Abstract：
It has been frequently mentioned in historical literature that a wooden tablet for the Lord of Ten Thousand Years had been consecrated by yimin, literally “righteous people” and to whom this title was awarded by the Qing state in honor of their effort, in southern Taiwan during the Zhu Yiqui Uprising of 1721. The extant tablets of about 50 centimeters high are all installed on pedestals in different temples together with other deities for worship by believers. Local people call these tablets “Dragon Tablets,” signifying their imperial origin as bestowed by the emperor. Nevertheless, in reality, these tablets are often replica either produced by the local gentry or the temples. The fact that the tablets were usually affiliated to religious institutions manifests the close relation between religious institutions, the local society and the state. Even after the Uprising, the tablets for the Lord of Ten Thousand Years continued to play a role in bridging the local society with the state. The tablets were enshrined by yimin, the majority of who were of Guangdong ancestry. Yet, it came originally from a temple located in a village of Fujian immigrants. The temple had great significance in the transitional process during which Guangdong immigrants finally became the dominant group among yimin. Moreover, when the yimin collaborated with the Qing army to suppress the Uprising, more than three thousand military yimin had escorted the tablet to the prefectural city and enshrined it in the Pavilion of Long Longevity. After the turmoil was over, yimin welcomed the tablet back home and placed it in a local temple hereafter. The consecration of the tablet by the Pavilion of Loyalty and Righteousness henceforth made the temple the most significant symbol for the solidarity of Guangdong immigrants in southern Taiwan throughout the Qing rule. Whenever communal feuds or local disturbance arose, they gathered in the Pavilion, took oaths, recruited military men, allotted rations, and commanded mercenaries. Up to the present day, both the Pavilion of Loyalty and Righteousness and yimin are still closely related to the making of Hakka ethnic identity and both have been essential to understanding the long history of Guangdong immigrants in southern Taiwan.

Keywords：Hakka, Communal Feuds, Precious Volumes, Folk Religion, Lishe System, Yimin

Abstract：
In November 1898, three years after Japan took over Taiwan, the Gover-nor-General Office under Kodama Gentarō and Gotō Shinpei suddenly enacted a criminal ordinance (ritsurei), as allowed by Title 63 of 1896, creating a new type of actus reus that did not exist in Japan proper. “Any collective act of violence or coercion done purposely regardless of its objective” would now constitute a crime of banditry. Under this new ordinance called “Bandit Punishment Ordinance”, what was previously deemed a robbery would now be considered an act of banditry. Thousands of the accused were executed, sometimes even for crimes committed before the ordinance was enacted, thus making it the harshest legislation under the constitution of imperial Japan. Enactment of this ordinance symbolized the power of the state and the Governor-General to punish and embodied violence through delegated legislation. Previous research attributes the main purpose of promulgating the ordinance to suppression of anti-government activities. While holding the same perspective, this study further examines the influence of other possible factors through scrutinizing the ordinance’s political background, its process of legislation, and the configuration of its provisions. Sources of materials reviewed included Sotokufu Archives, Compilation of Documents of the Office of the Governor-General, and Taiwan Colonial Court Records Archives. It was found that before the ordinance was proclaimed, the colonial government in fact had difficulty punishing crimes of banditry through the ordinary legal process. The practice at that time required prosecutors to produce criminal evidence before the court according to the Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure. Moreover, under the intervention of British diplomacy and the constitutional right of Emperor Meiji to bestow official pardon, an amnesty was granted in Taiwan in January 1897 abolishing the punishment of those previously convicted of treason and banditry. It was against such background that the “Bandit Punishment Ordinance” was promulgated and only a limited number of officials in the Governor-General Office participated in drafting the ordinance. Subsidiary legislations such as “Regulations of Deposit for Criminal Appeal of Heavy and Light Crimes” were also enacted to prevent the accused from making appeals. Hence, the Ordinance itself and the subsidiary legislations all served a single purpose; that is, to sentence to death as many bandits as possible.

Keywords：Bandit Punishment Ordinance, Regulations of Deposit for Criminal Appeal of Heavy and Light Crimes, Amnesty, Takano Takenori, Insurgency, Delegated Legislation

Abstract：
This essay discusses the special mode adopted by the Japanese colonial administration for governing “flatland aboriginals”. During early Japanese rule, the colonial government included only the Pingpu tribe in its administration. Neither were other indigenous people recognized as imperial subjects; nor were their territories incorporated into the General Administrative Region on the plains. These aborigines were ruled separately by the “aboriginal administration”. To the Taiwan Governor-General’s Office, the ideal was to assimilate the “wild aborigines” (shengfan) as “tamed aborigines”(shufan) and include them as subjects of the General Administrative Region to be governed by the same principles as the “Islanders” (Han-Chinese and Pingpu tribes). However, the Ami and Piyuma tribes who lived on the plains in eastern Taiwan sharing territories with Han-Chinese did not become civilized as desired by the Taiwan Governor-General’s Office, and were hence called “flatland aboriginals” in contrast to “tamed aborigines”. Although “flatland aboriginals” resided within the General Administrative Region, not all the general administration rules were applicable to them. Through analyzing household data, land ownership, tax and judiciary procedure, this study explored the governance and legal treatment of “flatland aboriginals”. It was found that in the early Japanese colonial era, the administration as well as civil rights and obligations of “flatland aboriginals” had gradually become similar to those of “Islanders”, and they were also granted the right to criminal trial after 1920.

Keywords：Flatland Aboriginals, General Administrative Region, Aboriginal Administra¬tion, General Administration, Mixing of Aborigines and Han-Chinese

Abstract：
During the Japanese colonial era, students from Taiwan pursuing studies in Japan were considered imperial subjects. With the end of WWII, their status became overseas Taiwanese students in Japan under the jurisdiction of the Nationalist government. Such change had significant impact on their future. They were concerned about their employment prospects back in Taiwan and the attitude of the government towards them as graduates from Japanese universities. From the review of related literature and through personal interviews, it was found that most of them were unable to return to their home country due to the political turmoil in Taiwan. Under the impact of the 228 incident in Taiwan, plus the widespread left-wing views in Japan and especially among the overseas Chinese there, the majority of Taiwanese students in Japan harbored negative sentiments against the Nationalist government. In 1949, the Communists won victory in the civil war of China and founded the People’s Republic of China; while the Nationalist government was forced to relocate to Taiwan. In the beginning, many Taiwanese students in Japan had high expectations of the “new China”, and even migrated to the Mainland in groups. Analysis of students’ newspapers and overseas Chinese publications reveales that the prevailing left-wing views among the overseas Chinese was the main reason for their preference of the Communists. Even though it was the overseas Taiwanese students who fostered such left-wing inclination, the influence of the communist propaganda should not be overlooked. The lack of a proper policy of the Nationalist government for these overseas Taiwanese students also drove them to be pro-communists. In general, most Taiwanese students who went to Japan during the war and those who continued their studies in the aftermath of WWII eventually settled down in Japan. Among those who returned to Taiwan, some suffered persecuted and rarely did they get important positions in the government. These post-war developments revealed that the left-wing inclination among Taiwanese students in Japan was one of the main reasons why Taiwan lost many local elites. This article focuses mainly on tracing the emergence of left-wing views among the overseas Taiwanese in Japan. Future studies will explore the development of left-wing thinking in individual students and the effects of the drain of local elites.

Keywords：Taiwanese Students in Japan, Taiwanese in Japan, The Chinese Students’ Press in Japan, Overseas Chinese in Japanese, Press Campaign, Left-wing

Abstract：
The island of Lanyu is located to the southeast of Taiwan in the Pacific Ocean. Its archaeological cultures include the so-called Lobusbussan Culture, which is distinguished by unadorned ceramics and jar burials. As the date and origin of these burials constitute key evidence for understanding the origins of the modern Yami people and their relationship to the ancient cultures of Lanyu, scholars have focused on establishing their date through Carbon-14 testing. This paper, by contrast, examines three Chinese ceramic artifacts collected from jar burials by Beauclair. It concludes that these vessels date from the mid-tenth to early eleventh century, the era of the Five Dynasties and early Northern Song periods, and were fired at kilns in southern China.

Keywords：Lanyu (Botel Tobago Island), Tao, Yami, Jar Burial, Chinese Ceramics

Abstract：
Reviewing the essays delivered at the “2010 Conference on Taiwan History Research,” jointly organized by the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, and the Graduate Institutes of Taiwan History of both National Chengchi University and National Taiwan Normal University, this article classified the Taiwan history research findings of 2010 into four categories, namely general works, politics, economics and social culture. The article also offers a comprehensive analysis on the results obtained and proposes a research prospectus for the future. The 2010 research works on Taiwan history continued the same trend as in the previous three years with greater emphasis on modern history and socio-cultural history. These studies have explored a wide variety of topics with more sophisticated arguments expounded and diverse interpretations proposed. However, they focused too much on certain eras and insignificant themes, served more as political instruments, and gave greater priority to theories rather than historical materials. More effort should be devoted to the research on history of early times and the Qing Dynasty and to cultivating talents for related studies. In addition, cross-disciplinary approaches and theories should be adopted for longitudinal and comparative research. Of note is the advent of Geographic Information System (GIS) as a new tool of historiography. Not only can GIS facilitate the studies of regional, ethnic and environmental histories, which emphasize the interaction between human and the land, it also illustrates how integration of different disciplines can contribute to history research and has lasting impact on the research community of Taiwan history.

Keywords：Taiwan History, Review of Studies, Political History, Economic History, Socio-cultural History, Historical Materials