Interesting and source-heavy articles on Koxinga

On this site there have been a couple of threads over the years about the Taiwanese Kingdom formed by the Ming loyalist Zheng Chenggong (known to the west as Koxinga), fleeing the Qing. I immediately found this kingdom (and the possibility of it taking the Philippines from Spain) to be really interesting. I mean, a timeline which isn't a Philippine-screw? A Confucian maritime merchant state outside China? Absolutely fascinating.

Now, the mentioned threads were fairly short and light on information. While searching the web however, I came across two detailed and informative articles (The first in particular is very optimistic on the potential for longevity):

Maritime Capitalism in Seventeenth-Century China: The Rise and Fall of Koxinga Revisited

Koxinga’s Conquest of Taiwan in Global History: Reflections on the Occasion of the 350th Anniversary

Thoughts? There's a lot to digest here.
 
No one? Really? I though these were some super interesting essay's and an excellent resource for Koxinga WI's. The other threads generally got at least a few replies despite having even less description...

Let me pick out some quotes:

While the Dutch built their colony, the Zheng family focused its attention on southern Fujian province, building powerful fortified bases on the islands of Xiamen and Jinmen. These islands served as the terminal points of trading routes that stretched out across East and Southeast Asia, from Japan to the Strait of Malacca. Scholars have filled in the structure and workings of this formidable maritime empire. In a seminal article, Nan Qi detailed the Zheng family’s so-called “Five Merchants” (wushang) administrative system, and its intricate command structure, which stretched out across the oceans and through China’s provinces, even into areas controlled by the Zheng family’s enemies, so that it served not just as a trading network but also as an intelligence network.
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Tonio Andrade describes this administrative structure as “a precisely ordered and managed system.”13 Deng and Nan use primarily Chinese sources, but Cheng Weichung has written a dissertation that combines Chinese and Dutch sources to understand the Zheng family’s far-flung trading regime in a broader context.14 His work shows that the Zheng family’s maritime trading structures were impressive, and bear comparison to those of western European seapowers, such as the Dutch East India Company itself. Indeed, it seems quite possible that the yearly trading income of the Zheng family organization was considerably higher than that of the Dutch East India Company, a conclusion that many western scholars would find shocking.15

It is estimated that in the 1650s, the average annual profit of Zheng’s direct involvement in trade was 2.4 million taels, equivalent to about 8.5 million guilders. (Yang 1984b) It was nearly five times bigger than the VOC’s annual profit in East Asia, slightly larger than the Company’s profit in the whole Asia, and more than one-tenth of the annual cash revenue of the Qing government around the same period.[7]

During the Zheng Chenggong era, the Dutch continued to be a humble player in the East Asian trade as they continued to rely on Zheng for supply of Chinese goods. Zheng Chenggong was regarded by the Governor General of Batavia as “the man who can spit much in our face in Eastern seas” (Foccardi 1986: 59). To guarantee its access to Chinese products, the VOC paid an annual tribute of 5,000 taels of silver, 100,000 arrows, and 1,000 dan of sulphur to Xiamen (CZSL: Yongli 11.6; Han 1984: 212-3; Yang 1992: 265; Coyett 1903: 389; HJJY Yongli 11.6; MHJYYongli 11.6).

Zhengs family business pulled in more profit than the entirety of the VOC in Asia!

Institutions such as Confucian academies, prisons and salt plants were founded in Taiwan. Population and land census were carried out. An examination system for the selection of civil officials and a welfare system taking care of the aged and weak were established (ZCGZ: 22; ZSGZCGZ: 56; MHJY: Yongli 18.3). The Dutch system of tax farming was inherited. More advanced agricultural methods were introduced to the residents. Zheng also encouraged his officials to take uncultivated land and turn it into their own estates, with an obligation of fulfilling the tax quota imposed. Soldiers were sent with seed and plows to reclaim the remaining land. The provision problem was solved and a fiscal system with an agrarian-bureaucratic outlook took shape (CZSL: Yongli 15.5.18; HSJWL: Yongli 21; Shepherd 1993: 93-4, 97).

Before the Nanjing failure, Zheng Chenggong aspired to controlling the South of Yangzi River. After his retreat to Taiwan, he began to present himself as the political leader of the overseas Chinese. In fact, one of the stated reasons for his expedition to Taiwan was to liberate the Chinese migrants and aborigines from the Dutch tyranny (HJJY: Yongli 15.3; MHJY: Yongli 15.3). Later, Zheng threatened to punish the Spanish harassment of Chinese in the Philippines by conquering the archipelago (Foccardi 1986: 97). The political project of the Zhengs was ever changing. It seems that Zheng, and more notably his successors, were downplaying their ambition of conquering mainland China, and were more occupied with strengthening their independent power in the maritime zone of East Asia. It can be reflected by the position of the Zhengs during their intermittent negotiation with the Qing government between 1663 and 1683.

Trying to be the the political leader of overseas Chinese communities? Interesting...

Koxinga had many foreigners in his service: Manchu officers, African musketmen, British surgeons, German and Danish military advisors. Just as the Dutch colony of Taiwan had been based closely on cooperation with Chinese settlers, so Koxinga’s conquest was aided by European military advisors. The Dutch had managed close cooperation with Chinese settlers during times of peace, but Koxinga managed to make better use of foreigners during wartime.

Koxinga was born in Japan, grew up speaking Japanese, and then was brought as a young boy to a China quite unlike the traditional China of our imagination. The maritime China of his youth was a vibrant, variegated world, where African musketeers guarded his wealthy father under the emblem of Santiago, communicating with him in Portuguese.39 European cannons guarded the family’s huge mansion, which had a special canal so one could sail out to sea at any time, to easily send dispatches to the thousands of merchants who lived throughout East and Southeast Asia. The mansion was the headquarters of an overseas trading empire that was more lucrative than that of the Dutch East India Company itself. When Koxinga became a general, he created a fighting force that was modeled at least in part on Japanese samurai armies. Koxinga owed his success partly to his ability to take these many strands and weave them into an organization of his own. Scholars are increasingly moving toward this new multicultural understanding of Koxinga. Xing Hang, for example, similarly emphasizes the Zheng family’s multicultural bricolage, as does the recent work of Cheng Weichung.40 The seventeenth century was, as historian Timothy Brook writes, a time of unprecedented intercultural communication: “More people were in motion over longer distances and sojourning away from home for longer periods of time than at any other time in human history.”41 Koxinga embodies this globalizing world as deeply as anyone.

With Taiwan and the Phillipines role as a cultural meeting point, I think it's clear that a polity centered on them would quickly become even more diverse than they already were.
 
Thanks- these are great sources- but it'll take a while to digest and come up with a TL

A TL is a lot of work so I wasn't expecting that. More just lots of discussion. I was really expecting a lot more posts.

Still, I'm glad at least a couple of people saw them and liked them.
 
This is very interesting! Thanks!

I was actually thinking about this a few days ago and racking my head just what the name of this is.....dang.
 
Koxinga was not the real threat but the maniago-almazan revolt and sultan kudarat being too strong which happening side by side which was hard for the spanish to handle that they needed to withdraw their hold on the spice islands...

just like how they blurred the issue regarding katipunan and made the focus on the Spanish-American war, that was to save face..
 
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