The Tainan City Government will build an "exact replica" of a Ming dynasty armed commercial vessel, known by Westerners as a sailing junk.
Officials at the city's Cultural Affairs Bureau said on Monday that the plan is part of the city's program to commemorate Cheng Cheng-kung (鄭成功), who expelled Dutch colonists from Taiwan in 1662 after moving his troops from China a year earlier.
Cheng is better known to Westerners as Koxinga, a title meaning "Bearer of the Imperial Surname," bestowed on him by the last emperor of the Ming dynasty.
The boat, expected to be completed in a year, is also intended to boost tourism, the officials said.
They said that Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp has agreed to cover the cost of building the boat, estimated at NT$100 million (US$3 million).
Officials said the boat will be 33m long and 8.9m wide.
The United Ship Design and Development Center was to begin examining the details of the blueprint for the boat yesterday. Construction will begin as soon as the center gives approval to the design, the officials said.
The Tainan City Government has taken other steps to honor Koxinga, including establishing a monument on a historical battlefield in Tainan to commemorate the nine-month war he fought to end 38 years of Dutch rule.
Tainan Mayor Hsu Tain-tsair (許添財) will inaugurate the monument next May in memory of the first major war in Taiwan 's history.
There are several temples in Anping and Tainan dedicated to Koxinga and his mother. People admire him as a national hero as well as for the loyalty he demonstrated to his emperor after the Ming dynasty collapsed.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by