Zheng Family

The founder of the Zheng family's power, Zheng Zhilong (c. 1590–1662), appears in reliably dated sources in 1622, already with connections in Macao, in Japan, and among the lawless settlements of Chinese on Taiwan. After a Dutch attack on Macao and on islands in the Taiwan Strait in 1622 to 1624, Zheng and an associate persuaded the Dutch to move to Taiwan; thereafter Chinese, many associated with or making payments to Zheng, came to trade with them.

After Beijing fell to the Qing in 1644, Zheng Zhilong dominated and then betrayed a Ming Loyalist court in Fujian; the Qing ultimately captured him. Zheng Cheng-gong (1624–1662), Zheng Zhilong's son by his Japanese wife, emerged from a power struggle in control of the Zheng fleets and maritime connections. He built up a tightly centralized military-commercial state, with disciplined troops and fleets and mercantile contacts in Qing-occupied cities. In the 1650s the Qing evacuated everyone within about 10 miles of the coast. Zheng retaliated with a great naval expedition and siege of Nanjing in 1659, but was defeated. In 1661 to 1662 he invaded Taiwan, driving out the Dutch. Taiwan had its first Chinese ruler, but Zheng died in June 1662.

Zheng Chenggong's son Zheng Jing (1661–1681) seized control of Taiwan, but about one-fourth of his forces defected to the Qing. Taiwan's trade revived slightly in the 1670s, but when Zheng Jing died in 1681 his regime was moribund. It collapsed after one sea battle in 1683, and Taiwan became part of the Qing Empire.

SEE ALSO China; Empire, Dutch; Empire, Ming; Empire, Qing; Free Trade, Theory and Practice; Gold and Silver; Guangzhou; Indonesia; Japan;Philippines;Piracy;Spices and the Spice Trade;Sugar, Molasses, and Rum;Theories of International Trade.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Struve, Lynn A. The Southern Ming, 1644–1662. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1984.

Wills, John E., Jr. "Maritime China from Wang Chih to Shih Lang: Themes in Peripheral History." In From Ming to Ch'ing: Conquest, Region, and Continuity in Seventeenth-Century China, ed. Jonathan D. Spence and John E. Wills, Jr. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1979, 1981.

John E. Wills Jr.