Posts

300 years ago, the Qing Dynasty built an industry worth 670,000 taels of silver in Taiwan. Just for something sweet. What did they use? Oxen. Stones. And sugarcane stalks. I spent three days digging through the Revised Taiwan Provincial Chronicles — tax data, classical poems, lists of place names — and stitched together the whole picture. My takeaway: this isn’t sugar history. This is a zero-to-one startup story, island edition. ...

900 years ago, the people of Quanzhou built a bridge. A sea-crossing bridge. And they used a material you would never guess — oysters. Yes, the same ones you eat at a barbecue stand. They cultivated oysters on the bridge foundations. The oysters secreted a biological glue that fused the stones together into one solid mass. And that bridge has been standing for nearly a thousand years. Typhoons. Earthquakes. Ocean waves. None of it brought it down. ...

Ever wondered who invented the ticking heart inside your mechanical watch? The little part that goes click-click-click instead of spinning freely? I used to think it was the Europeans. Swiss watchmaking. Seiko. The usual names. Then I opened the Xiamen City Chronicles. There’s a man in there. Su Song. Born in 1020, in Tongan, Fujian. And he did something that made me stare at my screen for five straight minutes. ...

Introduction: The Seeds of Zayton Blown Across the Sea In the long annals of Quanzhou, beyond the silhouettes of trading sails, the most moving elements are the footprints of its people. Quanzhou is not only the starting point of the “Maritime Silk Road” but also the spiritual home for tens of millions of overseas Minnan people. Opening the Quanzhou Overseas Chinese Gazette and successive editions of the Quanzhou Prefecture Gazette, one discovers that these local records are essentially a symphony of life concerning “departure” and “return”. From the “private trade” of the Wanli era to the “crossing to Taiwan” in the Qianlong period, and the large-scale “descent to the Southern Seas” (Nanyang) in the modern era, the migration history of Quanzhou people constitutes the underlying code for the development of Chinese societies in Southeast Asia and globally. ...

A Question About Survival How did people in Quanzhou survive? This question sounds extreme, but in the Wanli Quanzhou Prefecture Gazette and Qianlong Quanzhou Prefecture Gazette, it’s a very real question. Quanzhou sits on the southeast coast, and it coincided with the global “Little Ice Age”—typhoons, droughts, earthquakes, one after another. For two hundred years of the Ming and Qing, Quanzhou’s disaster records were terrifyingly frequent. But Quanzhou people not only survived—they built a social safety net even in the hardest times. This wasn’t luck, it was resilience. ...

A Question About a “Maritime City” Why did Quanzhou become the “Greatest Port in the East”? Many would say: prime location, flourishing Song-Yuan trade. But the data in the Wanli Quanzhou Prefecture Gazette and Qianlong Quanzhou Prefecture Gazette tells us it’s more complicated than that. Quanzhou wasn’t just a port—it was a complete ecosystem: maritime trade, salt tax revenues, cross-sea bridges, academy education, and Mazu worship. These intertwined elements constituted the real “Zayton.” ...

A Question About the “Will to Beauty” How did Taiwan’s art and media modernize? You might think this is a grand question, but the numbers in the Revised Taiwan Provincial Chronicles will show you the answer. In 1927, the first “Taiwan Art Exhibition” (Tai-Ten) was held in Taipei. 33 pieces were selected for Oriental Painting, and 62 for Western Painting. These aren’t just numbers—this was the starting point of modern art in Taiwan. ...

A Question About “Paying Money” How much tax did people in Quanzhou pay? This question sounds mundane, but the taxation data recorded in the Wanli Quanzhou Prefecture Gazette and Qianlong Quanzhou Prefecture Gazette tells a real story about imperial finances and ordinary people’s lives. During the Wanli era, Quanzhou implemented the “Single Whip Law”—converting various taxes into silver for unified payment. During the Qianlong era, it became “Merging Poll Tax into Land Tax”—the head tax was abolished and folded into land taxes. ...

A Question About “Road Rights” How did people build roads in Fujian 100 years ago? This wasn’t just a technical question—it was a question about capital, governance, and social change. In 1917, the first automobile was imported into Fuzhou. Before that, the scale of Fujian’s vast landscape was measured by “shoulder poles,” and travel was an arduous journey through narrow and winding ancient trails. Then something called the “Automobile Road Company” appeared. They didn’t just build roads—they also held exclusive franchises for mail, passenger, and freight transport. This was Fujian’s first wave of social capital-driven infrastructure in Fujian’s history. ...

A Staggering Number How did Taiwanese people learn to live with earthquakes and typhoons? The Revised Taiwan Provincial Chronicles contains a set of numbers that might leave you speechless: Between 1909 and 1982, Taiwan recorded 17,564 felt earthquakes and 62,542 unfelt tremors. That’s an average of two felt earthquakes every three days. You read that right. On April 21, 1935, an earthquake killed 3,276 people. 12,053 were injured. 17,907 buildings were completely destroyed. ...