The View from the Buckwheat Field: Capturing War in the Poetry of Ya Xian

Abstract

During the mid-to late-1950s, the Republic of China on Taiwan (ROC) under Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist Party (GMD) faced an increased threat of war with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Having lost a civil war to the PRC and now in island exile on Taiwan, the ROC found itself in a difficult military position. Skirmishes over the disputed offshore islands, Jinmen and Mazu, took place in 1954 and again in 1958. The Nationalists sought to retake lost territory on mainland China but lacked the forces to do so.