<strong>Aug. 1 to Aug. 7</strong>
Admiral Cornelius Reijersen stubbornly held out at Penghu’s Makung harbor (馬公) for nearly two years, refusing the Ming Dynasty’s repeated requests for his fleet to depart for Taiwan.
Instead, the Dutch fleet plundered Chinese merchant ships, captured sailors and terrorized the coast of Fujian for months, hoping to force the Ming to open up trade with them.
To the Ming, Penghu was too close to home; they knew of the Dutch’s military strength and they were also worried that the archipelago would become a pirate haven with ships smuggling
<strong>July 25 to July 31</strong>
The Chinese Civil War was not on Chang Hung-ming’s (張鴻明) mind when he arrived in Taiwan in the summer of 1948. The Quanzhou, Fujian native only left his hometown because the village’s Wangye (王爺) deity told him that to stay would bring disaster. Chang’s cousin had just been transferred by the Republic of China Air Force from Nanjing to Tainan, so Chang decided to visit him there.
Chang did not plan to stay long, and all he brought were some clothes and a bit of cash. He didn’t