Located in the bustling southern Taiwan city of Tainan, the whole site on which the structure is emplaced was originally called Fort Provintia. The buildings, constructed by the Dutch in 1653 after their invasion and occupation of the island, also housed their colonial administrative headquarters. The Han people called the fort itself Hong Mao Lou (the Red Hairs' Tower) or Fan Tzu Lou (Barbarian's Tower).
On the origins of the two words chih (red) and kan (mountain-like), in Chih Kan Lou, the Tai Wan Hsien Chih (Annals of Taiwan Counties) states: "Originally, residents of Fukien Province called high banks overlooking a body of water that were difficult of access, kan. Later the word kan was misspelled (in the Chinese). When the sun shone, the red brick walls and roof tiles of Chih Kan Lou looked like elements of a rainbow. Therefore, both Chih Kan Lou and red-roofed Anping Castle (Fort Zeelandia) were dubbed Chi Kan."
However, Lian Ya-tang (1878-1936), an early Taiwanese scholar who devoted almost all his lifetime to composing Taiwan Tung Shih (The General History of Taiwan) had different views: "The words chi and kan are derived from the name of an aboriginal village, Sakam or Saccam. Therefore, when the Dutchmen built the city, the Han people called it Saccam City." The latter may be accepted as true, according to Tsu Hai, a dictionary. Saccam, located in Tainan, was the first area opened-up on this island. And it is said that when Cheng Ho (1371-1453), a powerful eunuch of the early Ming Dynasty, was sent by the Emperor as an emissary across the South China Sea to demonstrate the spirit and bravery of the Chinese, his assistant once fetched water from Saccam. In the extant Dutch documents, terms such as Saccam, Seakan, and Sacam all appear.
The early story of Tainan, the oldest city on Taiwan, is told largely through her fortresses and old city walls. The forts were created as a military assertion of dominance over the surrounding area, but also as a symbol of sovereignty. Their major function was, however, for defense of the area around them.
At any rate, Fort Provintia is today Chih Kan Lou, one of Taiwan's oldest and most important historical landmarks. And for every contemporary visitor to Tainan, Chih Kan Lou is a must side trip, this country's most prime historical monument. Yet, the following questions are raised often in visitor's minds: Since this is the site of Fort Provintia, constructed by the Dutch, why are there only Chinese-style structures? Where is the site of the older fort (which no longer exists)? What are the links between Chih Kan Lou in downtown Tainan and Anping Castle, not far away? Not only are visitors confused by their lack of knowledge of the present structures' origin, even those who were born and grow up here may not know the correct details.
As a matter of fact, the current Chih Kan Lou is a concoction of different cultures, the original Dutch fortress having long since collapsed. It now be-speaks not only its colorful legacy in Dutch colonization, but Koxinga's successful siege, the Manchu takeover, Ming loyalist rebellions, Japanese occupation, and its restoration to the Republic of China.
Before the Dutch came to Taiwan, Saccam was but a small sand dune near Twailvin Been. The Teching River meandered around its eastern and northern edges. To its south were a group of sandhills. Branching streams flowed into the brinks of its hemlines. Coconut palms and other tropical verdure grew densely on the sandhill. Occasionally, Pingpu tribesmen from nearby Saccam village came to this area for hunting.
During the reign of Emperor Wanli of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Chinese from Fukien and Kwangtung Provinces and Japanese fishermen also, reportedly fished and refurbished here. However, no traces have been left. In 1621, Cheng Chi-lung, Koxinga's father, who was first a pirate on the South China Sea but later submitted to the court and was appointed a high-ranking military officer, led a group of settlers to Taiwan and occupied the area at Penkang, now divided into Peikang in Yunling township and Hsinkang in Chiayi township, southern Taiwan. Opportunities for the Chinese people to fish and to explore the new Chih Kan Lou area had increased. Nevertheless, no signs of Chinese people of that age were left in the area.
The next year, a Dutch general invaded the Pescadores (an offshore island group of Taiwan) and sent ships to Yikunshen (now Anping) to undertake surveys. In 1624, the Dutch invaders were forced by the Ming Dynasty to leave the Pescadores, and they moved to Yikungshen. In January of 1625, observing that more and more Chinese were settling down in the area along with the Dutch, putting pressure on local land, water, and food resources, a Dutch officer, paying as a price 15 bolts of print ed cloth to the chief of the Pingpu aborigine tribe at Saccam, obtained the land on the two banks of the Teching River. Here, streets and houses were later built. The city was named Provintia City to commemorate the seven-state union following Dutch independence.
By October of 1625, more than forty houses in the area were the property of Chinese, the Dutch also owning a sizable number of buildings. To protect the growing numbers of lives and property, Dutch officials constructed a barbette on which four cannon were placed. A trench was dug around the barbette and twelve soldiers dispatched to guard it. However, no records are now available on the shape of this military post, located on the southwestern slope of the sand hill, the site of today's Chih Kan Lou. The barbette was probably the earliest form of Chih Kan Lou.
Nevertheless, this other did not last long. In the summer and fall of 1626, a plague afflicted the community and many residents died. The remaining people moved out and, lacking proper maintenance, the simply built barbette fell into ruins shortly afterwards.
In the winter of 1626, the terrible plague ended. Though the Chinese now returned to the banks of the Techlng River, the Dutch remained in Zeelandia City on the island of Yikunshen. The area around the Teching River (the west bank of today's Houllao harbor) grew, and in not too long, the first formal street established by the Han people in southern Taiwan was a reality—Houliaokang Street, now part of Chungyi Road between Chengkung and Minchuan Roads in Tainan.
In 1628, when Chinese leader Cheng Chi-lung left Penkang for Fukien Province, he ordered Kao Huai-yi, a military officer under his command, to collect grain levies in the Houliaokang Street area. Kao later became the leader of the Chinese people in this area and acted as a rival to Dutch authority.
When Cheng Chih-lung later surrendered to the Ching court, his son Cheng Cheng-kung (Koxinga) proclaimed implacable warfare against the Manchu Dynasty and continued to observe the Mings' imperial calendar to indicate the consistency of their reign. Kuo Huai-yi carried on with the grain-levy collections on Koxinga's behalf.
Dissatisfied with Kuo's role, the Dutch authorities began a regime of oppression against the Houliaokang Street Chinese in order to deprive Kuo of his grain and end his operations. The Dutch applied extortionate levies of their own, and in 1652, the Chinese, under the leadership of Kuo, launched an uprising that was put down by the Dutch. This event triggered new Dutch attention to military defenses, and the next year they built Fort Provintia on the southwestern slope of the sand hill—a fortress of stone, brick, and mortar.
According to the book The Forgotten Formosa, by an author signing himself C.E.S., the fortress incorporated four bastions. However, the Annals of Taiwan Counties declares that the fortress, which faced west, was comprised of a main fort plus just two bastions-at the northeastern and southwestern corners. The main fort was a three-story building. The first story, 30 meters in length and 22 meters in width, featured an arched main gateway 1.75 meters wide and 3 meters high. On the gatebeam were five Dutch words cast in iron- "Fort Provintia, Completed in 1653."
Inside the gate was a large labyrinthine area, dark and tortuous. Located at the extreme north was the armory. A well, the main source of water, was situated right in the middle of the main building. Food was stored in a cellar to the southeast of the well.
The second floor, smaller than the ground floor by about eight centimeters on each side, was used as offices for the colonial government, whose deputy chief was in charge of Fort Provintia. The third floor was devoted to the deputy chief's residence, and the rooms here were decorated in the Western style. A staircase wound up here from ground level and continued on to the flat roof, where exquisitely carved parapets seemed to soar aloft. Bright windows in the spacious residential rooms provided a view of the boundless blue sea.
The bastions at the southwestern and northeastern corners each sported three observation towers, large enough to accommodate only one person at a time. Between the two bastions were barracks for the Dutch soldiers.
The whole Fort Provintia structure-overall, 151 meters in circumference and 13 meters in height-was of a material created by mixing glutinous rice, sugar water, and ground sea shells cemented to bricks. It is as hard and durable as stone.
Since the castle was situated near a branch stream of the Twailvin Been, in the early days, before the harbor silted in, waves washed against the walls of Fort Provintia at high tide. This also may have had some influence on the name by which the fortress was known to the Chinese, Chih Kan Lou, since kan refers to a bank overlooking a body of water. Under Dutch control, more than a hundred soldiers were stationed at the fort. But although the garrison and the block-house were sufficient to ward off attacks by the local Chinese and the Pingpu tribesmen, they were not to be effective against a formal army.
Cheng Cheng-kung had been preparing a large-scale campaign to force the Dutch from Taiwan. By the beginning of March 1661, everything was in order. Cheng left his son Cheng Ching in charge of the mainland port city of Amoy with instructions to raise reinforcements that might be needed later, and on March 23, with 25,000 picked troops and a fleet of 400 war junks, set out across the Taiwan Straits. A brief stay at the Pescadores rested his men and enabled Cheng and his 26 generals to finalize their plan of attack.
Cheng's ultimate aim in ousting the Dutch and occupying Formosa was actually for purposes of restoring the imperial court of the Ming Dynasty, using Formosa as a base. Despite the fact that he later established Chinese government on the island and was thereby entitled to be the ruler of Formosa, he still preferred the title "Prince of Yenping", conferred upon him by the deposed Emperor Yungli of the Ming Dynasty.
On the morning of April 30, 1661, Cheng and his troops arrived off the undefended Lackjemuyer harbor, which gave access to the Twailvin Been, and landed on the north bank of Bacseboy Island. At noon, taking the advantage of the rising tide, Cheng led his force up the Twailvin Been, landing in Houliao harbor. They took over the Chinese residential streets and at once surrounded Fort Provintia.
As soon as Dutch Governor Fred Crik Coyett of Formosa became aware of the new events, he sent his assistant with a force to reinforce the fort. However, it was no match in strength for Cheng's legions and also lacked the Chinese residents' and Pingpu tribesmen's assistance. The Dutch reinforcements were defeated, only a small number of them gaining the fortress. After just five days, unable to hold out any longer, the Dutch garrison opened the fort gate and announced a surrender which ended 37 years of Dutch control in the area.
Cheng took over Fort Provintia, from which point he directed a new attack against Zeelandia City (Fort Zeelandia, today's Old Anping Castle).
Withstanding the siege for almost a year, Fort Zeelandia was finally given up to Koxinga on February 1, 1662, and the Dutch promised to leave Formosa under the terms of a rather generous treaty, guaranteeing their safety and allowing them to take much of their property. Soon after its surrender, Cheng moved to Zeelandia (tater to be known as Taiwan City and King's City).
Following the Dutch departure, Koxinga was declared sovereign over Taiwan and began to gradually introduce Chinese laws and practice to the island. Although his government was formally set up at Fort Provintia, now renamed Cheng Tien Fu, Zeelandia remained the political center of the entire island. Six ministries constituted the central government-for civil personnel, finance, rites and education, war, justice, and public works. Following the traditional Chinese administrative system, the Saccam area was designated Tungtu, the new capital of the Ming Dynasty. The capital was divided into one prefecture (originally Cheng Tien Prefecture, later Taiwan Prefecture, today's Tainan City) and two counties- Tienhsin (Heavenly Prosperity) and Wannien (Ten Thousand Years).
Following Koxinga's death in Fort Zeelandia in 1663 at the age of 39, his son Cheng Ching failed to hold Amoy and the off-shore Kinmen Islands and retreated to Taiwan in 1665. Cheng Ching's ensuing expedition back to the mainland to quell the San fan rebellion in 1675 ended in failure, and he retreated again to Taiwan in 1681, the Ming Dynasty now being completely destroyed. Fort Provintia, in the Saccam area, remained the government offices of Cheng Tien Prefecture. And its first floor, following Dutch practice, was given over to storage of ammunition, guns, and grains. It was then the administrative center for the entire Taiwan area, and also the heart of Chih Kan Lou.
In 1683, the 37th year of Emperor Yungli of the Ming Dynasty, or the 22nd year of Emperor Kanghsi of the Ching Dynasty, Taiwan came formally under the jurisdiction of the Ching Dynasty. The next year, it was divided into one prefecture and three counties. A Tao governed Taiwan and Amoy, and a high ranking military post was established in Taiwan to direct the civil and military officials on the island. Due to insufficient space at Fort Provintia, the government was now moved, and the fortress became mainly an armory, guarded by soldiers.
In the middle of 1721, during the so-called Chu Yi-kuei Incident, Fort Provintia was invested by Chu and his troops, who confiscated the weaponry and ammunition stored there. Chu's men melted down the gate rings and the horizontal, inscribed name board for the fort, since they were made of fine iron, and cast them into weaponry.
In the aftermath of the incident, the armory was moved to Hongtsaoping on Mt. Kanting. Without guards, its portals left open, fallen leaves piled high about the old fort. Earthquakes and typhoons were to finally help reduce the whole historic site to only its surrounding walls.
In 1750, when County Magistrate Lu Ting-mei moved his county offices to a site just north of Chih Kan Lou, he appropriated funds to renovate the fort, which was then turned into a scenic historic site for local residents. To the north of the fort were the county offices, to its west a temple dedicated to Kuan Yin (the Goddess of Mercy), to the south Fentien Street, and to its east Hsiaoshangti Temple. Government structures and civilian houses abounded. Pedestrians bustled about and tourists could be seen everywhere. At dawn and at dusk, the fort and the sun's rays added radiance and beauty to each other. Fort Provintia had become one of the eight wondrous sights of the Tainan area. Poems from that time meditating on its past remain to this day.
Following the reign of Emperor Chiaching of the Ching Dynasty, since little attention was paid to the maintenance of the historic structure, part of it collapsed. During the beginning years of Emperor Tungchih, when a British traveler ascended to the site, he found the buildings seriously dilapidated. Yet, it was a beautiful ruin.
During the tenth year of Emperor Kuanghsu, in 1884, the Sino-French War broke out. At the time, Liu Ao (the Hsuntao, the title of an official in Taiwan) and Liu Ming-chuan (then military commissioner as signed to defend north Formosa against the French), afraid the French would take the Provintia area, ordered Shen Shou-chien, county magistrate of Tainan, to destroy the old fort's remaining walls. The fort built by the Dutch more than two centuries earlier was now reduced completely to rubble.
After the war was over, Shen ordered the area leveled and built on the site of the old main building, Wenchang Pavilion, dedicated to Kueishing, the God of Literature. Wutzu Shrine was constructed on a third of the ground area of the once northeastern bastion. The two pavilions later were taken over as part of the newly constructed Penghu School, a small academy. Half of a grain storehouse and the southwestern bastion were transformed into a temple dedicated to Haishen (God of the Sea). Thus, the form of the present Chih Kan Lou began to take shape.
In August 1894, the Sino-Japanese War broke out, ending in the March 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki, under which Taiwan and the Pescadores were ceded to Japan by the Manchu court. That September, Japanese troops landed at Tainan, and all Taiwan fell into Japanese hands. From then on until 1918-when the Tainan Normal School took over this historic site-the Japanese colonial government utilized it as a hospital for Japanese garrison troops. Local people were now prohibited from sightseeing at beautiful Chih Kan Lou.
The Japanese hospital authorities did not overly concern themselves with maintenance work. In 1911, the founding year of the Republic on the China mainland, Wutzu Shrine in the northeastern corner of the site was heavily damaged by a typhoon. Six years later, when the troop hospital was moved to another place, the Tainan Normal School moved in. Wenchang Pavilion and Haishen Temple were in critical condition. Wenchang Pavilion was then rebuilt as a lecture hall, but was still dedicated to the god Kueihsing. During the reconstruction of the Haishen Temple, all doors and windows were extended to the original line of the pillars that surrounded the temple, and the surrounding corridor, only one meter wide, was turned into a students' dorm. The original image of the god Haishen was lost.
In 1922, the Tainan Normal School moved to a new site, and Chih Kan Lou was once again opened for sightseeing. However, It was now different from both old Fort Provinitia and the reconstructed version of Shen Shou-chien.
Years had passed, and the old buildings were near collapsing as a result of Tainan Normal School's maintenance negligence and damage caused by natural disasters, when in 1930, observed then as the 300th anniversary of Taiwanese culture, a Japanese civil engineer was made responsible for surveying and drawing up restoration plans preparatory to a rebuilding of Chih Kan Lou in its original appearance. But a controversy occurred. Some held that the extant buildings should be totally torn down and a complete Dutch-style castle erected on the site. Another school ridiculed them. The proposal was shelved.
In 1935, the Taiwan Tsung Tu Fu, Taiwan Governor-General's Office officially confirmed Chih Kan Lou and Zeelandia as the historic centers of Dutch occupation of the island The Chouting and the Shihyi, government agencies, were made responsible for the safeguarding and maintenance of buildings of historical value on the sites. As a result, much attention was devoted to the repair and maintenance of Chih Kan Lou.
After the outbreak of the Pacific War at the end of 1941, the Japanese mayor of Tainan City became interested in rebuilding Chih Kan Lou. Half of the funds for the project were appropriated by the Taiwan Governor-General's Office and the other half collected through local voluntary efforts-altogether, US$200,000. The Governor General empowered the section chief of the Taiwan civil engineering department (then the topmost local authority on architecture), the head of a library, a professor, and an artist to assist and guide project designing and to engage in associated archaeological studies and construction and painting work.
In June 1943, the Kuan Yin (Goddess of Mercy) Hall in front of the Wenchang Pavilion was torn down to facilitate the whole reconstruction project. In March 1944, while construction workers were clearing away the debris of the old Kuan Yin Hall, they dug out the old main gate of Fort Provintia and located the base site of the front courtyard of Wenchang Pavilion and the base of the northeastern bastion of Fort Provintia. However, due to lack of funds, they were not able to continue the digging work. Instead, they covered the two bases with stone materials from the old Wanchou Temple, and thus ended the only real archaeological work since Shen Shou-chien's projects 60 years earlier.
Wenchang Pavilion and Haishen Temple were rebuilt with large timbers, near the end of 1944, as the Pacific War was coming to an end. The next year, the mayor of Tainan ordered all houses between today's Minchu Road and Haishen Temple torn down to make possible reconstruction of the courtyard for Chih Kan Lou.
Since Taiwan's retrocesson to the Republic of China in 1945, Chih Kan Lou has been the object of several additional major projects. In 1966, an overhaul was completed under the supervision of a college professor. Instead of wood this time, the material used for rebuilding was reinforced concrete.
Today at Chih Kan Lou, sightseers may muse over the remote past, stirred by such relics as-the main gate, unearthed from the base of Fort Provintia during the Japanese occupation and now in the front courtyard of Wenchang Pavilion; the god Kueihsing, first brought to the site when Shen Shou-chien rebuilt it and now situated in the Wenchang Pavilion; the old base of most of the northeastern corner bastion of Fort Provintia, also the old site of Wutzu Temple and the old Hongmao Well, once the main source of water for Fort Provintia's garrison, now located between Wenchang Pavilion and Haishen Temple.
Nine stone steles now at Chih Kan Lou are worth special mention. On each of the steles, mounted on the back of stone turtles, is carved nine royal dragons. Inscribed in both the Chinese and Manchu languages, the stele memorials, composed by Emperor Chienlung himself, commemorate General Fu Kang-an's suppression of an anti-Ching rebellion led by Lin Shuang-wen. In Taiwan, steles with memorials written in the Manchu script are very rare.
Actually, the seeming stone turtles are not "true" turtles, but are known in Chinese as images of pi, one of the nine sons of the dragon. Each pi is said to have its own special personality and traits. One unique aspect of the pi is its fondness for carrying heavy loads. That is why they were assigned the job of supporting the stone steles.
An old legend exists about a mysterious hidden tunnel linking Chih Kan Lou and Anping Castle (the old Fort Zeelandia). When Fort Provintia was under attack by Koxinga, it is said, a great number of its Dutch occupants escaped via this secret way to Anping Castle, after which they boarded waiting ships in Anping harbor.
This story has been handed down from generation to generation and with it, the belief that since the Dutch with drew in such a hurry, their treasures were hidden somewhere near Fort Provintia-logically, in the tunnel. The entrance of the tunnel, the story goes, is gained via the well within the Chih Kan Lou compound. The well still exists, but it has been sealed.
The Tainan City Government, for the sake of safety, has added a concrete slab cover to the well and, perhaps for the sake of titillation, erected a nearby sign telling the legend. This sign alone is enough to bring visiting Tainan citizens and tourists to a state of reverie, lost in the past....