Culminating our series on Chinese national heroes, we tell the history-changing story of Zheng Chenggong, known in Western sources as "Koxinga," literally "Lord Imperial Surname."Born in 1624 to a Japanese mother and a Chinese father who happened to be the greatest pirate in the Pacific, Koxinga was just old enough to stand and be counted when, in 1644, the Ming Dynasty began collapsing all around him. With the Chongzhen Emperor dead in Beijing and the Manchu cavalry having breached the Great Wall, what remained of the Ming regime withdrew to southern China and fought desperately for survival. Amidst the chaos, after the Manchus killed his mother and imprisoned his father, Koxinga swore eternal vengeance against the Manchus and undying loyalty to the Ming. An energetic military leader, he soon became the Ming's last best hope for restoration, at one point retaking a large swath of central China.By 1661, though, Koxinga had concluded that the areas he controlled on China's southeastern coast were insufficient for his purposes, and his position on the Mainland had grown untenable. He needed a new base, and he looked eastward to Taiwan, at this time administered by Dutch colonists. His landing outside the city of Tainan and his victory over the Dutch are now often considered Taiwan's founding moment, when the island inexorably began a new historical path leading to today...
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