Dachen Island Geography(Drawn: Lin, Jun-han)

Old Story - History of Dachen
I. History of Dachen - Ming Dynasty (Hand-drawn map by Jia-Jun-Han)
Dachen history can be traced back to the end of Ming Dynasty, but most of the records are based on rumors. Some said that in Ming Dynasty there were many active pirates, so the Government dispatched Jiguang Qi, the Ming military general to guard Tai Chou and finally won the battle against Japanese pirates. The island was originally called "Dazhen (The Island of Large Troop)" and later misunderstood as “Dachen island (The Island of Mighty Chen)”,

II. Dachen People
Dachen people are basically a combination of people from three counties of Taizhou Fu (Linghai County, Huangyan County and Wenlin County) and Fuzou people. Before 1949, there were only a few thousands of inhabitants living on Dachen Island. After that, partisans retreated to Dachen and was organized as official troops later and the rest of refugees stayed on the island and became so called "Dachen Immigrants". After another retreat from Dachen to Taiwan in 1955, about 18,000 people  including the original inhabitants on Dachen Island (with Zuyu) and surrounding islands (Yushan, Pishan, Nanji), other refugees and non-partisans.