Wuhe Terrace in Ruisui Township, Hualien County, is located southwest of the confluence of Xiuguluan River and Hongye River. The cultivation began during the Japanese occupation, when Japanese companies established the Hualien Port Coffee Farm here and recruited Taiwanese immigrants to grow coffee. Hakka immigrants from the Taoyuan, Hsinzu and Miaoli area are the mainstays. Workers’ accommodations were built in the area of Saobading and gradually a small settlement was formed. Unfortunately, the originally planned tea colonization plan could not be successfully carried out due to the outbreak of the Pacific War. Until the post-war period, the National Government began to promote tea cultivation on the Wuhe Terrace. In its heyday, the tea plantation once covered 300 hectares and became the main tea-producing area in the east. The look of the tea village has been maintained to this day.
Xiuguluan
The Saoba Stone Pillar site is located on the Wuhe platform that is surrounded by Xiuguluan River and Hongye River in Wuhe Village, Ruisui Township, Hualien County. It belongs to a branch of the Puyuma Culture of the Neolithic Age. There are two slabs on the site, one tall and one short. The taller stone pillar is about 6.7 meters tall. The pillars were discovered in 1925 by Koizumi Tetsu, a reporter who worked for the Asahi Shimbun in Osaka during the Japanese occupation. Four years later, the Government-General in Taiwan launched the first investigation of the site. There are rich myths and legends of the Saoba Stone Pillars to the people of the Chimei Hamlet. The pillars are important sacred symbols for Amis people and the founding of the Chimei community and the establishment of Chimei Hamlet.
Ruiliang Village, in Ruisui Township, Hualien County, sits on the west bank of the confluence of Malangou Creek, Hongye Creek and Xiuguluan Creek. It is a flat sedimentary plain.
During the Qing period, the Feihu Army once camped here, and called it the Shuiwei Camp. Under the changes of policies from excavating mountains and managing indigenes to militia settlement, this place became Shuiwei village, which is the present Ruiliang village. Due to the tobacco industry immigration plan during the Japanese occupation, many immigrants began to move into Ruisui Village. In addition to planting tobacco leaves, sugarcane was still dominantly cultivated in the Linxi area. In the beginning of the post-war period, the southern part of the immigrant village was separated, and the new Ruiliang Village was established.
The formation of settlements in Ruisui Township, Hualien County, began during the Japanese occupation, when free immigration was encouraged. In 1926, Japanese tobacco farmers arrived in Ruibei Village to promote tobacco leaf cultivation. Government-run immigrants from other areas in the Karenko Prefecture (now Hualien County) were successively moved here to establish immigrant settlements specializing in tobacco leaf production. In the post-war period, the National Government re-divided the Ruisui Immigrant Village into four villages. At that time, the industry was still tobacco growing. However, in the 1980s, the tourism and boating industry on the Xiuguluan River emerged, which drove a rapid growth of the local economy. Most of the residential buildings have been converted into modern reinforced concrete buildings.
Dagangkou Hamlet is located on the north bank of the Xiuguluan River estuary in Fengbin Township, Hualien County. The traditional name of the place is Lanun, which means the village below, and the traditional name of the hamlet was Ciporan. During the Qing period, the hamlet was called Sipuolan, Xuepuolan, Xiuguluan, Xiuguluan, Zhiwulan, and so on. It was not until 1887 when Puyuma and Ouyang Jun opened the port that the name was changed to Dagangkou. In the same year, the Dagangkou (Cepo’) incident occurred. After the incident, the tribesmen who had moved to other places were called to return to the community. They chose a settlement north of the original site, which is the present Gangkou hamlet. During the Japanese occupation, due to the gradual population increase, some people began to move south to live in the Dagangkou hamlet.