The Eternal Golden Castle (Chinese: 億載金城; pinyin: Yìzǎi Jīnchéng; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Ek-chài kim-siâⁿ), alternatively but less well known as Uhrkuenshen Battery (Chinese: 二鯤鯓砲台; pinyin: Èrkūnshēn Pàotái; Wade–Giles: Èrh-k'ūn-shēn P'ào-t'ái; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Jī-khun-sin Phàu-tâi), is a defensive castle in Anping, Tainan, Taiwan. The castle was built in 1874 by the famous Qing official Shen Baozhen in order to safeguard the coast and to defend the island against Japanese invasions.
In 1895, when Taiwan was invaded by the Empire of Japan, the Taiwanese people fought against the Japanese battleship from this fortress. During the Russo-Japanese War, the imperial Japanese government sold some of the fort's cannons in order to help pay for the war. With its cannons gone or obsolete, the fortress lost its military value.
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Famous quotes containing the words eternal, golden and/or castle:
“Humans are amphibians—half spirit and half animal.... As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.”
—C.S. (Clive Staples)
“Nor envy’s snaky eye, finds harbour here,
Nor flatterers’ venomous insinuations,
Nor cunning humorists’ puddled opinions,
Nor courteous ruin of proffered usury,
Nor time prattled away, cradle of ignorance,
Nor causeless duty, nor comber of arrogance,
Nor trifling title of vanity dazzleth us,
Nor golden manacles stand for a paradise;”
—Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)
“If, in looking at the lives of princes, courtiers, men of rank and fashion, we must perforce depict them as idle, profligate, and criminal, we must make allowances for the rich men’s failings, and recollect that we, too, were very likely indolent and voluptuous, had we no motive for work, a mortal’s natural taste for pleasure, and the daily temptation of a large income. What could a great peer, with a great castle and park, and a great fortune, do but be splendid and idle?”
—William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863)