清同治十年（1871年），66名琉球宮谷島人因海難而漂流至台灣南端的八瑤灣，誤入牡丹社，其中54名因而遭當地原住民殺害。對台灣素有野心的日本及以保護琉球居民為藉口於清同治十三年三月出兵台灣，此即牡丹社事件。在此事件發生的過程中，清朝政府扮演著什麼樣的角色？這場尚未交鋒即以賠償金結束的戰役對日、清兩國在東亞國際情勢裡又造成什麼樣的影響？
In Year 10 of the Ch'ing Dynasty T'ung-Chih Reign Period, or 1871, 66 seamen from Miyako Island (宮谷島) in the Ryukyu Archipelago, or Okinawa, were shipwrecked at Payao Bay (八瑤灣) near the southern tip of Taiwan, where 54 of them were subsequently killed by local Aborigines upon stumbling into Mutan Village (牡丹社). In the 3rd month of T'ung-Chih Year 13, the Japanese, who theretofore harbored designs on Taiwan, deployed an expeditionary force to Taiwan on the pretext of protecting Okinawans, setting into motion the series of events which go by the name "Mutan Village Incident." What role did the Ch'ing government played in the course of this incident? And what influence did this military expedition, which ended with a reparations payment before further hostilities had a chance to erupt, have upon the respective international statuses of Ch'ing Dynasty China and Japan in East Asia.?
