A Mudball In The Sea

OBLIGATORY ADMINISTRATIVE STUFF: This timeline will focus on Taiwan in the late 17th century, under the Zheng family regime. I don't know how far the timeline will go (SPOILER: not far, because I never finish anything), but this is a really interesting period in history, and there are some fun divergences from history that we can explore. As always, thanks for reading.

The on-and-off negotiations between Zheng Taiwan and the Manchu Empire came to a head in 1669. A previous round of negotiations had faltered in 1667, but there were compelling reasons for each side to return to the table two years later. Zheng Jing had come to the realization that while Ming restoration was a wonderful concept, it was rather more difficult to imagine a realistic way in which it could come to pass. He also coveted the resumption of trade with southeast China's ports, and hoped to expand his burgeoning maritime and commercial empire. Meanwhile, Qing efforts to contain Zheng throughout the decade had been nothing short of disastrous. The coastal removal policy was an unpopular failure and Shi Lang's expensively assembled armada could barely make it out of port. A negotiated solution was thus highly palatable to both parties.

In the summer of that year, an embassy headed by Mingzhu, the Minister of Punishment, was sent by the Kangxi Emperor to Quanzhou in order to kick-start the negotiations. On hearing of these new overtures, Zheng appointed his Minister of Rites, Ye Heng, and his Minister of Punishment, Ke Ping, as ambassadors to the Manchus. During the next few months, in meetings set in both Taiwan and Fujian, proposals for a settlement were exchanged and discussed.

Both sides showed a willingness to modify their initial demands and make concessions. Zheng Jing no longer insisted on being treated as an equal, and was agreeable to accepting a position in the Qing tributary system.

臺灣之地,系其父鄭成功所辟,不忍輕棄。言我等一經歸順,臺灣即是朝廷地土,我等身體髮膚,皆是朝廷所有,歸順全在一點真心,不在剃髮登岸,願照朝鮮例入貢。

The land of Taiwan was opened up by our father, Zheng Chenggong, and so we cannot bear to abandon it. When we submit, Taiwan will belong to the empire, as will our body, hair and skin. Our submission is an act of truth from the heart. Thus we do not need to cut our hair and return to the mainland. We will pay tribute according to the example set by Korea. – ZHENG JING, King of Taiwan

Kangxi, for his part, was willing to let Zheng and his heirs rule Taiwan in perpetuity.

朕思鄭經等久居海島,阻於聲教。今因招撫使臣至彼,即差屬員同來,思欲抒誠歸順, 深為可嘉。若鄭經留戀臺灣,不忍拋棄,亦可任從其使,亦從彼意,允其居住。

We note that Zheng Jing has long dwelt on an island in the sea, and so the songs of civilization have been barred from his hearing. Now we have offered him amnesty. He has sent envoys to us, and expressed his honest desire to submit. How deeply auspicious such news is! It seems as if Zheng Jing is truly reluctant to leave Taiwan, and cannot bear to give it up. We will allow him to do as he desires, and to live where he wishes. – KANGXI, Emperor of Great Qing

It may seem odd to our modern sensibilities that the final sticking point concerned clothing and hairstyle. Zheng Jing demanded the freedom to retain his Ming-style robes and hairdo. Meanwhile, Qing negotiators had been relentless in their insistence that Zheng adopt Manchu customs in this regard. Initially, Kangxi planned to continue this stance; an early draft of the reply to Zheng excerpted above went on to state as much.

朝鮮系從來所有之外國,鄭經乃中國之人。若因居住台灣,不行剃髮,則歸順悃誠,以何為據。

Korea has always been a foreign country, but Zheng Jing is Chinese. If he lives on Taiwan and does not shave his hair, how can we know if he sincerely submits?

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One wonders what would have happened had Kangxi maintained this unyielding position. As history knows, he did not. His reversal was in large part due to advice from Mingzhu, who sent a steady stream of memoranda to Beijing throughout the negotiations urging the quick conclusion of an agreement with Zheng Taiwan, which he regarded as a nuisance that had only the potential to distract the Qing Empire.

台灣仅海外之丸泥,非屬版圖之中,得之所無加,不得無所捐。

Taiwan is but a mudball in the sea, outside the domain. By acquiring it one gains nothing, and by not having it one gives up nothing.

Kangxi's grandmother, one of his strongest supporters at court, also used her influence to push him towards a settlement. The fifteen year-old emperor had only months ago begun to exercise power in his own right after purging his former regent Oboi, and the Dowager Empress saw the negotiations as an opportunity for her grandson to demonstrate that he was unquestionably in charge by charting his own new policy in regards to the threat of Zheng Taiwan.

While it is difficult to lend much credence to the idea of even the teenage Kangxi as callow youth – recall he had already fathered two children at this point – he deeply respected his grandmother, and Mingzhu was one of the most influential officials at court. Though we will never know exactly what informed his decision-making process, the end result was clear. Kangxi allowed his emissaries to drop the demand that Zheng Jing adopt Manchu dress and hairstyle. By the end of 1669, the deal had largely been concluded, though lingering questions about the precise nature of the Zheng fleets' trading rights on the southeast coast remained to be resolved. But for all intents and purposes, the two sides had come to an agreement. Taiwan became a tributary state of the Qing Empire. And then, things got interesting.

NOTE: Everything above the dotted line happened in real life. It's all AH from there on out.
 
Yay- Taiwan duli!. Or at least "two entities on either side of the Straits." Looks good!
Thanks! The situation is actually quite similar to 1949 - the losing side in a war for control of China flees to Taiwan and sets up shop there.

Anyway, I'm not going to post the next part of the timeline until Friday, but I would like to post a map (not mine!) of Zheng-era Taiwan:

mkt.gif


Disregard the arrows and dotted lines and Chinese place names and whatnot, and note instead how little of the island is actually under Zheng administration. The rest is forests, mountains and aborigines.
 
The mood in the Qing court after the conclusion of the treaty with the Zheng state was largely one of relief. A potentially serious threat had been dealt with at little to no cost, and attention could now be turned to more pressing issues. On Taiwan, however, the mood was much less enthusiastic. Many regarded Zheng Jing's decision to accept tributary status as a betrayal of the Ming dynasty and of his own father's ideals. Zheng's loyal soldiers had uprooted their lives and fought for years in opposition to the Manchus. Now they were asked to accept a position as a tributary state, and submit to their hated enemies. Discontent ran high among hardcore Ming restorationists in the wake of the Manchu settlement.

In the middle of that discontent was Feng Xifan, one of Zheng Jing's closest advisors (1). Feng was also strongly anti-Manchu and firmly committed to the ideals of Ming restoration. He attempted to cultivate a base of support in the military colonies, where soldiers-turned-farmers labored to scratch a living from their new and sometimes unforgiving land (2). After several months of surreptitiously fanning the flames of insurrection, Feng decided to make his move in June of 1670, on the day of the summer solstice. The plan was simple. A group of picked men would storm the palace and assassinate Zheng Jing. Meanwhile, another group would secure Zhu Shugui (3), one of the last princes of the Ming Dynasty, who Feng intended to have crowned as a puppet king.

Everything went wrong for Feng and the plotters in rather spectacular fashion. The group of conspirators sent to secure Zhu Shugui were rather discomfited when they arrived at his farm to find no one at home; the prince, tipped off that a group of armed men was approaching and wrongly assuming it to be an assassination attempt, had fled into the hills. He took refuge in a nearby village of aborigines, where the rebels completely failed in their attempts to find him. Even had they succeeded, all would have been for nought due to the even more farcical affair that took place at Zheng Jing’s palace.

When the group of conspirators (numbering roughly thirty) sent to assassinate Zheng Jing attacked, they failed to achieve surprise and were drawn into a battle with the palace guards. Meanwhile, Zheng Jing and a small coterie of servants set a series of improvised but elaborate booby traps before hiding Zheng in a cupboard. The assassins who survived the encounter with the guard blundered through the palace, suffering several further casualties due to the booby traps and failing to locate Zheng before loyalist reinforcements arrived. The incident forms the basis for the famous comic opera 小鬼當宮 (xiao gui dang gong, or Home Alone).

Thus, the Feng Xifan Rebellion fizzled out rather ignominiously. Feng himself was captured attempting to flee into the mountains and was executed. Zhu Shugui eventually stumbled out of the forest and learned that the men he had fled were trying to make him king; though his response has not passed down into history, it is from this that the Chinese idiom 王逃冠追 (wang tao guan zhui, lit. “the prince flees, the crown pursues,” used in situations where one runs from a blessing) is derived. Small-scale rioting continued in several of the military colonies throughout the summer, but by the end of the year Feng’s remaining collaborators had been rooted out and the situation was well under control. Mindful that many of his soldiers-turned-farmers were still restive, Zheng Jing resolved to give them something to do. And so, his gaze turned to the south, toward another island . . .

NOTES
(1) Nothing like the events described in this post happened IRL, because Zheng didn’t make a deal with the Manchus. I think there would have been some unrest had he made a deal, and since he did in this timeline, I’ve chosen to center the rebellion around Feng Xifan. IRL Feng launched a coup after Zheng Jing’s death to remove Zheng’s first son and replace him with the second son, who coincidentally enough was married to Feng’s daughter.

(2) Unforgiving as in bands of headhunters are living in the forest.

(3) Unlike his father, who treated Zhu Shugui quite well, Zheng Jing cut off his allowance and made him farm for a living.
 
Interesting.

For fun, I tried throwing some of your Chinese into Google Translate. It was... amusing.

'Home Alone' refers to the movie, right?

What's 'prince flees, crown pursues'? That SOUNDS like it wants to be a reference to some pop culture thing, especially as 'wang' 王 is usually translated as 'king', not prince.
 
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