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Again according to folk memory pirates under Ts'ai Ch'ien raided the coasts of Taiwan plundering the towns from as far south as Lukang, up the coast to Tamsui, Keelung, Su-ao and even sailing up river to Manka [present day Taipei). However, strange to say they never attempted to loot the prosperous port of Lukang, possibly to avoid upsetting the merchants there who were already paying "Danegeld", and thereby provoking a major campaign against them, or because the pirates spent much of their time hiding along the coastal strip to the south of Lukang. Ts'ai Ch'ien provided the opportunity for Wang to take his place in history, as has been described above, when Wang, at the age of 37, killed the pirate leader and destroyed his fleet in 1808.
In 1842, during the First Opium War when it was feared that the British might attack and occupy the Pescadores islands, Wang, despite being 72, was asked to take charge of the fortifications. He died shortly after arriving there.
The large ancestral painting of Wang in the Clan temple portrays him sitting on a chair covered by a tiger skin, the finials of the chair's arms carved into dragon's heads. He is dressed in Court robes with a winter cap, a flared mandarin collar and a mandarin's string of beads. His rank is depicted by the button on his cap and the square on his chest; however, the badge shows a form of dragon, which is only worn by members of the extended royal family, or under certain circumstances by Imperial Censors, whilst his cap button is plain coral as worn by the first class of mandarin. His honour, the Peacock Feather with double eye is clearly shown. He has a white moustache and goatee beard and a thin, aged face. There is no indication that he was a military official, rather it would seem he was a civil mandarin.
Although his wife by rights should have had the same chest badge as her husband, the mandarin square in her ancestral painting is not only a civil badge, with a crane denoting a first class mandarin, but the bird is facing in the wrong direction. In practice, however, bird emblems were common to wives of both civil and military officials. These items suggest that the paintings were made many years after Wang and wife had died, and that the artisan who did the work was unacquainted with the niceties of rank, working as he probably did in the wilds of central Taiwan on numerous ancestral paintings for 'nobodies'.
One final story about the importance of Wang to the people of Taiwan is patently untrue but reflects how folk tales become garbled with the
195
Again according to folk memory pirates under Ts'ai Ch'ien raided the coasts of Taiwan plundering the towns from as far south as Lukang, up the coast to Tamsui, Keelung, Su-ao and even sailing up river to Manka [present day Taipei). However, strange to say they never attempted to loot the prosperous port of Lukang, possibly to avoid upsetting the merchants there who were already paying "Danegeld”, and thereby provoking a major campaign against them, or because the pirates spent much of their time hiding along the coastal strip to the south of Lukang. Ts'ai Ch'ien provided the opportunity for Wang to take his place in history, as has been described above, when Wang, at the age of 37, killed the pirate leader and destroyed his fleet in 1808.
In 1842, during the First Opium War when it was feared that the British might attack and occupy the Pescadores islands, Wang, despite being 72, was asked to take charge of the fortifications. He died shortly after arriving there.
The large ancestral painting of Wang in the Clan temple portrays him sitting on a chair covered by a tiger skin, the finials of the chair's arms carved into dragon's heads. He is dressed in Court robes with a winter cap, a flared mandarin collar and a mandarin's string of beads. His rank is depicted by the button on his cap and the square on his chest; however, the badge shows a form of dragon, which is only worn by members of the extended royal family, or under certain circumstances by Imperial Censors, whilst his cap button is plain coral as worn by the first class of mandarin. His honour, the Peacock Feather with double eye is clearly shown. He has a white moustache and goatee beard and a thin, aged face. There is no indication that he was a military official, rather it would seem he was a civil mandarin. Although his wife by rights should have had the same chest badge as her husband, the mandarin square in her ancestral painting is not only a civil badge, with a crane denoting a first class mandarin, but the bird is facing in the wrong direction. In practice, however, bird emblems were common to wives of both civil and military officials. These items suggest that the paintings were made many years after Wang and wife had died, and that the artisan who did the work was unacquainted with the niceties of rank, working as he probably did in the wilds of central Taiwan on numerous ancestral paintings for *nobodies'.
One final story about the importance of Wang to the people of Taiwan is patently untrue but reflects how folk tales become garbled with the
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