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Koxinga
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Koxinga (; Pe?h-oe-ji: Kok-sèng-iâ/Kok-sìn-iâ; Lord with the Imperial Surname) is the traditional Western spelling of the popular appellation of Zheng Chenggong (; Pe?h-oe-ji: Ten Sêng-kong) (1624 - 1662), who was a military leader at the end of the Chinese Ming Dynasty. He was a prominent leader who opposed the Qing Dynasty, and a general who defeated the Dutch to claim Taiwan in 1662.
624, Koxinga, whose name at birth was Zheng Sen, was born in Hirado, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan to Zheng Zhilong, a Chinese merchant and pirate, and a Japanese woman whose surname was Tagawa, and whose first name, most sources agree, has been lost to posterity.
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Koxinga (; Pe?h-oe-ji: Kok-sèng-iâ/Kok-sìn-iâ; Lord with the Imperial Surname) is the traditional Western spelling of the popular appellation of Zheng Chenggong (; Pe?h-oe-ji: Ten Sêng-kong) (1624 - 1662), who was a military leader at the end of the Chinese Ming Dynasty. He was a prominent leader who opposed the Qing Dynasty, and a general who defeated the Dutch to claim Taiwan in 1662.
Childhood
In 1624, Koxinga, whose name at birth was Zheng Sen, was born in Hirado, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan to Zheng Zhilong, a Chinese merchant and pirate, and a Japanese woman whose surname was Tagawa, and whose first name, most sources agree, has been lost to posterity. He was raised there until seven and then moved to Quanzhou, in the Fujian province of China. He studied at Nanjing Guozijian (Imperial Nanking University - the main Chinese university of Ming Dynasty) when he was young. He is still known in Japan by the Japanese pronunciation of his birth name as Tei Seiko, or by his popular name as Kokusen'ya.
Loyalty to the Ming Dynasty
Beijing fell in 1644 to rebels led by Li Zicheng, and the last emperor Chongzhen hanged himself on a tree at modern-day Jingshan Park in Beijing. Aided by Wu Sangui, Manchurian armies easily defeated the rebels and took the city. Ming resistance continued in southern China though. A Ming dynasty prince declared himself the Hongguang Emperor in Nanjing. After Nanjing fell to the Manchu armies, the Hongguang Emperor was captured, and another Ming Prince declared himself the Longwu Emperor. The Longwu Emperor established his court in Fuzhou, which was controlled by Zheng Zhilong and his family, and it was with the support of their military resources and the natural defences of Fujian that the emperor was able to remain safe for a time. It was from this emperor that Zhilong's son, Zheng Sen, received a new personal name, Chenggong, and the title of 'Guoxingye' ('Lord of the Imperial Surname', being one of many possible translations).
The Longwu Emperor's residence in Fuzhou was destined to be brief, though. Zheng Zhilong refused to support his plans for a counter-offensive against the rapidly expanding forces of the Manchu's new Qing Dynasty. When, in the September of 1646, the Qing armies spilled through inadequately defended mountain passes into Fujian, Zheng Zhilong retreated to his coastal fortress, and the luckless emperor faced them alone. His forces were destroyed and he was captured and executed without delay.
Fighting the Qing
The Qing sent envoys to Zheng Zhilong, offering to make him the governor of both Fujian and Guangdong if he would surrender to them. To the apparent chagrin of his son and brothers, he agreed and handed himself over to the Qing forces in Fuzhou on November 21, 1646. This left Zheng Chenggong and his various uncles as the inheritors of Zhilong's considerable organisation. Zheng Chenggong, operating out of Xiamen, proved himself to be a talented leader, and in a matter of months attracted a large number of men to his cause. Zheng used the superiority of his naval forces to launch amphibious raids on Manchu occupied territory in Fujian, and even managed to take Tong'an in Quanzhou prefecture in early 1647, but lacked the strength to hold it.
Following the fall Tong'an to Zheng the Manchus launched a counterattack in the spring of 1647, during which they stormed the Zheng family's hometown of Anping. Zheng's mother, Tagawa, had come from Japan in 1645 to join her lover and son's family in Fujian (though Zheng's younger half-brother, Tagawa Shichizaemon, remained in Japan). She did not follow Zhilong into exile, though, and was caught by Manchu forces in Anping, where she committed suicide rather than submit according to traditional accounts.
In spite of this setback, by 1650, he was strong enough to establish himself as the leader of the Zheng family. He declared his loyalty to the only remaining claimant to the throne of the Ming Dynasty, the Yongli Emperor who was then fleeing the Manchus in south-western China with a rag-tag court, but despite one fruitless attempt, Zheng was able to do nothing to aid the last Ming emperor. Instead Zheng decided to concentrate on securing his own position on the south-east coast.
Zheng enjoyed a series of military successes in 1651 and 1652 that increased the Qing government's anxiety over the threat he posed. They decided to try a new strategy, exploiting the one advantage they thought they had over Zheng; his father. Zheng Zhilong wrote to his son from Beijing, presumably at the request of the Qing court and the Shunzhi Emperor, urging him to negotiate. Whether Zheng Chenggong was sincere or whether he was just buying time to further develop his army and navy is unknowable, but he did begin a long series of negotiations with the Manchus that did not end until November, 1654. With the failure of their last mission, the Qing government gave up on the negotiations and appointed Prince Jidu (son of Jirgalang) to lead an assault on Zheng's territory.
On May 9, 1656, Jidu attacked Jinmen, an island near Xiamen that Zheng had been using to train his troops. Thanks in part to a major storm, the Manchus were decisively defeated lost most of their fleet in the battle. Zheng had sent one of his naval commanders to capture Zhoushan island prior to Jidu's attack, and now that the Manchus were temporarily without an effective naval force in the Fujian area, Zheng was free to send a huge army to Zhoushan, which he intended to use as a staging area for his most ambitious project, an assault on the first capital of the Ming dynasty, Nanjing.
Taiwanese landing
In 1661, Koxinga led his troops to a landing at Lu'ermen to attack the Dutch colonists at Taiwan. On February 1, 1662 the Dutch Governor of Taiwan, Frederik Coyett, surrendered Fort Zeelandia to Koxinga. In the peace treaty, Koxinga was styled "Lord Teibingh Tsiante Teysiancon Koxin". This effectively ended 38 years of Dutch rule. Koxinga then devoted himself to making Taiwan into an effective base for anti-Qing sympathizers who wanted to restore the Ming Dynasty to power.
At the age of 37, Koxinga died of malaria, although speculations said that he died in a sudden fit of madness when his officers refused to carry out his orders to execute his son Zheng Jing upon learning that Zheng Jing had an affair with a nurse and even had a child from her. Zheng Jing succeeded as the King of Taiwan.
Legacy
In coastal China (especially Fujian and Taiwan) and among overseas Chinese in South East Asia, Koxinga is still worshiped as a god. There is a temple dedicated to Koxinga and his mother in Tainan City, Taiwan.
The play The Battles of Coxinga (Kokusen'ya Kassen, ?????; formerly ?????) was written by Chikamatsu Monzaemon in Japan in the 18th century, first performed in Kyoto. A movie about his life called Zheng Chenggong 1661 (??? 1661) starred actor Zhao Wenzhuo as Koxinga (2001). Its English title was the Sino-Dutch War 1661. The film was renamed Kokusenya Kassen after the aforementioned play and released in Japan in 2002.
In politics, Koxinga is an interesting figure because several opposing political forces have invoked him as a hero. For this reason, historical narratives regarding Koxinga frequently differ in explaining his motives and affiliation.
He has been considered a national hero in Mainland China because he expelled the Dutch from Taiwan and established Chinese rule over the island.
During the Japanese control of Taiwan, Koxinga was honored as a bridge between Taiwan and Japan for his maternal linkage to Japan.
The Chinese Nationalist Party regarded Koxinga as a patriot who retreated to Taiwan and used it as base to launch counterattacks against the Qing Dynasty government of China. As such, the Nationalists have frequently compared Koxinga to their own leader, Chiang Kai-shek.
Supporters of Taiwan independence have historically held mixed feelings toward Koxinga. But recent Taiwanese Independence supporters have presented him in a positive light, portraying him as a native Taiwanese hero seeking to keep Taiwan independent from a mainland Chinese government.
A biography of Koxinga has been written by Jonathan Clements.
See also
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