Under imperial Japanese rule, Taiwan experienced a relatively high rate of economic growth, and this growth is often attributed to well‐planned development policies. This paper argues that Taiwan's success was primarily due to the glut of money that flowed into the Japanese Empire during World War One. Taiwanese had suffered from limited access to credit, but, during the war, the Japanese‐controlled Bank of Taiwan had to find an outlet for the huge inflow of funds and greatly expanded lending to native Taiwanese. This unscripted experiment was a success, and continued access to formal capital markets allowed Taiwanese agriculture to takeoff.