300 Years Ago, Taiwan Built a Million-Tael Industry with Oxen and Stones — I Spent 3 Days Digging Through Its Provincial Archives to Find the Sweet Code
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. ...