Zheng Family Period of Rule, 1661-1683
Zheng Chenggong committed these forces to the
resistance against the Qing Dynasty that had supplanted the Ming in 1644. Zheng Chenggong’s heyday as an anti-Qing
rebel came during the years 1658-1660, during which armed forces under his
command captured Zhenjiang, the capital of Jiangsu Province, and for a time
threatened Nanjing. But by 1660, Zheng
Chenggong was in retreat and in need of a new base of operations. He looked across the Taiwan Strait and saw a
redoubt that had great appeal. He and a
crony by the name of He Bin organized coordinated attacks from Penghu and
through the Luermen Waterway respectively and after a protracted siege of Fort
Zeelandia (Fort Provintia had fallen quickly), took control of the Tainan area
by the waning months of 1661. Zheng
Chenggong died in June 1662, at which time leadership passed to his son, Zheng
Jing. Zheng Jing passed day to day rule
for much of his 1662-1681 tenure as leader to trusted official Chen Yonghua,
whose importance was especially magnified during the period 1673-1680 when Zheng Jing was often in southern China
resuming the anti-Qing activities of his father. On Taiwan, the Zheng regime ruled over what
were now dubbed “Official’s Lands” with extractive policies similar to those
that had prevailed during the Dutch period of rule. So, too, did recruitment of Han Chinese
immigrants from Fujian (especially from Quanzhou and Zhangzhou) and Guangdong
(especially Hakka people from the Chaozhou and Huizhou areas) continue; the Zheng regime put these recruits to work
not only as farmers but also as soldiers deployed in the military activities of
Zheng Jing.[i] By the end of the Zheng tenure on Taiwan in
1683, the Han Chinese population had risen to about 175,000, now rivaling the
aboriginal population of about 300,000.
This termination of Zheng family rule came with the
third outside occupation of Taiwan, this by the Qing Dynasty.
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