Kingdom of Middag

Kingdom of Middag
the 1540sā€“1732 ā†’
 
ā†’
 
ā†’
Kingdom of Middag at its greatest extent
Capital Middag
Language(s) Formosan
Government Monarchy
King
 - ?-1648 Dorida Camachat
 - 1648-? Camachat Maloe
Historical era Age of Discovery
 - Established the 1540s
 - Collapsed 1732

The Kingdom of Middag was a kingdom or supra-tribal alliance located in the central western plains of Taiwan. Such a historical regime was established by the Taiwanese aboriginal tribes of Papora, Babuza, Pazeh, and Hoanya; it had ruled as many as 27 villages (according to the Scottish traveler David Wright), occupying parts of present-day Taichung, Changhua, and Nantou Counties. Having taken shape in the 16th century and survived the rulings of European colonists and the Kingdom of Tungning, the aboriginal tribes that used to form the Middag regime were eventually subjugated to the rule of the Qing Empire in the 18th century.

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Names

The Kingdom of Middag is the western name for the kingdom. In Taiwan, it is known as the Kingdom of Dadu (Chinese: å¤§č‚šēŽ‹åœ‹; pinyin: DĆ dĆ¹ WĆ”ngguĆ³; Wadeā€“Giles: TĆ -tĆ¹ WĆ”ng-kuĆ³; PeĢh-ōe-jÄ«: Tōa-tōĶ˜ Ɣng-kok), Dadu being the modern-day name of the historical capital Middag.

The leader of the kingdom also had different titles. The Dutch name of the title was Keizer van Middag, the German name was Keiser von Mittag, the Hoklo name was Quata Ong (PeĢh-ōe-jÄ«: Khoa-ta Ɣng), and the most common aboriginal name was Lelian ("Sun King").

History


Part of a series on the
History of Taiwan
Prehistory 50,000 BC ā€“ AD 1624
Kingdom of Middag 1540 ā€“ 1732
Dutch rule, Formosa 1624 ā€“ 1662
Spanish rule, Formosa 1626 ā€“ 1642
Kingdom of Tungning 1662 ā€“ 1683
Qing Dynasty rule 1683 ā€“ 1895
Republic of Formosa 1895
Japanese rule 1895 ā€“ 1945
Republic of China rule 1945 ā€“ present

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Having taken shape before the mid-16th century, the kingdom first came into contact with the West in the early 17th century. After the Dutch East India Company established its Government of Formosa in 1624, it came into armed conflicts with the kingdom on some occasions, and was able to force the kingdom into submission. The kingdom, however, maintained its semi-autonomous status, and had the authority to ban European missionary activities in its territory. Generally speaking, the kingdom maintained a friendly relation with the Dutch.

In 1662, Ming loyalist Koxinga and his followers laid siege to the Dutch outpost, and eventually established the Kingdom of Tungning. Tungning and Middag were constantly at odds due to Middag's friendly relations with the Dutch, and hostility between the kingdom's indigenous population and the Han Chinese people that constituted the population of Tungning. Furthermore, the Kingdom of Tungning was in constant need of expansion in order to increase food production to feed its vast army because maritime trade was denied by the hostile Dutch-Qing alliance. The rulers of Tungning had to resort to forced acquisition of land to implement Chinese-style intensive farming, and this resulted in a number of massacres of the indigenous population that refused to comply. As a result, the two kingdoms clashed on numerous occasions, with the territory of Tungning gradually expanded and Middag forced to retreatā€”much the same as the situation in other traditionally aboriginal areas on the island.

Qing influence

After the Qing's successful campaign that resulted in the capitulation of the Kingdom of Tungning, transportation between Taiwan and China was restored, and the immigration of Chinese population to the islandā€”albeit discouraged by official edictsā€”resurged. Consequently, the Kingdom of Middagā€”as were other aboriginal tribesā€”faced even greater pressure from the exponentially growing Chinese population seeking to "open" more farmlands on the island.

Due to lack of historical records or archaeological evidence, the actual lineage and developments of the kingdom cannot be ascertained. According to the accounts by Huang Shujing, a Qing official dispatched to Taiwan in the early 18th century, a supra-tribal leadership remained in existence in the Dadu area at that time. However, during the reign of Yongzheng Emperor of Qing later in that century, the population in the traditional Middag territories rose to oppose heavy labor imposed by the Qing authorities, and was brutally quelled by Qing troops and collaborative tribes in 1732, a year after the initial uprising. After this turmoil came to an end, a supra-tribal leadership apparently ceased to exist in the island's central-western plains. In the aftermath of this, the descendants of Middag either fused into the majority "Chinese" population through intermarriage or migrated to present-day Puli, a basin township surrounded by high mountains in central Taiwan.

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