(This post was originally published last February 1 on the old site. But since the old site is blocked, and I’m crashing a few pre-Spring Festival deadlines, I’m putting it up again.)
Today marks the 345th 346th anniversary of the liberation of Taiwan from the Dutch by the Ming loyalist Zheng Chenggong (1624-1662), better known in the West as Koxinga.*
He was born in Nagasaki, the son of Zheng Zhilong, a Chinese merchant and occasional pirate, and a Japanese woman named Tagawa, but moved to Quanzhou in Fujian as a child, and there spent his youth preparing to enter official service under the Ming.
After the fall of Beijing to the Manchus in 1644, his father, Zheng Zhilong, joined one of the Ming pretenders/contenders to the throne, Prince Tang, who at the time was ensconced in Fujian. After the Prince was captured, Zheng Zhilong–ignoring his son’s pleas–went over to the Qing side, but Zheng Chenggong continued his struggle against the Manchu invaders. After a series of defeats at the hands of Qing banner troops, however, he was forced to flee across the Taiwan straits to Formosa, then under the control of the Dutch.
On April 30, 1661, Zheng Chenggong