Koxinga
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278
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18
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Search complete. 278 mentions across 18 episodes found for "Koxinga".
Oct 18, 2026
Chris StewartHOST
Taking up the reins of personal rule upon his censor's urging at the age of 14, Kangxi wasted little time in deciding to terminate the tetrarchy of regent uncles, in every sense of the word, along with a general purge of the imperial government, other loyalist ministers, in 1669, leaving him with absolute and uncontested personal power over his realm and government, a change that injected a new dynamism into Qing expansionism that brought back the spirit of the early days of the growth of the state.
Chris StewartHOST
This general feeling and trend was forcefully punctuated by Kangxi's twin victories over first the rebellious lords of the three feudatory realms of the far southwest, as well as the island bastion of Zhenchenggang, aka Koxinga, on Taiwan, thereby bringing, at least conceptually, all under heaven firmly to heel under the Qing imperial yoke.
Chris StewartHOST
From Peter C. Perdue, quote, Even though the other frontier regions, after their incorporation by conquest, maintained distinctive and somewhat autonomous local administrative systems, the Manchus, by controlling titles, succession to power, lands, and taxation, ensured that breaking away would be difficult." Likewise, over this period, Kangxi came to develop and then stoke what would become a lifelong suspicion and hostility toward the Dalai Lama, who, as was widely known, had been wooed by no less than the self-styled emperor of the so-called Wuzhou Dynasty, the two-time turncloak and feudatory lord himself, Wu Sangui.
Chris StewartHOST
Though now in sole command over easily the most powerful state in the known world, holding both more physical territory than the former Ming regime and a greater populace, as well as subjugation over the last of its ruling house's potential claimants, and the hard-won loyalty of nearly all the Chinese scholar elites.
Chris StewartHOST
Wait and look.
Chris StewartHOST
When resolutely we cross the formidable moat, who will still believe that China does not belong to the Ming? Zheng Chenggong, 1659.
Chris StewartHOST
We last left off with the three-point colonization of the beautiful island of Formosa, though by episode's end, it must be admitted, we were left with just two, and those two now working in concert.
Chris StewartHOST
They were the Dutch, providing the funding and legal and also protective backing, and the Chinese colonists from Fujian providing the very necessary labor.
11 MINS LATER
Chris StewartHOST
The rebellion's principal organizers appear to have been holders of village leases who owed money to the company.
Chris StewartHOST
Suffice it to say that even with the crushing of this latest rebellion, relations between the Dutch on Taiwan and the Chinese colonists they oversaw were tense and rapidly declining.
Chris StewartHOST
Enter stage left, Zheng Chenggong, he who would be known as the Lord of the Imperial Surname, Koxinga.
Chris StewartHOST
Zheng Chenggong was born on a beach during a rainstorm, heralded by a mystical fire in the heavens.
Chris StewartHOST
Hello and welcome to The History of China.
Chris StewartHOST
Episode two sixty-four, Koxinga Attacks.
Chris StewartHOST
We begin today with the tale of a curious figure who would, in almost any other circumstance, likely have been overlooked by history, save for his strangely central place in the conclusion of our tale of Dutch Taiwan and the lord of the imperial surname, Zheng Chenggong.
Chris StewartHOST
His name is He Tingbin.
Chris StewartHOST
Tingbin was a headsman, translator for the Dutch, village leaseholder, tax farmer, and merchant.
Chris StewartHOST
Nevertheless, in sixteen fifty-seven, when it was time to appoint an envoy to the court of Koxinga to attempt to smooth over their by now rather soured relations, it was to He Tingbin that the Dutch East India Company was forced to turn.
Chris StewartHOST
As he sailed toward the Ming Memorial Court at Xiamen, morale was high.
Chris StewartHOST
For most of those Chinese merchants, confident that the mission would succeed, even began taking new orders again for pepper and other such goods recently banned by Zheng Chenggong.
Chris StewartHOST
Anyways, what I'm trying to say is let's get into the episode.
Chris StewartHOST
We last left off with Zheng Chenggong preparing seemingly for an invasion of the island of Taiwan in order to displace the Dutch East India Company's holdings there centered around Fort Zealandia.
Chris StewartHOST
And today, minor spoiler alert, although not really, he will do exactly that.
Chris StewartHOST
All right, let's go.
Chris StewartHOST
It was truly an ominous silence that hung over Zealandia.
Chris StewartHOST
Most of its inhabitants had locked their houses and those who could had already left.
Chris StewartHOST
At the end of that month, on April 30th, 1661, Dutch sentinels finally spotted Zheng Chenggong's fleet.
Chris StewartHOST
Several hundred large junks headed under full sill towards Taiwan.
Chris StewartHOST
Most of its inhabitants had locked their houses, and those who could had already left.
Chris StewartHOST
At the end of that month, on April 30th, 1661, Dutch sentinels finally spotted Zheng Chonggong's fleet.
Chris StewartHOST
Several hundred large junks headed under full sail towards Taiwan.
Chris StewartHOST
Chenggong had waited for the monsoon wind to turn southerly, thereby cutting off any chance of Formosa to send word to Batavia and request reinforcements.
Chris StewartHOST
Instead, after taking Sakam, they ate their fill and then surrounded a thin-walled and ill-equipped Fort Provincia at their leisure.
Chris StewartHOST
Lacking gunpowder, ammo, or even fresh water, the besieged were soon forced to surrender the fort.
Chris StewartHOST
Then, Zheng Chenggong turned his attention to the countryside near the Bay of Taiwan, where the Dutch were few and rather easily captured.
Chris StewartHOST
The Aborigines, for their part, offered little resistance.
Chris StewartHOST
Shortly before his death, however, Zhu Yulong had enfeoffed the loyalist commander, Zheng Chenggong, with the new title Prince of Tao, which was in addition to the honorific title of Prince of Yanping, conferred on Zheng in 1655.
Chris StewartHOST
Zheng, or as we better know him, Koxinga, continued to support the Ming cause and resistance to Qing.
Chris StewartHOST
He and a sizable army landed on Taiwan in April 1661, just after the Kangxi Emperor's accession, and after a long and hard siege, seized Fort Zeelandia from the Dutch early in 1662.
Chris StewartHOST
Though Koxinga died that same summer, his son, Zheng Jing, continued to hold Taiwan after being forced to abandon his base in Fujian.
Chris StewartHOST
Zheng held out in Taiwan despite Dutch attempts to link up with the Qing forces in a counterattack, and despite the draconian policies issued by the Oboi Regency on the advice of General Huang Wu of removing the inhabitants from southeastern coastal areas 10 to 20 miles inland in an attempt to deny all supplies and recruits for the Zheng regime, as we discussed last time.
Chris StewartHOST
At approximately the same time that Zhu Yulong enfeoffed Zheng Chenggong, the Qing government, at the urgings of Hong Chengzhou, the former Ming governor-general of Liaodong, who was now a grand secretary, granted Wu Sangui both civil and military authority over the province of Yunnan.
17 MINS LATER
Chris StewartHOST
That November, the feudatory Geng Jingzhong surrendered to General Ge Su in Fujian, and his troops were sent to Jiangxi so that an attack from the east could be launched into Hunan.
Chris StewartHOST
The feudatory Shang Zhixin surrendered in January 1677, and later that year, Wu Sangui had Sun Yanling murdered in Guilin because it was believed that he too was about to surrender.
Chris StewartHOST
They sanctioned savage punishments of tax delinquency, as in the Jiangnan tax arrears case of sixteen sixty-one, when eighteen Han Chinese were beheaded after a lengthy trial.
Chris StewartHOST
Further south, across not just Fujian, but many other coastal provinces such as Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangnan, and even as far north as Shandong, the lingering threat of Koxinga and his revanchist army on Taiwan led to even further strictures.
Chris StewartHOST
In the first of a series of government acts designed to strip the pirate lord of his access to the populace or its wealth, the entire coastal population of these regions was ordered to move en masse as far as twenty-five kilometers inland, with obviously devastating effects on both the populace forced to relocate, as well as those that they were now crowded amongst.
Chris StewartHOST
Forced to settle wherever they could, these people, who up until now had based nearly their entire lives and occupations around seafaring and fishing, were suddenly and completely banned from even basic access to the sea under penalty of death.
23 MINS LATER
Chris StewartHOST
From this time on, the emperor sought to be the one who would control information and the manifold uses that could be made of it.
Chris StewartHOST
Next time, with the Kangxi emperor now firmly in command of his own empire and government, he will pivot to face some of the most pressing problems facing his realm, namely those fragments of it which still refuse to yield to his will.
Chris StewartHOST
He'll face the likes of old enemies such as the scions of Koxinga on Taiwan, but also new foes, many of whom who'd once been friends, such as those already twice traitorous former Ming lords who'd pledged to serve Great Qing, only to allow their endless ambitions to put them on the hunt for yet more.
Chris StewartHOST
They are, of course, the princes of the three feudatories.
Chris StewartHOST
On July fourth, the throne issued a special decree promising Geng Jingzhong a pardon and high position if he surrendered.
Chris StewartHOST
The emperor's great fear, of course, was that Geng would now ally himself with the Taiwanese-based forces of Zheng Jing, Koxinga's son.
Chris StewartHOST
Fortunately for the Manchus, Geng and Zheng were not able to come to terms.
Chris StewartHOST
In fact, in sixteen seventy-four and sixteen seventy-six, because of disagreements over previous exchanges, Zheng Jing's naval forces actually raided Amoy and other cities along the Fujian coastline.
Chris StewartHOST
Still, such claims are based on scant and indirect evidence and oversimplification of the various mixed bloodlines of such organizations.
Chris StewartHOST
For just one instance, the famous hero of Taiwan and Zheng Zhilong's son, Koxinga, and his Japanese mother, Tagawa Matsu, along with the overt revisionism of mainland Chinese historical narratives to assert its own modern political objectives, ensures that it remains difficult to determine the extent of colonial involvement that these piratical organizations had on Taiwan.
Chris StewartHOST
For example, we know next to nothing about Yan Sichi, even up to his actual historicity.
Chris StewartHOST
We do know far more about Zheng Zhilong, who, as we have seen, cruised the Taiwan Straits under the Dutch flag.
Chris StewartHOST
Of no more use to them, the Qing had Zilong executed for his failure to convince his son to come over to their side.
Chris StewartHOST
Zheng Changgong, you'll remember, is more famously known as Koxinga.
Chris StewartHOST
While Tulai was in Fuzhou, Li Chengdong pursued the fleeing prince to Tingzhou, where he captured him, bringing an end to this second southern imperial would-be regime.
Chris StewartHOST
From the mountains of Fujian, Li Chengdong pressed on into southern Jiangxi and through the pass towards Canton, where the Prince of Tang's brother proclaimed himself successor in early December.
8 more episodes mention Koxinga.
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