Qualla: Kingdom of Tungning

Kingdom of Tungning: Introduction

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gisling, CC BY 3.0. A man named He Bin changed the history of Taiwan with a map. He had worked for the Dutch East India Company, knew the defenses of Fort Zeelandia intimately, and in 1661 he fled to Xiamen and handed everything he knew to Zheng Chenggong, the Ming loyalist warlord the Europeans called Koxinga. Within weeks, Koxinga set sail from Kinmen with four hundred ships and twenty-five thousand soldiers. He was not coming to trade. He was coming to build a kingdom.

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Image: Gisling | CC BY 3.0

Kingdom of Tungning: The Lord of the Imperial Surname

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit SY, CC BY-SA 4.0. Zheng Chenggong spent his first seven years in Japan with his mother, Tagawa Matsu, before moving to Fujian Province to study. He earned a county-level licentiate at fifteen and later attended the Imperial Academy in Nanjing. When the Manchu-led Qing dynasty overwhelmed the Ming ...

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Image: SY | CC BY-SA 4.0

Kingdom of Tungning: The Fall of Fort Zeelandia

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jan van Baden, Public domain. Koxinga's fleet arrived at Tayouan on April 2, 1661. His forces routed 240 Dutch soldiers on Baxemboy Island, and when the Dutch warship Hector exploded after a cannon ignited its powder magazine, the remaining two vessels could not hold the harbor. Fort Provintia surrendered on ...

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Image: Jan van Baden | Public domain

Kingdom of Tungning: Building Dongning

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Bronski, Public domain. Koxinga transformed Taiwan into a seat of power modeled on Ming institutions. He established a government based on the Six Ministries and imposed Confucian order with rigid conviction. According to accounts, he held banquets where ministers reminisced about the fall of the Ming, ...

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Image: David Bronski | Public domain

Kingdom of Tungning: A Maritime Power

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pvt pauline, CC BY-SA 3.0. Tungning was no isolated island backwater. Zheng merchant fleets plied the routes between Japan and Southeast Asia, extracting tributary taxes from private traders for safe passage through the Taiwan Strait. The kingdom held monopolies on sugarcane and deer skin, commodities that...

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Image: Pvt pauline | CC BY-SA 3.0

Kingdom of Tungning: The End of the Zheng Dynasty

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Johannes Vingboons, Public domain. The Qing never forgot about Taiwan. Admiral Shi Lang, a former Zheng officer whose father and brother Koxinga had executed in 1651, spent decades advocating for an invasion. After Zheng Jing died in 1681 and a coup placed his young son Zheng Keshuang on the throne, the kingdom fr...

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Image: Johannes Vingboons | Public domain