyi, occured. It is alleged thousand of Chinese were killed in this affair.
1661 Zheng Chenggong advanced 25,000 troops to Penghu, then moved to Taiwan and attacked Dutch administration.
1662 In February, Dutch withdrew from Taiwan. First Han Chinese administration was established in Taiwan.
In June, Zheng Chenggong died. His son, Zheng Jing took over his policy.
1666 Zheng Jing resumed contraband trade between mainlan China. Also started trading between Japan and Britain.
1683 Battle of Penghu. Taiwan fell to Qing forces. However, Qing was reluctant to manage Taiwan and banned Han people in China to migrate to Taiwan.
1839 First Opium War between Great Britain and the Qing Empire. This led China to sign the Treaty of Nanking.
1874 Mutanshe Incident*3. Ship of Ryukyu(modern Okinawa) was struck by a typhoon and cast ashore to Taiwan in 1871. Most crew was killed by Taiwanese aborigines. Japan insisted the people was Japanese and sent military to boar aborigines down. Qing Dynasty's attitude for this affair was ambiguous and Qing tacitly agreed that the residents on the Ryukyu Islands were Japanese. Japan annexed the islands in 1879.
1884 Sino-French War. It is caused by French desire for control of Vietnam region. Qing was aware of Taiwan as well.
1885 Qing sent Liu Mingyun*4 as the first governor the newly established province of Taiwan. He pushed forward variety of development such as agricultural and traffic infrastructure, and also naval defence facility.
1891 Liu Mingyun left Taiwan.
1894 Sino-Japanese War
1894 Treaty of Shimonoseki. Let China recognised complete independence and autonomy of Korea, and the payment of tribute and the performance of ceremonies and formalities by Korea to China shall wholly cease for the future.
Also China ceded full sovereignty of the Taiwan to Japan.
