History of Taiwan - Kingdom of Tungning

Kingdom of Tungning

Manchu forces broke through Shanhai Pass in 1644 and rapidly overwhelmed the Ming Dynasty. In 1661, a naval fleet led by the Ming loyalist Koxinga, arrived in Taiwan to oust the Dutch from Zeelandia and establish a pro-Ming base in Taiwan.

Koxinga was born to Zheng Zhilong, a Chinese merchant and pirate, and Tagawa Matsu, a Japanese woman, in 1624 in Hirado, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. He was raised there until seven and moved to Quanzhou, in the Fujian province of China. In a family made wealthy from shipping and piracy, Koxinga inherited his father's trade networks, which stretched from Nagasaki to Macao. Following the Manchu advance on Fujian, Koxinga retreated from his stronghold in Amoy (Xiamen) and besieged Taiwan in the hope of establishing a strategic base to marshal his troops to retake his base at Amoy. In 1662, following a nine month siege, Koxinga captured the Dutch fortress Zeelandia and Taiwan became his base (see Kingdom of Tungning). Concurrently the last Ming pretender had been captured and killed by General Wu Sangui, extinguishing any hope Koxinga may have had of re-establishing the Ming Empire. He died four months thereafter in a fit of madness after learning of the cruel killings of his father and brother at the hands of the Manchus. Other accounts are more straightforward, attributing Koxinga's death to a case of malaria.