Zheng Chenggong was a national hero during the Ming and Qing dynasties. He was great militarist and politician. Zheng Chenggong's greatest achievement was to expel the Dutch invaders and to recover and develop Taiwan on a large scale.
Background
Ethnicity:
His father was Chinese, but his mother was Japanese.
Zheng Chenggong (AD 1624-1662) returned to China when he was seven years old and he witnessed the collapse of the Ming dynasty at a young age. The country was weak, with internal and external troubles.
He was the commander of the imperial central army of Emperor Longwu. Years later, Emperor Yongli granted him the title King of Yanping for Zheng's allegiance to Ming Dynasty.
Zheng Chenggong devoted 16 years of his life to resisting the conquest of China by the Manchus of the Qing Dynasty. He occupied several small islands in today's Small Jinmen and Xiamen(a small island that was not connected to the mainland at that time). He had absolute control of the seas.
In 1661, when Emperor Kangxi ascended the throne, he effectively cut off Zheng Chenggong's finances. Because of this crisis, Zheng Chenggong had to give up his military base in the nearby islands. His military focus shifted from the southeastern coast to Taiwan, which had long been occupied by foreign forces like the Portuguese, Spanish, English and Dutch. Zheng Chenggong decided on Taiwan as his new military base.
Zheng Chenggong died of malaria at the end of 1662.
Education
Zheng Chenggong's teacher was a patriot who taught him stories of heroes.
Zheng Chenggong was intelligent and well-read. At the age of eight, he could recite the Four Books and Five Classics and at 10 he could write eight-legged essays. When he was 12, he presented an article on "Advancing and Retreating" to express his views on the cultivation of individual character, the government of a country, and ruling the world.
Career
In the third year of Shunzhi ( the second year of Longwu,1646), the Qing army conquered Fujian and Emperor Longwu was killed. Zheng Chenggong's father agreed to be enlisted by the grand scholar Hong Chengshou and surrendered himself to the Qing forces in the north, despite objections from his son. At this time, the Qing army stormed the Zheng family's hometown. Chenggong's mother killed herself.
Seething with hatred, Zheng Chenggong began his battle in Lie Island (Small Jinmen) in 12yh month of the second year of Longwu (January 1647). The title on his flag read "Zheng Chenggong, Duke of Zhongxian, to suppress the guilty". In the 3d year of Yongli (1649), he pledged allegiance to Emperor Yongli of the Ming Dynasty. Emperor Yongli granted him the title King of Yanping.
Between 1651 and 1652, Zheng Chenggong enjoyed three major military successes in Minnan, Haicheng, and other areas. He greatly undermined the Qing military might in the Min region. Zheng Chenggong cleverly made use of the fact that the Qing army was not familiar with naval battles. He lured the Qing forces to fight with him on the sea. In the following year the Manchus were defeated and they lost most of their fleet in the battle near Xiamen.
Zheng Chenggong with 25 000 soldiers and several hundred warrior vessels, moved from Jinmen via Penghu and disembarked at Lu'ermen and Heliao harbour unexpectedly. After nine month of hard fighting, Zheng Chenggong, with support from the Han people that his father had helped to emifrate, defeated the Dutch colonists in 1662, forcing the Dutch forces to surrender on the 1st February 1662 and to sign a peace treaty therefore leaving Taiwan.