From Takow to Kaohsiung

Checheng (車城) Township, Pingtung County

Checheng (車城; lit. "Vehicle City") was formerly Paiwan aboriginal territory known as Kabeyawan, which was transliterated by Han-Chinese immigrants as 龜壁灣（Hoklo: Ku-piah-wan; Mdn. Guibiwan; lit. "Turtle Wall Bay").

After Koxinga ejected the Dutch from southwestern Taiwan and established the Zheng-family Tongning Kingdom, his son, Zheng Jing (鄭經; r.1662~81) sent soldiers to set up a garrison-farm in this area. Over time, this attracted other immigrants and gradually became a village known as 統領埔 (Mdn. Tonglingpu; lit. "Commander's Plain").

During the Qing dynasty (1683~1895) as aborigines sought to take back their lands, wooden fences were built, for which the township became known as 柴城 (Mdn. Chaicheng; lit. "Firewood Wall"). As to how this transformed into 車城 is not clear, a couple of possible explanations are (source here):
i) carts (車) filled with charcoal were used to defend the town against aboriginal attack; or [MC: more plausibly, surely]
ii) 柴城 was pronounced something like Tsa-siaⁿ in Hoklo Taiwanese, which was similar to the pronunciation of 車城 in the Hakka language used by many families in this area.




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