◀ Province Comprehensive index starts in volume 5, page 2667.

ZHENG Chenggong Zhèng Chénggōng ​郑成功 1624–1662 Maritime leader

Zheng Chenggong (1624–​1662) built on the structure of commerce and naval power es- tablished by his father, , to support a Ming loyalist regime in , and after the dynasty’s collapse in 1644 he con- tinued to oppose the Qing. He expelled the Dutch from in 1661–​1662 and died shortly thereafter.

heng Chenggong 鄭成功 was known to Europe- ans as “Coxinga,” from the Chinese word Guox- ingye (Lord of the Imperial Surname), reflecting his high favor under the (1368–​1644) loy- alist court at , his continued championing of the Ming loyalist cause after the fall of that court, and perhaps his tacit move toward claiming the Ming succession for himself in the last months of his short life. He was the heir to a maritime power structure built by his father, Zheng Zhilong 鄭芝龍, who drew on a web of connections among the Fujian ports, Macao, Manila, Taiwan (then not yet heavily settled by Chinese or under Chinese ad- ministration), and . Zhilong’s most important base was at Hirado, Japan, where he was a leading subordinate

Zheng Chenggong (1624–​1662 ce), an heir to the maritime power structure built by his father Zheng Zhilong, successfully expelled the Dutch from Taiwan three months before his death.

2631 Z © 2009 by Berkshire Publishing Group LLC 2632 Berkshire Encyclopedia of China 宝 库 山 中 华 全 书 of the “captain” of all Chinese in Japan, Li Dan. Zheng relatives sought to preserve the maritime power struc- Chenggong was born in Hirado; his mother was a Japa- ture; Chenggong won the struggle among them and in nese woman from a respected family. the 1650s built a powerful fleet and tightly controlled In 1624 Li Dan and Zheng Zhilong brokered the with- trade operations centered on his capital at Xiamen on drawal of Dutch invaders from the Islands in the the Fujian coast. , which were Ming territory, to the south Under increasing pressure from Qing armies and coast of Taiwan, which was not. This withdrawal gave the trade embargoes, Zheng Chenggong launched a desperate Zheng family some kind of claim to control of Taiwan, and unsuccessful attack on in 1659, then turned which Zheng Chenggong would assert when he expelled to invade Taiwan and expel the Dutch, only to die in 1662 the Dutch ­thirty-​­eight years later. From 1624 to 1635 a few months after their final withdrawal. His son and Zheng Zhilong fought off rival maritime leaders, made grandson and their generals maintained power on Taiwan himself indispensable to the tottering Ming dynasty, and until 1683, when Qing forces commanded by , maintained his network of fleets and lines of trade as a who had defected from Zheng thirty years before, took naval officer of the Ming dynasty. Merchants under his control of Taiwan. control or paying taxes to him dominated Chinese trade John E. WILLS Jr. with Japan and with the Dutch on Taiwan and sailed as far as the Malay Peninsula. Further Reading When the Manchu Qing took in 1644, Zheng forces gave at best ambivalent support to the Ming loy- Struve, L. A. (1984). The , 1644– ​­1662. New alist court at Nanjing, then dominated another loyalist Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Struve, L. A. (1993). Voices from the­Ming- ​­Qing cataclysm: regime at Fuzhou on the Fujian coast. Zheng Cheng- China in tiger’s jaws. New Haven, CT: Yale University gong, who had studied with some of the great literati Press. of the late Ming dynasty in Nanjing, attracted the no- Wills, J. E., Jr. (1981). Maritime China from Wang Chih tice of the loyalist emperor at Fuzhou, who bestowed to Shih Lang: Themes in peripheral history. In J. D. on Zheng the Ming imperial surname Zhu. However, Spence & J. E. Wills Jr. (Eds.), From Ming to Ch’ing: Zheng Zhilong saw no future in resistance, negotiated Conquest, region, and continuity in ­seventeenth-​­century with the (1644–1912),​ and was taken away China (pp. 204–​238). New Haven, CT: Yale Univer- to end his life in house arrest in Beijing. Several Zheng sity Press.

ZHENG He ▶

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