The pavilion you are looking up at now is not a Dutch structure. What remains of the Dutch is beneath your feet. Before climbing the stairs, take a moment to…
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The pavilion you are looking up at now is not a Dutch structure. What remains of the Dutch is beneath your feet.
Before climbing the stairs, take a moment to look at the base platform. You will notice layers of stone and brick, uneven in size and differing in color. This is what remains of Fort Provintia — Provincia.
The Dutch built their fort here in order to command the far shore of the inland sea. Between the fort at Anping and this one lay a distance crossed by boat. Together, the two forts held the water between them in a pincer grip.
In 1662, Koxinga seized this place and named it Chengtian Prefecture, making it the administrative seat for governing the island. Later, in the Qing dynasty, the buildings fell into ruin, and people began erecting their own structures atop them — a shrine to the sea goddess, a pavilion to the god of learning. What you see before you now is the latter.
It was not that the old structures were left unbroken — rather, no one troubled themselves to tear them down. Upon foundations still usable, the next era simply built anew. This is the way of the city of Tainan.
In the garden stand nine stone tortoises in a row, each bearing a stone stele upon its back. These were sent by a Qing emperor to commemorate the suppression of a rebellion in Taiwan. It is said that one was dropped into the sea while being unloaded from the ship.
Fort, government office, shrine, school, park — in four hundred years, this ground has changed its name five times.
