Koxinga

Koxinga. He was a Southern Ming dynasty loyalist, military commander, and founder of the Kingdom of Tungning on Taiwan. Born to a Japanese mother and a powerful Chinese merchant-pirate father, he became a legendary figure for his fierce resistance against the conquering Qing dynasty and his expulsion of European colonizers from Formosa. His legacy as a national hero is celebrated in Chinese folklore, Taiwanese historiography, and across East Asia.

Early life and family background

Born Zheng Sen in 1624 in Hirado, Japan, his mother was Tagawa Matsu, a member of the local Japanese aristocracy. His father, the formidable maritime magnate Zheng Zhilong, commanded a vast private navy that dominated trade routes across the East China Sea and the South China Sea. At age seven, he was sent to the family's ancestral home in Quanzhou, within China's Fujian province, for a classical Confucian education under renowned scholars. When the Qing dynasty armies overran Beijing in 1644, his father initially vacillated but eventually surrendered, while Koxinga chose to remain loyal to the beleaguered Southern Ming court. In a pivotal act of defiance, he burned his Confucian scholar robes at the Confucian temple in Quanzhou and took up arms, receiving the imperial surname "Zhu" from the Longwu Emperor, which led to his honorific name Zheng Chenggong.

Military campaigns against the Qing

From his coastal stronghold in Xiamen (Amoy) and the nearby Kinmen (Quemoy) islands, Koxinga organized a formidable resistance. He mobilized his father's extensive naval network, creating a potent force that launched major expeditions along the Yangtze and Zhejiang coast. His most ambitious campaign was the Yangtze campaign of 1659, where his fleet of hundreds of junks besieged Jiangning and threatened the critical city of Nanjing. Although initially successful, the campaign ultimately failed due to strategic overconfidence and a devastating counterattack by Qing forces led by commanders like Jiang Guozhu. Despite this setback, his forces continued to harass Qing dynasty shipping and maintain a stalemate along the Fujian coast, severely disrupting the new dynasty's efforts to consolidate control over southern China.

Conquest of Taiwan

Following his reversal at Nanjing and with Qing forces strengthening, Koxinga sought a secure base beyond their reach. He turned his attention to Formosa, then a colony of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) centered on Fort Zeelandia in Tayouan. In April 1661, his armada of hundreds of warships and 25,000 soldiers landed at Luerhmen (Luermen), quickly capturing the subsidiary Fort Provintia. The subsequent Siege of Fort Zeelandia lasted nine months, with the Dutch governor, Frederick Coyett, stubbornly defending. After a relentless blockade and several bloody engagements, and with no relief fleet arriving from Batavia, Coyett surrendered in February 1662. This victory ended 38 years of VOC rule and established the first predominantly Han Chinese polity on the island.

Rule in Taiwan

Koxinga established his administration, the Kingdom of Tungning, with its capital at Tainan (Anping), modeling it on Ming dynasty institutions. He implemented a military agricultural colonization system, where soldiers were tasked with farming to achieve self-sufficiency. He encouraged the migration of thousands of mainland Chinese from Fujian and Guangdong to develop the island's agriculture, promoting the cultivation of sugarcane and rice. His rule also sought to sinicize the island, bringing Confucian rituals and classical education while asserting control over the indigenous Austronesian plains tribes. His sudden death from illness in June 1662, just months after his conquest, threw the nascent kingdom into a succession crisis, eventually resolved by his son, Zheng Jing.

Legacy and cultural depictions

Koxinga is venerated as a national hero in both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China on Taiwan, though for differing reasons: in mainland narratives, he is a patriot who recovered territory; in Taiwan, he is a founding father. In Japan, his birthplace in Hirado is memorialized, and he is a popular figure in folklore and puppet theater. He is the central character in numerous literary works, including the 17th-century Japanese play The Battles of Coxinga by Chikamatsu Monzaemon. Modern depictions range from statues in Tainan and Xiamen to appearances in Taiwanese cinema, Chinese television dramas, and even video games. The Koxinga Shrine in Tainan remains a major site of commemoration, and his legacy is intensely studied within the fields of Asian, colonial, and maritime history.