165

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE PASSIONS OF A MERCHANT PRINCE 1654–1657

Challenging all limitations 1654–1656

At the beginning of 1650s, firmly in command of his newly recruited pri- vate soldiers and by exploiting the rich Taiwan trade Coxinga managed to supplant the Macau trade. His unremitting exertions also enabled him to incorporate the Ming garrison in Amoy into his private army. By choos- ing the Ming Yung-li Emperor as the symbol to legitimate his local lead- ership, he ensured the consolidation of his combined army corps by throwing it into several battles against the Manchus in the Chang-chou region in 1652 and 1653. By the time the Manchu Emperor Shun-chih sent delegates to negotiate with him, his status as the leader of the An-hai merchants and Amoy troops was uncontested. On the other hand, changes in China’s foreign trade were already on the horizon. Ming resist- ance in Chekiang collapsed in 1651 and the Manchus were besieging Canton and Macau. Hence, when the bans on foreign trade were imple- mented along most of the Manchu coast, Amoy remained the only active overseas trading port and silk exports were concentrated there.

Table 11.1 The concentration of Chinese raw silk exports during 1651–1654 ______Year Total Exported from Coxinga’s areas Percentage ______(catties) (catties) 1651 66,717 5,950 (An-hai+Chang-chou) 8 1652.11–1653.11 88,150 49,150 (An-hai+Chang-chou) 55 58,150 (An-hai+Chang-chou+ 65 Foochow) 1653.10–1654.9.25 71,900 44,050 (An-hai+Ch’üan-chou) 61 56,500 (An-hai+Ch’üan-chou+ 78 ______Foochow) Source: Nagazumi, T¯osen yushutsuny¯uhin s¯ury¯o ichiran, 336-7; 48-50; 52-8; 58-61. The total amount is cited directly from the report in the VOC account. The numbers for the separate areas are the sums of the single inventories of each junk, but do not cover every junk arriving in Japan. Therefore, the amounts from the different areas are the lower esti- mates. The raw silk and white silk in the different inventories are all counted as raw silk. The largest shift in the export-volume happened in 1652, when Coxinga and the Manchus were fighting in the vicinity of Chang-chou and Hai- ch’eng. The proximity of these battlefields distracted the Manchu troops from supervising the main overland trading route that led from An-hai to 166 CHAPTER ELEVEN

Foochow. Freed from this burden, An-hai merchants armed with passes issued by Iquan in Foochow continued to enjoy free access to raw silk and silk goods throughout an area reaching as far as Nanking (including all of the Kiangnan region, the centre of silk production in China).1 When the terms of the truce came into force after September 1653, the An-hai mer- chants stepped up their activities and Coxinga’s tax collectors scattered all over the coastal areas, covering all the districts and villages in the Chang- chou, Ch’üan-chou, and Hsing-hua prefectures. Limited garrisons of Manchu soldiers closed themselves up behind the walls of the main cities so Coxinga’s officials could post placards wherever they arrived and har- vested rice from the fields as tax in kind.2 In this fashion, the Sino– Japanese silk trade fell like a ripe plum into the hands of the An-hai merchants, as the table shows. Frustrated and dissatisfied, the Manchu delegates left An-hai on 3 November 1654.3 Coxinga steadfastly refused to give the Shun-chih Emperor any official reply, but he did write to his father Iquan and had the letter delivered in Peking by his private servant. Iquan passed on his message to the Shun-chih Emperor on 22 December. Five days later, the emperor and his court concluded that the empire could no longer permit Coxinga’s merchants to range over any more of the coast, but this is as far as he went.4 He had not yet developed a more comprehensive plan for a new campaign. In the south, Coxinga did his best to carry out the usual rice-collecting operations and to keep the rice trade going in the Ch’ao-chou area. He sent his troops into the Ch’ao-chou region as the Cheng clan used to do in the 1630s and, on 30 November 1654, he dispatched troops overland to the Chieh-yang and Ch’ao-yang regions to purchase or levy rice.5 These troops ran the risk of naval attack from a local fleet of 150 junks that had surrendered to the Manchus and was operating in the area. The fleet was under the command of Su Li (Soulacq [D.]) who resided in Chieh-shih.6 This Su Li had originally been the leader of an independent, native group that had organized itself in the wake of the collapse of the Ming admin- istration. The governor of Taiwan Cornelis Caesar reported to the Batavian authorities that ‘He used to be a friend of both the Manchus and of Coxinga, but recently he has surrendered to the Manchus.’7 The Ping- nan viceroy and Ching-nan viceroy stated in their letter to the Manchu court: ‘Su Li is from a family with its roots in Chieh-shih. His soldiers or self-defence corps are all natives and most of them have private junks at their disposal. They earn their livelihood by fishing and exporting salt.’8 After the Manchu troops had invaded Canton city in 1651 and expelled the defeated Ming troops to Hai-nan Island, Su Li put his junks at the disposal of the Manchus.9 In May of 1654, the Manchu authorities in Kwangtung petitioned the Shun-chih Emperor for permission to