In the history of the Ming Dynasty, there was a period of rampant Wokou, and after that, after the suppression of the imperial court and the gradual opening of the sea ban, the number of Wokou suddenly declined a lot. However, the Ming government of this period still restricted trade with Japan, and it was still limited to open trade to Southeast Asia, which gave a large number of pirates a space to survive.
By the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, there was a powerful force in the southeast coast of China, which affected the stability of the southeast Asian seas, which also attracted the attention of the European colonists who were expanding outward at this time.
They are the Zheng Chenggong family forces.
Here, let's first talk about how powerful Zheng Chenggong's family really is. Based in Tainan and Nagasaki in Japan, he had more than 3,000 large ships and an army of more than 200,000 men at his peak. There were everyone in this army, including Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and even black Africans. At that time, anyone who wanted to do business in Southeast Asia had to pay protection fees to the Zheng Chenggong family, and after that, they could get a flag of the Zheng family, and with this flag they could sail safely.
Due to maritime exchanges, the Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese and other maritime powers have contact with the Zheng Chenggong family, and many records about this family have also been recorded. It should be said that from the eyes of Westerners, the rise and fall of the Zheng Chenggong family is still relatively objective, so these materials are more precious and can restore the state at that time to the greatest extent. However, these Western literatures have not received enough attention, and their development has not been as in-depth as the development of Chinese literature.
We learn about Zheng Chenggong's family information from Western literature, which is generally obtained from Dutch literature, and rarely covers Spanish and Portuguese literature, but the literature of these two languages has more and more comprehensive records of this family. This article will bring you a record of the deeds of the Zheng Chenggong family in Spanish literature, which was written by three Catholic priests in the 17th century, from which we can see a lot of precious historical materials and have a preliminary understanding of the reasons for the rise and fall of the Zheng family.
Born in 1621 in the famous Italian family of Lee, he joined the then famous Dominican Church in 1631 and became a professor after graduating from the Académie San Domer in Rome, specializing in philosophy. At that time, Europe was expanding to the whole world, and many believers traveled all over the world, hoping to bring the indigenous holy religion to the whole world and let people everywhere believe in this sacred religion.
The Victorious Faith Dominicans, at the call of others, joined the process of spreading the Holy Religion outward. Rikatsu traveled to the Philippines to spread the great Dominicans in the Spanish colonies. Li Sheng was arranged to spread the holy religion to the local people in the Balian district, a gathering place for Chinese merchants in southern Fujian. As a result of years of contact, Lisheng learned the Chinese Hokkien language and Chinese characters. In 1655, Lee Shing was commissioned by the Dominican Society of Manila to go to the minnan region of China as a missionary and stayed there.
It was this dispatch that changed the fate of Li Sheng, whose main task in southern Fujian was to serve as a messenger to help Manila and the Dominican Association in Fujian, China, to pass on information. Since then, Li Sheng has been preaching in minnan, where the Zheng family is located, and began to have contact with the Zheng family. In 1663, Zheng Jiajun lost the bases of Xiamen and Kinmen one after another, and could only return to the isolated island of Taiwan.
Li Sheng was now on a mission in Quanzhou, and because Yang Guangxian had set off a campaign against the pagans, the Qing government began to oppose Western missionary activities, arresting missionaries everywhere. As a result, Li sheng's missionary activities along China's southeast coast must stop. Li Sheng could not stay in Chinese mainland and could only go to Taiwan. In 1666, Lee Seng took a ship from the East India Company to The Chicken Coop in Taiwan. Li Sheng did not stay in Taiwan for a long time, but he still knew more about the Zheng family in Taiwan.
He was appointed by the Dutch to negotiate with the Cheng family. In the same year, Li Sheng left Taiwan and returned to Manila. Lee Schaing wanted Spain to resume trade with the Dutch, so as soon as he returned to Manila, he began to persuade the Spanish colonists. However, his proposal was not approved and caused trouble: he was abandoned by the Spanish colonists. He was later released on bail and returned to Manila to recuperate in the hospital.
During this period, Li Sheng was commissioned by the church to write the situation of the Dominican Mission in China, and eventually, the manuscript compiled by Li Sheng became an important document. Li Sheng later tried to return to China to continue his missionary work, but the Chinese emperor no longer allowed such missionary activities, and Li Sheng could not go back. In February 1685, Lee Sheng died in Manila. It can be said that Li Sheng was the Catholic missionary who had the most contact with the Zheng family in the 17th century.
Due to the convenience of the region, Lisheng had close contacts with the Zheng family, and he witnessed many military activities about the Zheng family, which became the material for Lisheng's books. In his manuscript "The Achievements of the Dominican Association in the Chinese Empire", he recorded many precious materials of the Zheng family, including some important deeds of Zheng Chenggong's father, Zheng Zhilong. Zheng Zhilong was a key figure in the rise of the Zheng family, but unfortunately, there are very few records of Zheng Zhilong's early experience in the Chinese literature.
Therefore, this also makes Zheng Zhilong's early career very mysterious. However, There are many records of Zheng Zhilong's early records in Lisheng's literature. Zheng Zhilong was born in a small fishing village along the coast, and due to the poverty of his family, Zheng Zhilong had to develop outward and look for opportunities to turn around. He came to Macau, where Zheng zhilong was baptized in religion under the name "Nicholas" and then to Manila. In both places, Nicholas worked at the lower end.
Zheng Zhilong later went to Japan and joined an uncle who had already made a fortune. The uncle saw that Zheng Zhilong was very resourceful, so he let him manage the business, and completed the wedding for him, marrying a Japanese woman to him. Zheng Zhilong had two sons with the Japanese woman. Our Chinese literature records very little about Zheng Zhilong, and it is not known whether he went to Manila and Japan, but now, Lisheng's literature confirms to us that he did go to these two places.
Previously, most of the documents we read about Zheng Zhilong's deeds were completed in the 18th century, and these books were separated by one or two centuries from the deeds, so the authenticity of these documents is difficult to identify, and we cannot believe them all. Until the discovery of Li Sheng's literature, his literature publication time and deeds occurred recently, it can be said that it is the earliest document to record the deeds of Zheng Zhilong. Therefore, the credibility of Lisheng's literature is still very high.
In the second half of the literature, LiSheng records the deeds of Zheng Zhilong as a merchant and a Kou, whose strength continued to grow, and was surrendered to the Ming Dynasty and became a local official... Of course, there was also the situation where Zheng Zhilong surrendered to the Qing government and was killed in rebellion.
In order to completely eliminate the Zheng family, during the Shunzhi period, the Qing government implemented a decree prohibiting the sea from moving borders, requiring all residents of the coastal areas of Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong bordering Taiwan to move to the interior, and set defensive boundaries, and no residents should go to the sea or trade. This decree brought great disaster to the coastal people, and all the villages and fields within thirty miles offshore were burned down, especially in the southern Fujian region, where the fire burned for two months, and the scene was in a terrible state.
At this time, Li Sheng was preaching in China, traveling back and forth between Xiamen and Kinmen, taking care of the local wounded people, and witnessing the harm caused by this barbaric decree, writing down what he had seen and heard in the literature. According to Li Sheng's account, the Qing army burned everything on the southeast coast, the fire burned for several weeks, and the city of Xiamen did not see the sun for even three days. On the Taiwan side, Zheng Chenggong of the Zheng family decided to recover Taiwan in order to stabilize the Taiwan base.
Li Sheng did not accompany Zheng Chenggong to Taiwan to witness the process of recovering Taiwan, he stayed in Kinmen, but he witnessed the huge army when Zheng Chenggong went out. In April 1661, an army of 500 ships and 40,000 men marched to the island of Taiwan, and after more than a year of fierce fighting, the Dutch surrendered, and Zheng successfully occupied the island of Taiwan. It is worth noting that according to Lisheng records, about 9,000 soldiers were killed in this battle by Zheng Chenggong's army, while 632 people in the Netherlands died.
Other documents record the battle very little, and we can only learn about it from the literature of Victory.
Resources:
[Draft History of the Qing Dynasty, Vol. 224, Liechuan XI, "The Achievements of the Dominican Association in the Chinese Empire"]