Qualla: Cihou Fort https://qualla.com/cihou-fort en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:37 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/j/8/cihou-fort-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Cihou Fort https://qualla.com/cihou-fort Cihou Fort: Introduction https://qualla.com/cihou-fort/ Photo credit WEI, WAN-CHEN（魏琬臻）, CC BY-SA 4.0. A Chinese inscription once adorned the southern gate of Cihou Fort. It read "Mighty Blow to the South," a boast carved in stone by the Qing officials who built the battery to defend Kaohsiung Harbor. In October 1895, the Japanese cruiser Yoshino put a shell through the gate and blew the characters for "mighty blow" clean off the wall. The rest of the inscription survived, and it still stands there today, an ironic fragment of a promise that could not be kept. Cihou Fort has been making and breaking such promises since 1720.

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Image: WEI, WAN-CHEN（魏琬臻） | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/j/8/cihou-fort-wp/wsj8-cihou-fort-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Cihou Fort: Three Centuries on the Hill https://qualla.com/cihou-fort/ Photo credit Felis domestica, CC BY-SA 3.0. The first fortifications appeared in 1720, when Taiwan was governed by the Manchu-led Qing dynasty. For more than a century the position was adequate against the threats it faced, but the Japanese expedition of 1874 convinced Qing authorities that modern defenses were needed. The...

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Image: Felis domestica | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/j/8/cihou-fort-wp/wsj8-cihou-fort-three-centuries-on-the-hill.mp3 0:06 2 full Cihou Fort: The Battle That Was Over by Lunch https://qualla.com/cihou-fort/ Photo credit Heeheemalu, CC BY-SA 4.0. Despite its modern armament, the fort played no role in the Sino-French War of the 1880s, when fighting in Taiwan concentrated around Keelung to the north. Its test came instead from Japan. After the Treaty of Shimonoseki ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895, local troops refused to acc...

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Image: Heeheemalu | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/j/8/cihou-fort-wp/wsj8-cihou-fort-the-battle-that-was-over-by-lunch.mp3 0:06 3 full Cihou Fort: Abandonment and Revival https://qualla.com/cihou-fort/ Photo credit Rybloo, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Japanese had no use for the fort during their fifty years governing Taiwan, and it sat empty. After World War II, the Republic of China army reoccupied the hill and cut light gun and machine gun nests directly into the rock, Cold War-era additions that can still be found amon...

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Image: Rybloo | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/j/8/cihou-fort-wp/wsj8-cihou-fort-abandonment-and-revival.mp3 0:06 4 full Cihou Fort: The Gate's Last Word https://qualla.com/cihou-fort/ Photo credit 李禹齊, CC BY-SA 3.0. What makes Cihou Fort memorable is less its military record than what it reveals about Taiwan's layered history. Qing engineers built it, a British designer planned it, Armstrong guns from England armed it, and Japanese shells dismantled its boast of southern might. Republic of C...

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Image: 李禹齊 | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/j/8/cihou-fort-wp/wsj8-cihou-fort-the-gates-last-word.mp3 0:06 5 full