The content is from the 228 Incident Memorial Foundation
The "228 Incident" originated from an unexpected smoking ring incident. The story of the incident is roughly as follows:
At around 11 a.m. on February 27, the 36th year of the Republic of China, the Monopoly Bureau received a tip...:
There was a smuggling ship bringing in more than 50 boxes of matches and cigarettes at Tamsui Port. Regarding the matter, the Monopoly Bureau sent six investigators, namely Ye Degen,
Zhong Yanzhou, Zhao Zijian, Liu Chaoqun, Sheng Tiefu, and Fu Xuetong, together with four police officers from the police brigade, to investigate. But when they arrived in Tamsui, they found only five boxes of illegal cigarettes. Soon,
an informant said that these smuggled goods had been moved to the vicinity of Tianma Tea House on Nanjing West Road in Taipei City
(Taiping Town, today’s Yanping North Road), click here a is the largest concentration of private goods in Taipei. Investigation
The officers and police first went to Xiaoxiangyuan near Taiping Town for dinner so that they could investigate nearby.
At 7:30 in the afternoon, when they arrived at the scene, the smugglers had already fled, and only the private and private cigarettes of a 40-year-old widow Lin Jiangmai were found. They planned to seize her. All cigarettes and cash, both public and private, will be confiscated. Lin Jiangmai almost knelt down and begged bitterly: "If everything is confiscated, I will have nothing to eat. At least the money and the cigarettes made by the monopoly bureau will be returned." Let me..." But the investigators ignored it. At that time, there were many people watching
and they joined in the procession of begging for mercy. Lin Jiang was so anxious that he hugged the inspector and wouldn't let him go.
One of the investigators, "Ye Degen", got angry and hit her on the head with the barrel of a gun, causing Mrs. Lin's head to bleed. Her daughter beside her was so frightened that she started crying. . The crowd who witnessed this scene was extremely angry.
They surrounded the inspectors and shouted, "Ah Shan (from other provinces) is unreasonable", "Piggy is too disgusting",
"Why don't you do it?" Give me a cigarette" and other emotional words. Seeing that the situation was not good, the investigators quickly ran away, but the crowd
was in hot pursuit. One of the investigators, Fu Xuetong, fired a warning shot in order to escape. Unfortunately, he accidentally shot Chen Wenxi, a citizen who was watching the excitement downstairs of his house at the time (about 20 years old, died the next day). The inspector
fleeed to the Yongle Town (Xining) Police Station and then to the Police Headquarters (next to Zhongshan Hall). The angry people
destroyed the windows of the inspector’s truck and threw the truck Pushed him to the side of the road, then surrounded the police station and demanded that the murderer be handed over and shot. Li Jiong, a standing member of the Business Committee of the Monopoly Bureau, and Yang Zicai, the leader of the fourth group of the Business Committee, heard the report and rushed to the scene at about 9 o'clock. At that time, about a hundred people gathered.
Seeing the two men arriving in a truck, they all rushed forward to beat them. Li and Yang transferred to the Taipei City Police Station.
The crowd followed, and six to seven hundred people gathered. Li and Yang said they would punish the investigators, but the masses demanded that the perpetrators be handed over. As a last resort, the two of them, together with the North City Police Chief
Chen Songjian, sent the six investigators to the gendarmerie for custody. However, the people were dissatisfied and demanded that the six
inspectors be shot immediately. Li and Yang explained repeatedly on the grounds that "criminals punish evil, and the law is clearly written, so they did not give an expeditious answer."
But they never gained understanding. After the crowd learned that the investigators had been sent to the Gendarmerie (opposite the Taiwan Xinsheng Newspaper Office), they swarmed around and demanded that the murderer be handed over. Captain Zhang Mutao sternly refused and ordered a row of military police to come forward and assume a shooting posture. Seeing this, the crowd hid in the arcade of the new student newspaper.
Witness Zhou Chuanzhi present said: Wu Jinlian, the editor-in-chief of the Japanese version of "Taiwan Xinsheng News" at the time, curiously
came out to visit, and when he saw Zhou, he smiled and said hello. Zhou asked: "Is there a gong?"
Wu replied: "Yes", turned around and took out the gong. So, as soon as the rain stopped, the gongs jingled
and the crowd surrounded the gendarmerie again. There were also young people beating gongs on the street and shouting: "Taiwanese people come out quickly to take revenge." "Those who don't come out are not sweet potatoes." They shouted and cursed all night long. Some people went to Taiwan
Xinsheng Newspaper to request to publish the incident. Editor-in-chief Wu Jinlian was ordered by the "Propaganda Committee of the Taiwan Provincial Chief Executive's Office" not to publish news about the incident. be rejected.
People threatened to burn the newspaper office with gasoline. Wu Jinlian had no choice but to ask president Li Wanju to come forward. Li agreed to publish it, and people began to leave the newspaper office. The next day, the newspaper published a report of about 100 words in size 5 font. (Page 48) As a result,
Injuries and killings caused by anti-smuggling ignited the anger that had been brewing for more than a year. The crowd burned cars,
surrounded the police station and gendarmerie, Demand the immediate execution of the perpetrators. Without a satisfactory answer, the crowd gathered together for a long time, finally triggering the "228 Incident" the next day.
The "228 Incident" is truly a major tragedy in Taiwan's history. Calling it a tragedy can be viewed from
two aspects. As far as the Taiwanese people are concerned, they did not die from the destruction of the imperialists during the Japanese occupation, but died from the suppression of the military and police of the motherland to which they longed to return day and night; they either criticized the government, or
Those who raised demands for Taiwanese rule of Taiwan and claimed that they were not rebelling against the government were actually executed for it.
Most of them did not go through the public trial process, or were even executed secretly and their bodies were not found. This
is definitely not the way to behave in a civilized society. There are even some casualties who had never participated in anti-government actions at all.
They only became victims of the military’s indiscriminate shooting. As for the mainland Chinese who served in Taiwan after liberation,
Although some military personnel or public officials have committed corruption, malpractice and other bad behaviors, not all people who came to Taiwan are corrupt officials. filthy officials; However, in this incident, some mainlanders became scapegoats.
They were blindly attacked by lawless people, resulting in casualties. Although the number of casualties was not as high as that of Taiwanese victims, it was still
>
Some public education personnel who come to Taiwan are afraid and leave Taiwan. These phenomena have deepened the gap between mainland China and
Taiwan. It is undeniable that some people who beat people from other provinces or have used force to attack
government agencies, airports, or even harm human lives should still be punished by law. Therefore, not all the casualties of the "228 Incident" are innocent victims and must be distinguished.