By the aid of steam pinnaces each towing several cutters, the troops, consisting of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Companies of the 1st Regiment of reserves under the command of Colonel Hishijima, were all landed in less than two hours. Bad weather on the 21st and 22nd prevented an immediate attack on the forts but on the 23rd, the storm having abated, the ships got underway, and at 9.30 a.m., upon the first flying squadron drawing near Hau-chiau, the fleet subjected the Kon-peh-tai fort to a heavy bombardment, to which the Chinese replied for nearly an hour before they were silenced.ĭuring the afternoon, the disembarkation of the troops commenced. On March 20th, after a five days' trip from Sasebo naval station, the expedition, consisting of the fleet and the transports, arrived off the Pescadores and anchored near Pachau island to the south of the principal islands of the group.
Davidson was a war correspondent with the Japanese army during the invasion of Taiwan, and enjoyed privileged access to senior Japanese officers. Davidson in his book The Island of Formosa, Past and Present, published in 1903. The following detailed account of the 1895 Pescadores campaign, drawing on official Japanese sources, was included by James W. In the next two days they occupied the other main islands of the Pescadores group. After a naval bombardment of the Chinese forts, Japanese troops went ashore on Fisher Island (漁翁島 modern-day Siyu) and Penghu Island on 24 March, fought several brief actions with defending Chinese troops, and captured the Hsi-tai battery (known to the Japanese, from the Japanese pronunciation of its Chinese characters, as the Kon-peh-tai fort likely 拱北砲臺) and Makung. It took the Japanese only three days to secure the islands.
The expeditionary force landed on Pa-chau Island (八罩嶼 modern-day Wangan), to the south of the main Pescadores archipelago, on the morning of 23 March.Īlthough the Pescadores were garrisoned by 15 Chinese regular battalions (5,000 men) and defended by the recently completed Hsi-tai coastal defense battery (built in the late 1880s in response to the capture of Pescadores by the French during the Sino-French War), the Japanese met very little resistance during the landing operation as the defenders were demoralized. On 15 March 1895, a Japanese expeditionary force of 5,500 men set sail for the Pescadores Islands. Their occupation by the Japanese would prevent further Chinese reinforcements from being sent across the Taiwan Strait. The key to the capture of Taiwan was the Pescadores, which lay midway between mainland China and Taiwan. Although hostilities in northern China were halted during the peace negotiations that eventually resulted in the Treaty of Shimonoseki (April 1895), Taiwan and the Pescadores were specifically excluded from the scope of the armistice, allowing the Japanese to mount a military operation against them without imperiling the peace negotiations.
As the First Sino-Japanese War approached its end, the Japanese took steps to ensure that Qing-ruled Formosa (Taiwan) and the Pescadores ( Penghu) would be ceded to Japan under the eventual peace treaty.
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