Liu Yung-fu

With the creation of the short-lived "Republic of Taiwan" on May 25, 1895, Liu Yung-fu was made Brigadier general of Southern Taiwan. Liu was a notorious warlord who led a private militia known as the Black Flag army, which had fought in the Sino-French war a decade earlier. It was this army that killed the commander of the French expeditionary force to Vietnam, Commandant Henri-Laurent Riviere, in an attack on Hanoi. They precipitated the fall of the French Cabinet by winning the battle of Langson near the end of that war, during which France occupied Keelung and the Penghu Archipelago. When Tang Ching-sung escaped to Mainland China just ten days after his inauguration of president of the fledgling republic, Liu took over in the top spot. The republic lasted only long enough for Japan to take possession of the island.