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Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong)
Southern Ming commander, son of Zheng Zhilong, who fought the Qing from Xiamen and in 1661-62 drove the Dutch East India Company out of Taiwan
At dusk on a hilltop, a large tent stands open with a table holding a map marked with small stones inside, a saddled horse tethered outside, and fire stands burning; campfires dot the river plain below, and one tiny sentry stands on the slope.
Also known as Sen · Da Mu · Guo Xingye
Zheng Chenggong, first named Sen, courtesy name Mingyan, literary name Damu, was born in 1624 at Hirado in Japan to the maritime trader Zheng Zhilong and a Japanese mother of the Tagawa family. In 1645 the Southern Ming Longwu emperor gave him the imperial surname Zhu and the name Chenggong, and he became known as Koxinga, lord of the imperial surname. When his father went over to the Qing the next year, he raised troops at Nan'ao and fought on from Jinmen and Xiamen, later receiving from the Yongli emperor the title Prince of Yanping. In 1659 he sailed up the Yangtze and besieged Nanjing, but was routed. In 1661 he crossed to Taiwan against the Dutch East India Company, and in February 1662 the governor Frederick Coyett surrendered Fort Zeelandia. He died on the island in June 1662 at thirty-nine; in 1875 the Qing court, at Shen Baozhen's request, gave him the posthumous name Zhongjie and built a shrine to him in Tainan.
Life and times
Dates 1624 CE–1662 CE