Penghu Inspectorate Established

The Penghu archipelago lies in the southeastern Taiwan Strait, made up of dozens of large and small islands, and was an important stepping stone between the mainland and Taiwan. As early as the Song, coastal mainland residents went to Penghu to fish and settle, and in the Southern Song Penghu belonged to Jinjiang County, Quanzhou, Fujian, with troops stationed there. After the Yuan unified China, to govern its vast territory effectively, it adapted its approach to local conditions and set up corresponding administrative bodies in the northeast, northwest, southeast and southwest. In the southeast the Yuan established the Penghu Inspectorate, attached to Jinjiang County, Quanzhou Circuit, Fujian Province, responsible for the affairs of Penghu and Liuqiu (today's Taiwan), including patrols, arrest of bandits, civil administration and the collection of salt taxes and other levies. The inspectorate was the first formal administrative body established by the Chinese central government in the Taiwan area in history, and marked the formal inclusion of Taiwan and its attached islands under central government administration. In his Daoyi Zhilue (A Brief Account of the Island Barbarians), the Yuan writer Wang Dayuan recorded that Penghu "has grass but no trees, and the soil is poor and unfit for rice", that the people "boil seawater for salt, brew liquor from sorghum, and catch fish, shrimp, snails and clams to eat", that there were "merchants and traders who delight in the profit", and that the place "belongs to Jinjiang County, Quanzhou, where an inspectorate was set up in the Zhiyuan years". The Yuan also twice sent troops to Liuqiu.