Taiwan - Early History
There is no general agreement regarding the origin of Taiwan's aboriginal population or the dates of original settlement. According to differing hypotheses, most of the original population came from the mainland of South China, from the Malay Peninsula, from Luzon, or from the Ryukyu Islands. According to some authorities, what are now called aboriginal groups began arriving on the island about 1500 B.C. (see ch. 4, Ethnic Groups and Languages).
The Chinese court became aware of the existence of Taiwan in the third century AD, as the first Chinese groups began settling the coast of China opposite Taiwan. Taiwan's mountain peaks are visible from the mainland on a clear day. The Chinese claim to have sent an envoy to the island during the Suy dynasty, which was overthrown in 620 A.D. This claim is entirely probable. With junks, such as the Chinese possessed hundreds of years ago, it is not credible that they could sail through the Formosa Channel year after year without seeing the island and touching it somewhere. There is evidence that Chinese fishermen landed on the Pescadores (Penghu) Islands as early as the seventh century AD, but as far as is known definitely, the first Chinese, mainly Hakkas, began settling on Taiwan in small groups during the twelfth century.
During the thirteenth century the Hakka settlers were displaced and were forced, by larger migrations of Hoklo Chinese from the Amoy area of Fukien province, to move to less desirable land farther inland. At about the same time Japanese pirates established bases of operations on the northern coast, in the neighborhood of present-day Keelung. Chinese pirates used southwestern Taiwan for the same purpose.
A Portuguese fleet, under Admiral Andrade, for the first time brought the existence of Taiwan to the attention of Europeans in 1517. The Portuguese gave the island the name it came to have in Europe, Ilha Formosa (Beautiful Island), but established no settlements. The first Europeans to stay in Formosa were Portuguese, who settled there in 1590. The Dutch landed in 1624, and two years later were followed by the Spaniards. The Dutch expelled the Spaniards in 1642, The Dutch and then the Spaniards constructed forts in the southwest and the north, respectively, as part of their struggle for political control of the Philippines and in competition for dominance of trade with China.
When the Dutch first landed in 1622, there were no more than 25,000 Chinese on the island. By this time the Japanese officially had established themselves in the north, but they withdrew in 1628 in conformity with their new policy of national seclusion. The Spaniards were expelled by the Dutch in 1642, who, in turn, were expelled by the Chinese in 1662. By this time there were more than 100,000 Chinese on the island as a result of the Dutch policy of encouraging immigration.
Koxinga's father, Cheng Chih-lung, had been a Fukienese tailor of Hakka origin who abandoned his trade to become a merchant. In the course of his travels he spent considerable time in Macao, where he became a Christian, and in Nagasaki, where he married a girl of a samurai family. After his return from Japan he prospered by combining trade with piracy. He was able to amass a large enough fortune to purchase a fleet of 3,000 vessels, which he later placed at the service of the Ming cause in the struggle against the Manchus.
Known to the Portuguese of the day as Iquon, this leader of a large fleet of junks, traders or pirates as occasion served, was compelled to place his services at the command of the last sovereign of the Ming dynasty, in whose cause he fought against the Manchu invaders along the coasts of Fuhkien and Kuangtung. In 1628 he tendered his submission to the Manchus, and for a time was well treated, and cleared the seas of other pirates. Gradually, however, he became too powerful, and it was deemed necessary to restrain him by force. He was finally induced to surrender to the Manchu general in Fuhkien ; and having been made a prisoner, was sent to Peking, with two of his sons by a Japanese wife, together with other of his adherents, all of whom were executed upon arrival, leaving his fleet and the leadership of the Ming cause to his son, Koxinga.
After the last Ming ruler, Lung Wu, had been forced by the Manchus to move his capital to Foochow, in South China, his principal hope for defeating the Manchus was the fleet commanded by Koxinga, which had grown to more than 12,000 vessels and was combined with a land army of 120,000. In return, Koxinga formally was made a member of the imperial family.
Koxinga was loyal to the Ming dynasty, and when the Tartars came down from Manchuria, and Sun-ti was proclaimed emperor, Koxinga refused to submit to the usurper. He continued to molest the coast to such a degree that in 1665 the emperor ordered all the people to retire nine miles in and to escape Kozinga's grasp. One might suppose that an emperor strong enough to secure such obedience from his subjects might easily have defended his maritime provinces against attack; but such is Chinese strength and weakness.
After the Manchus had crushed pro-Ming resistance groups in the rest of China they were able to concentrate their forces in the southeast, where Koxinga had control over 72 coastal garrisons in Kwantung and Fukien provinces. Under Manchu pressure Koxinga was forced to transfer his base of operations to Taiwan. There, in 1662, he defeated and expelled the Dutch after a 9 months' siege of Fort Zeelandia. Having failed to reach the subjects of the empire, Koxinga crossed the channel, drove the Dutch out of Formosa, and proclaimed himself first king of the island. His reign was brief and stormy. Koxinga set out systematically to eliminate all traces of Dutch rule and administration and to supplant them by institutions modeled after those on the mainland.
After consolidating his control of Taiwan, Koxinga prepared an armed expedition to wrest the Philippines from the Spaniards, but he died, at the age of 39, before launching his campaign. After his death his son, Cheng Ching, ruled Taiwan for 16 years and continued to harass Manchu forces on the mainland. On his deathbed Cheng Ching left the throne to his illegitimate son and thereby doomed the Ming cause, since many of his subjects refused to recognize his son as the rightful ruler. In 1683 his successors were dethroned by the Chinese emperor and Formosa made a dependency of the Fu-kien province.
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