Under the Treaty of Shimonoseki of April 1895, which ended the First Sino-Japanese War, Qing China ceded Taiwan and Penghu to Japan. Local elites proclaimed a Republic of Formosa on 23 May; Japanese troops landed on 29 May, took Taipei in early June and, against resistance borne largely by local volunteer militias, advanced south through Hsinchu, Changhua and Chiayi until Tainan fell on 21 October and the Governor-General declared the island pacified on 18 November (Japan Center for Asian Historical Records). Japan's own losses were overwhelmingly to disease: Takekoshi's 1907 account gives 164 killed in battle and 4,642 dead of disease in Formosa, and says about 7,000 Chinese and Formosan dead were found on the field. Armed resistance resumed almost at once: Takekoshi records some five or six hundred Hakka insurgents shot in the south in late 1895 and several thousand killed when risings in the north were put down in early 1896. In June 1896, after Japanese defeats at Dapingding in the Yunlin hills, troops and police burned villages and killed residents across the Douliu area without distinguishing civilians from fighters; the colonial gazetteer counts 4,947 households burned in 55 settlements. Reports in The China Mail, The Times and other papers brought international criticism, compensation was paid in the Emperor's name, and the Yunlin sub-prefect Matsumura Yūnoshin was dismissed, though reinstated the following year (Taipei Times). Japan held Taiwan until 1945.
Imperial Japanese forces conquered Taiwan and Penghu after their cession by Qing China, crushing the Republic of Formosa and local militias and then suppressing rural resistance with village burnings and killings
The lower figure is a documented minimum for the 1895 campaign alone: Takekoshi (1907) wrote that Chinese and Formosan losses were impossible to ascertain but that about 7,000 dead were found on the field. A widely repeated total of about 14,000 Formosan and Chinese dead including civilians appears in reference works without a clearly traceable original source. Deaths in 1896 add to this: Takekoshi mentions several thousand killed in northern risings, and estimates for the Yunlin massacre range from Takano's contemporary 'over 300' to 6,000 (Hsu Chieh-lin), 10,000 (Yunlin county gazetteer draft) and 30,000 (Yin Chang-yi), as compiled on Wikipedia from Chinese-language sources. No upper bound is given because these estimates are incompatible and none is grounded in a count. Japanese deaths (164 killed in battle, 4,642 of disease per Takekoshi; JACAR gives higher disease figures for the war as a whole) are not included.
The killing of villagers and the burning of 4,947 households in the Yunlin reprisals of June 1896 are documented by Chang Su-bin from the colonial Yunlin gazetteer and by the Taipei Times from contemporary Japanese officials' accounts and press reports.
Taiwan