Naval War College Review Volume 66 Article 11 Number 2 Spring

2013 Lost Colony: The nU told Story of ’s First Great Victory over the West Grant F. Rhode

Tonio Andrade

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Recommended Citation Rhode, Grant F. and Andrade, Tonio (2013) "Lost Colony: The nU told Story of China’s First Great Victory over the West," Naval War College Review: Vol. 66 : No. 2 , Article 11. Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol66/iss2/11

This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Naval War College Review by an authorized editor of U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Rhode and Andrade: Lost Colony: The Untold Story of China’s First Great Victory over

BOO K REVIEWS

how chenggong defeated the dutch in

A ndrade, Tonio. Lost Colony: The Untold Story of China’s First Great Victory over the West. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 2011. 456pp. $35

Written on several levels, Lost Colony is in the Islands in the Taiwan at the same time a Ming–Qing transi- Strait eastward to Taiwan itself, where tion history, a Chinese maritime and the Dutch reestablished their prem- naval history of the seventeenth century, ises in swampy area farther from the and a global historical argument about center of their desired trade con- the relative places of Europe and Asia nections along the Chinese coast. in world history. Extensively researched The book is replete with stories of how in Chinese, Dutch, and English sources, natural phenomena, such as typhoons the book tells the engaging story of and storms, affected and helped deter- Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong), a Ming mine military outcomes, as in Koxinga’s loyalist who failed to remove the Qing first campaign, in 1658, to take Nan- from in 1659 but did defeat and jing from the Manchu Qing. Koxinga’s remove the Dutch from Taiwan in 1662. force included something like 150,000 Born of a Chinese father and a Japanese troops on ships, the largest naval force mother, Koxinga was trained early as a put together in Chinese history up to samurai in and later as a Confu- that time. The force was devastated by cian scholar in China, where he passed storms en route to engagement and was arduous stages of the imperial examina­ forced to turn back. Koxinga’s second tions. This complex background, campaign to take Nanjing, in 1659, is including his difficult relationship with a fascinating study of early military his larger-than-life father, challenged success followed by failure. Koxinga Koxinga to become a major force dur- did not heed the advice of his lead- ing the Ming–Qing transition period. ing field commanders. His decision- Koxinga’s father, , was making process led to defeat in this the founder of a great Zheng family second campaign against the Qing. legacy on the coast. Elements The core of the narrative goes on to of his colorful tale are recounted in the page-turning saga of Koxinga’s the early part of the book. In 1625 subsequent campaign to take Tai- he pushed the Dutch from their fort wan from the Dutch, including their

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NWC_Spring2013Review.indb 121 2/26/13 8:48 AM 122 Naval war collegeNaval rev Warie wCollege Review, Vol. 66 [2013], No. 2, Art. 11

fortress Zeelandia, near present-day military capabilities decade by de- . Koxinga succeeded in taking cade. Thus the Chinese were to be at the fortress and driving the remain- a distinct military disadvantage when ing Dutch back to Batavia (currently the Opium Wars began in 1839, and Jakarta) over the course of a bit- the century of humiliation for China terly contested nine-month siege. was by that time a fait accompli with Andrade compares Chinese seventeenth- respect to relative military advantage. century military capabilities with those The book includes a fine set of maps of the Dutch, especially on four levels. and figures, as well as a dust jacket His conclusions are, first, that the with an evocative seventeenth-century technology in guns was about equal but painting by Andries Beckman of the that second, the military discipline of Dutch fort at Batavia. The Dutch the Chinese was better than that of the governor of Taiwan, Frederick Coyet, Dutch, whose discipline was vaunted was executed symbolically in front in Europe at the time. Third, as for of this fort for losing the profit- ships, the ability of the Dutch ships to able colony of Taiwan to Koxinga. sail to windward gave them an edge grant f. rhode over Chinese. Fourth, although the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies Chinese outnumbered the Dutch by a Harvard University large margin, the Renaissance fortress configuration, with corner battle- ments, allowed the Dutch to hold out for many months before surrendering. That was long enough for Koxinga to L o Jung-pang, edited by Bruce Elleman. China as study and absorb the technology of a Sea Power: A Preliminary Survey of the Mari- the Renaissance fort and incorporate it time Expansion and Naval Exploits of the Chinese into his own counterstrategy. Each side People during the Southern Song and Yuan Peri- ods. Singapore: National Univ. of Singapore Press, had elements of relative strength, and 2012. 378pp. $35 the elements were not static in terms of relative advantage. Thus, Andrade L o Jung-pang (1912–81), the scion of proposes, during the seventeenth a distinguished Chinese family, was century China was fairly similar to a great historian, old enough to have Europe in terms of military capabilities. received a traditional Chinese educa- tion when young and young enough Koxinga and his heirs controlled Taiwan to have mastered the Western way as until 1683, when they were defeated by a student abroad. Like many of his a former Zheng family commander, Shi cohorts, he chose exile, becoming one Lang, who had defected to support the of those who for decades kept the study Qing emperor. Andrade makes the in- of China alive outside the country until teresting observation that the Qing dy- the post-Mao liberalization of the 1980s nasty, following the Taiwan campaigns allowed its resumption at home. Lo, of the late 1600s, was an era of 160 a long-serving professor and histo- years of peace in China, requiring little rian in the United States, focused on in the way of military advancement. China’s great middle era and launched Meanwhile, Europe was embroiled in the field of China’s maritime history. nearly constant warfare, improving its Bruce Elleman’s unearthing and editing

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