by 陳虹育
When you try to have an excursion with your family to Zouying, and you are searching for some attractions on the internet, then you spot that there is a place called” Fengshan Old City”. Meanwhile, you expect to find a reason for that. Now, I am going to introduce the reason why it is called Fengshan and the history the place goes through.
During the Qing dynasty, Today’s Kaohsiung City and Pingtung County are part of Fengshan County, Fengshan County’s administration was originally in Zouying, then it migrated to the Fengshan nowadays. Therefore, Fengshan County has already built a county in Zouying and Fengshan. The first built county was called “Old City”, and the other one was called “New City” but had been dismantled during the Japanese colonial period, so only the Old City is left nowadays, causing a phenomenon called “One County, Two Cities”. This is also why Zouying is known by the term “Old City”.
After introducing the origin of its name, let’s talk about its history. Fengshan old city where a place rich in history, can originally be traced back to the Ming and Zhen dynasties. Zaoying becomes the center of military farming because of its peculiar military status, building a tough base of the history of this place. Along with the upcoming Qing dynasty, Zaoying becomes Fengshan County. The country's rise and gradually becoming prosperous make the country’s economy skyrocket rapidly. The presence of Wantan Port even opened the development of a new commercial era in this place.
However, history has always been affected by managing difficulty and political oscillation, making the county undergo several times of migrating, thereby leading to the county’s prosperity over volatility a couple of times. In 1721, the city welcomed the county’s back, they built up the city wall which was made out of rock for military defense, and the city wall became an essential inflection point in history.
The reason why the city wall became an essential inflection point in history is because it hides a series of touching history behind the truth. In 1786, the Lin Shuang-wen incident and the Wu Huaisi attack which was launched due to an ethnic raid. Despite the raid either dropping off some quandary to the city or causing some damage to the wall, the city still stands firm, becoming someone that witnesses the history of this city. In 1843 year, the county migrated again to Pitou Street, causing Stone City to not have any practical use, and this inflection became another milestone while recording and witnessing the city’s rise and down.
To encapsulate, Fengshan Old City is still rich in history nowadays, The Stone City and other civilization museums become somewhere that allow tourists who are enthusiasts to seek the city’s history in-depth. This area not only witnessed the transformation of an era but also underwent different periods in Taiwan. History fragments will become more and more as time goes by, but the prerequisite is that need to be in a well-keeping environment.
