A few months later, a satirical comic called "the dogs leave and pigs move in" was pasted to the gate of the old governor-general’s office. Also, the word "a-shan" (阿山) became a substitute for corrupt, lazy and dirty people from China; the word “banshan” (半山) or “Chongqing beggars” came to describe Taiwanese-born officials who served KMT officials in China.

According to these officials, Taiwan did not have any capable human capital because "Taiwanese people don't understand Mandarin Chinese". These elite KMT officials installed their own flunkies, with a few banshan officials handling minor portfolios.

The Taiwan Provincial Administrative Executive Office's controlled all production and investment. Nothing was provided by the state, and even a primary school pencil and notebook would have been purchased from the public sector.

The cost of daily goods exploded; rice went from 20 cents for a half kilo to 80 Taiwan dollars, rising 400 times its original price. Eradicated diseases like smallpox, cholera and the plague suddenly returned, brought by soldiers from the "motherland".

In just a year and a half, Taiwan turned into a living hell, and then one event captured the zeitgeist of the times.

On the afternoon of February 27th, six agents from the Monopoly Bureau were performing a thorough inspection of the Pegasus Tea House for contraband items; agent Yeh Te-ken (葉德根) came across housewife Lin Chiang-mai (林江邁) selling cigarettes, and struck a pleading Lin in the head. The crowd watching the scene was furious.

As the soldiers looked to flee an increasingly tense situation, bureau agent Fu Hsueh-tung (傅學通) fired his rifle, and killed a pedestrian, Chen Wen-hsi (陳文溪).

The crowd immediately made for the Kencho (建昌) police dispatch station on North Xining Road and demanded the agent be punished. The police said the accused will be handed over to the military police and a part of the crowd rushed off towards the military police legion.

On the 28th at 9:00am, a crowd gathered and moved towards the Monopoly Bureau to demand it return to a righteous path. But first, they smashed the windows of the Yanping North Road police station. By 10:00am, the crowd set a branch of Monopoly Bureau on Chongqing South road on fire, and beat to death a branch clerk. At 1:00 pm, the crowd took their problems to the Taiwan Provincial Administrative Executive Office (the present day Executive Yuan building). They were fired upon from the terrace, resulting in injuries and deaths.

When news of these events became known to the public, the popular rage to “beat a-shan” only metastasized. Locals in Taipei took over the radio station at New Park (today’s 228 Memorial Park) to broadcast this message:

“Instead of starving to death, we should stand up and fight, root out corrupt officials, and prioritize our survival.”

That night, cities in Northern Taiwan began their own uprisings. By the second night, towns and cities in central, southern and eastern Taiwan had joined the fight.

On March 1st, local Taiwanese politicians formed a committee to investigate the incident surrounding the tobacco seizure and how it led to bloodshed. Chen Yi instructed some of his confidantes to join the committee, and it was reorganized to become the “228 Incident Settlement Committee.”