Chung Yi-jen (鍾逸人), one of the leaders of the Taichung-based 27 Brigade, a guerrilla group that resisted Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) troops after the 228 Incident, has died at the age of 102.
Chung had his body donated to China Medical University after passing away in his sleep on Sunday night, his friend Chen Yen-pin (陳彥斌) said.
“My life has come to an end and my mission completed. Younger generations must continue to work hard and fight for Taiwan,” Chen quoted Chung as saying before he passed away.
Photo: CNA
Chung was one of the leaders of a group of armed guerrillas who resisted a violent crackdown against protesters by KMT troops in 1947.
On March 4, 1947, Chung and a group of activists formed the “Democracy Defense Force” at a school in Taichung, he wrote in his memoirs.
He later suggested renaming the group to the 27 Brigade to commemorate the first death of the 228 Incident — that of a bystander in Taipei on Feb. 27, 1947, during the arrest and beating of a cigarette seller.
Chung wrote that renaming the group was an attempt to “correct the distorted narrative” pushed by then-Taiwan governor Chen Yi (陳儀) that the 228 Incident began with “rioters” attacking the Taiwan Provincial Administrative Executive Office on Feb. 28.
As many as 3,000 to 4,000 people were part of the 27 Brigade, Chung had said, adding that they acquired their weapons from an arsenal left by the Japanese.
Although the size of the group has been disputed, historians credit the guerrillas and their diversionary tactics for preventing a direct attack on Taichung when the KMT army’s 21st Division closed in on the city after arriving in Keelung on March 9, 1947.
On March 15, the 27 Brigade sent out about 40 militants to lure the KMT troops into Nantou County’s Puli Township (埔里), where they used the terrain near the Wuniulan (烏牛欄) suspension bridge — now Ailan Bridge (愛蘭橋) — to their advantage to inflict heavy casualties on the soldiers.
The armed group was forced to disband the next day after they were surrounded and had run out of ammunition, Chung said.
He had planned to grow the brigade to three divisions to attempt to force the KMT regime to negotiate for democratic governance of Taiwan, but those hopes were dashed after the Battle of Wuniulan (烏牛欄之役), he said.
After escaping and going into hiding, Chung sought to flee to Japan by boat, but was arrested on April 23 by police acting on a tip-off.
He was imprisoned for 17 years for offenses related to inciting subversion of the government and treason.
After graduating from a business high school in Japan, Chung, who was passionate about social justice since childhood, studied French at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies in 1941, with the intention of studying French social science literature, he wrote in his memoirs.
After returning to Taiwan in 1943 to care for his ailing parents and family business, he met a group of socialists, including Taiwanese writer Yang Kui (楊逵), who helped him find work as a journalist at Peace Daily News.
“I am a captive, not a criminal. I committed no crimes, because what I did was to protect Taiwanese against the massacre conducted by the Nationalist army,” Chung later said when asked about his role following the 228 Incident.
At the urging of his friends, including leading Hakka writer Lee Chiao (李喬), Chung began writing in the 1980s about his life, eventually completing four volumes.
In his last public appearance at an event last year for the launch of a comic book, The 27 Brigade, Chung urged younger Taiwanese to cherish the hard-earned democracy in the face of threats from China, a legacy he had demonstrated throughout his life.
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