The Editor says: Dive sites around the world that harbour underwater archaeological ruins tend to become uniquely compelling experiences — from Yonaguni, just a short distance from Taiwan, to the more recently reported underwater pyramid off Guishan Island in Yilan. If Taiwan were able to invest more resources in underwater archaeology, perhaps one day we would make truly unexpected discoveries. Source: Xu Yuhe's Facebook
Hujing Sinks into the Deep
Hujing — known as Groote Taeffel on 17th-century foreign maps — appeared in the chart titled Kaart van het Eyland Formosa en de Eylanden van Piscadore (Map of the Island of Formosa and the Pescadores Islands), drawn between 1642 and 1653, which already recorded the existence of Hujing Islet. References to Hujing appear repeatedly in the Diary of Fort Zeelandia. An entry dated March 6, 1631, for instance, reads: "…and so the Beverwijck bid us farewell and set sail that very night, and we immediately raised anchor as well. On the night of the 7th we arrived at Penghu and anchored below that great table island (Groote Taeffel)." In 1683, when Shi Lang led his forces in the assault on Penghu, his memorial "Petition for a Decisive Campaign" also mentions: "…on the 5th, in the early afternoon, we reached Maoyu in Penghu; as the ships were not yet ready to advance, we anchored off Huayu. At dawn on the 6th, I led the fleet past Hujing and the Lion Islet headland, and spotted that Liu Guoxuan's rebel vessels were all moored at Magong…" Hujing was settled and cultivated by the Weng and Chen clan sheep herders in the early Qing dynasty. Yet nothing has made Hujing more famous than the legend of its "Sunken City."
During the Daoguang reign of the Qing dynasty, the Penghu Continuation had already listed Hujing Chenyuan (Hujing's Sunken Abyss) among the Eight Scenic Wonders of Penghu. Countless poems were written about gazing at the sunken city in the waters around Hujing Islet:
How did a fortified city come to stand on the riverbed? How many times have the seas turned into mulberry fields? Lonely mountains and rivers — sunken with old sorrows, A maritime fortress that once served the Qing. Hard to find the ramparts laid stone upon stone, Yet still visible: a crumbling wall, tilted and fallen. I wish to burn rhinoceros horn to illuminate the deep, And reach beneath the dragon's chin to find the glowing pearl.
Yet the waters here are treacherous and unpredictable — the "Sunken City of Hujing" has long remained out of reach for ordinary visitors.
The mystery of the "Sunken City of Hujing" has drawn attention from around the world, fuelling all manner of speculation. In 1982, renowned figures in Taiwan's diving community, Xie Xinxi and Su Yuan, led two dive teams — sponsored by the United Daily News Group — into the waters to investigate. They discovered stone walls running north–south on the seabed, rising approximately 3 meters above the ocean floor. In 1996, a Japanese team, with government permission and the involvement of Xie Xinxi, returned to Hujing to dive the stone walls again. This time, they discovered additional walls running east–west, perpendicular to the north–south walls, forming a cross-shaped fortress-like structure, with a circular formation approximately 20 meters in diameter at the northern end.
The findings from these expeditions have been widely reported, with interpretations divided: some believe the structures are natural formations created by Penghu's basalt geology, while the majority consider them man-made. Theories abound — some claim the "Sunken City of Hujing" dates to the Sui dynasty; others argue it was a fort built by the Dutch. Speculation has run wild in every direction.
Professor Huang Shiqiang of National Taiwan University argued that, over the past ten thousand years, Penghu's tectonic structure has undergone no significant changes. The only relevant shift occurred before the last ice age — roughly 12,000 to 80,000 years ago — when sea levels were approximately 106 meters lower than today. The Taiwan Strait was then a continental shelf, and the Penghu Channel has yielded numerous ancient biological fossils, stone tools, and more recent archaeological finds linked to "Penghu Man." It is well established in academic circles that this area was once dry land. Professor Huang therefore concluded that the sunken city at the bottom of Hujing was most likely built on the continental shelf during the ice age.
Nearly 200 years have passed since the Sunken City of Hujing first captured public attention, and no definitive explanation has ever been reached. Is it that we do not wish to solve this mystery — or that we truly cannot? Allow me to reach back one hundred years to the age of our Penghu ancestors, and marvel at both their courage to explore and the ingenuity with which they made use of the Sunken City. The Taiwan Daily News (臺灣日日新報) of September 5, 1905 (Meiji 38) published the following report, titled "The Sunken City of Hujing":
Off the eastern tip of Hujing Islet in the Penghu Islands, roughly one li or so from shore, there lies a sunken city on the seabed. It stands upright and imposing. Its battlements and grey bricks remain intact, not the least bit displaced. Recently, more than ten fishermen from Tongpan Village rowed a net boat into the sunken city and cast their nets to encircle a catch of blackfin seabream, yielding some seven or eight hundred jin of fish. One man, skilled at holding his breath and diving, swam a full circuit within the city walls. He reported that the sunken city is slightly smaller than Magong City, with gates built on the east, west, and south sides, but no gate on the north. The city towers are not especially grand. On clear and sunny days, when the water is transparent to the bottom, one can count the fish swimming among the battlements — leisurely and unafraid of human presence. As for when and in which dynasty this city was built, no one knows. Some say that when the Dutch occupied Penghu, they built this city on the hill as a defensive fortification, and that at some unknown point it tumbled into the sea, where it has stood ever since, as firm as ever. This too is one of the great marvels spoken of by seafarers.
More than a century ago, the ancestors of Penghu dove into the waters of the Sunken City of Hujing on a single breath, using its battlements and grey brick walls to set nets and catch fish, and gave us a vivid account of its scale and appearance: "This sunken city is slightly smaller than Magong City, with gates on the east, west, and south sides, but none on the north. The city towers are not especially grand." What a remarkable testament to the Sunken City of Hujing! More than a century later, equipped with the most advanced gear and technology, how could we, with any spirit of inquiry at all, turn our backs on what our ancestors achieved?
