Japanese Expedition to Taiwan

Also called: Taiwan Expedition of 1874, Mudan Incident

Citing the murder of Ryukyuan castaways by Indigenous Taiwanese, Japan sent troops to southern Taiwan — the Meiji government’s first overseas military expedition.

In 1871 some fifty shipwrecked Ryukyuans from Miyako were killed by Indigenous people in southern Taiwan. Claiming the Ryukyuans as its own subjects, and seizing on a Qing reply that the Indigenous lands lay beyond its rule, Japan landed more than 3,000 troops under Saigō Tsugumichi in May 1874. Far more soldiers died of disease than in battle. In October, with British mediation, the Qing paid 500,000 taels and acknowledged the expedition as a "just act to protect subjects"; Japan withdrew, and the agreement became a basis for its claim that the Ryukyus belonged to Japan.