Koxinga's Controversial Father and Mysterious Mother: A Tragic Love Story

Abstract

Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong), who expelled the Dutch and established the first Han Chinese regime in Taiwan in 1662, has been “claimed” by various states as a hero wearing different hats. However, his Chinese father Zheng Zhilong's pirate and turncoat status and his Japanese mother Tagawa Matsu's unclear origin make his family's history rife with sex, violence, and betrayal. The existence of a Japanese (half-?) brother Tagawa Shichizaemon added more suspicions of the matrimony of his parents. This essay critically examines Chinese and Japanese primary sources and secondary literature to demonstrate how layer upon layer of accreted accounts twisted historical memories of the Zhengs every step of the way. One cannot but empathize with the family that lost many members to violent deaths and endured relentless prejudices in their struggle to transcend familial stigma while making history.

Keywords:

• Koxinga
• Taiwan
• Southern Ming
• Zheng Zhilong
• Tagawa Matsu
• overseas Chinese in Japan

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Linguistically, Taiwanese aboriginals were the ancestors of the 380 million Austronesians all over the world. See Robert Blust, “Subgrouping, Circularity and Extinction: Some Issues in Austronesian Comparative Linguistics.” Selected Papers from the 8th International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics. Taipei: Academia Sinica (1999, 1): 31–94. Prior to Koxinga, Han Chinese had come and gone without forming permanent settlement and China had never incorporated Taiwan into its territory.

2 Hirado, Japan, holds the festival on Koxinga's solar-calendar birthday, July 14. Fujian, China, holds the festival on Koxinga's lunar-calendar birthday, the 8th day of the 5th lunar month. Tainan, Taiwan, holds the week-long festival on the anniversary of Koxinga's first landing on Taiwan, from late April to early May. From 2013 onwards, China and Taiwan occasionally held joint festivals.

3 The more the Taiwanese intellectuals yearn for an idealized cultural China, which has been disappearing on the mainland, the less they favor a political unification. See Chun-Chieh Huang, Taiwan in Transformation: Retrospect and Prospect, 2nd ed. (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2014).

4 For a study of the evolving Taiwanese identity in the artistic fields, see June Yip, Envisioning Taiwan: Fiction, Cinema, and the Nation in the Cultural Imaginary (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004). Surveys conducted by the Election Study Center, National Chengchi University, from 1992 to 2022 show an increasing Taiwanese/decreasing Chinese identity among voters over the last three decades. Those who identify themselves as Taiwanese change from 17.6% to 60.8%; both Taiwanese and Chinese, from 46.4% to 32.9%; Chinese, from 25.5% to 2.7%; no response, from 10.5% to 3.6%. (esc.nccu.edu.tw).

5 Leonard Blussé, “Shame and Scandal in the Family: Dutch Eavesdropping on the Zheng Lineage,” in Sea Rovers, Silver, and Samurai: Maritime East Asia in Global History, 1550–1700, eds. Xing Hang and Tonio Andrade (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2016), 226–37.

6 The conventional date of Zheng Zhilong's birth is 1604. Leonard Blussé assesses it differently to be 1595 in “The VOC as Sorcerer's Apprentice: Stereotypes and Social Engineering on the China Coast,” in Leyden Studies in Sinology, ed. W. L. Idema (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 1981), 87–105. The birth date of 1595 is accepted by Tang Jintai 湯錦臺 in his Kaiqi Taiwan diyi ren Zheng Zhilong Nicolas Iquan 開啟臺灣第一人鄭芝龍, Nicolas Iquan (Taipei: Guoshi chuban, 2002), 39–40. John E. Wills Jr. puts the “plausible years of birth” of Zheng Zhilong even earlier, in 1592 or 1594. See John E. Wills Jr., “Yiguan's Origins: Clues from Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin Sources,” in Sea Rovers, Silver, and Samurai, 116.

7 Her dates are according to Zheng Keshuang's 鄭克塽 joint eulogy of his father and grandfather upon their reburial in the Chinese mainland, “Zheng Shi fuzang zu fu muzhiming 鄭氏附葬祖父墓志銘.” The eulogy was engraved on the tombstone. The original tombstone is missing, but a rubbing of the text is preserved in Koxinga Memorial Hall 鄭成功紀念館 in Xiamen 廈門, and a facsimile is printed in Zheng Chenggong wenwu shiji 鄭成功文物史迹 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2010), 98.

8 In Chinese count, a person is one year old at birth and two years old on the first Lunar New Year, so the Chinese age count is one or two years more than the Western count. The Chinese age count will be used throughout this essay.

9 Fan Shengxiong 范勝雄, Anping ren Zheng Chenggong 安平人鄭成功 (Tainan: Tainan City Government, 2000), 19.

10 Tonio Andrade, Lost Colony: The Untold Story of China's First Great Victory over the West (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011).

11 Li Shengyue 李勝嶽, “Zheng Chenggong de siyin kao 鄭成功的死因考,” Wenxian zhuankan 文獻專刊 1, no. 3 (August 1950): 116–17.

12 Melissa J. Brown, Is Taiwan Chinese? The Impact of Culture, Power, and Migration on Changing Identities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 43–44. An alternative account is that all the civilian as well as military Han settlers in Taiwan, numbering about 42,000, were called back to Qing China in 1683–88. See Wang Xianqian 王先謙, Donghua lu xuanji 東華錄選輯, Vol. 2, 清朝順治,康熙,雍正之三朝記錄 (Records of Shunzhi, Kangxi, and Yongzheng Reigns of the Qing Dynasty) (Taizhong: Taiwan Sheng Wenxian weiyuanhui, 1969), 280–81. Cited in Lin Mali 林媽利, Tujie Taiwan xueyuan: Cong jiyin yanjiu jieda Taiwan zuqun qiyuan 從基因研究解答台灣族群起源 (Taipei: Qianwei chubanshe, 2018), 60, to support her DNA research finding that most Taiwanese have more Austronesian than Chinese blood and share more DNA with South Asians than Southeast Asians.

13 Young-tsu Wong, China's Conquest of Taiwan in the Seventeenth Century: Victory at Full Moon (Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2017).

14 Shih-shan Henry Tsai, Maritime Taiwan: Historical Encounters with the East and the West (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2009).

15 For a recent study of the rise and fall of the Zheng maritime empire, see Xing Hang, Conflict and Commerce in Maritime East Asia: the Zheng Family and the Shaping of the Modern World, c. 1620–1720 (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2016), and “The Shogun's Chinese Partners: The Alliance between Tokugawa Japan and the Zheng Family in Seventeenth-Century Maritime East Asia,” The Journal of Asian Studies 75, no. 1 (2016): 111–36.

16 Zheng Chenggong zupu san zhong 鄭成功族譜三種 (Three editions of Koxinga genealogies) (Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 1986).

17 Deng Zhijie 鄧至傑, “Zheng Chenggong di jiu shi sun yinxing maiming zai Nan’ao 鄭成功第九世孫隱姓埋名在南澳,” Haiwai xueren 海外學人 303 (July 1999): 74–79.

18 Wang Yude was a renowned Taiwanese linguist. After his brother was martyred in the February 28 Incident of 1947, he escaped first to Hong Kong then to Japan to avoid the White Terror of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist regime. He never returned home. His most famous book about Taiwan is Taiwan: Kumen de lishi 臺灣：苦悶的歷史 (Taipei: Caogen chuban shiye youxian gongsi, 1999).

19 Shi Ming left Taiwan and went to mainland China to join the Chinese Communist Party in 1943. Disillusioned with the Communists, he returned to Taiwan in 1949. For his failed assassination attempt at Chiang Kai-shek's life, he was charged with treason and ran away to Japan in 1952. After Taiwan was democratized, he returned to Taiwan in 1993 and was pardoned. He became the President's Consultant in 2016. His most important work on Taiwan is Taiwan ren sibai nian shi 臺灣人四百年史 (Four Hundred Years of Taiwanese History). (Taipei: Nantian shuju, 2014).

20 For a study of Koxinga's images in contemporary pro-autonomy Taiwanese comic books, see Peter Kang, “Koxinga and His Maritime Regime in the Popular Historical Writings of Post-Cold War Taiwan,” in Sea Rovers, Silver, and Samurai, 335–52.

21 Inagaki Sonoto 稻垣其外, Tei Seikō 鄭成功 (Taihoku, 1929), 44. Hayashi Gahō 林春勝 (1618–88) and Hayashi Hōkō 林信篤 (1644–1732), Kai hentai 華夷變態 (preface dated 1674 by Hayashi Gahō; published by Hayashi Hōkō later than 1724), Tōyō Bunko sōkan 東洋文庫叢刊 (Tokyo: Tōyō Bunko, 1958), 16.

22 Zheng Dayu, Jingguo xionglue. 1646 woodblock print preserved in Harvard Yenching Library. Ralph C. Croizier, Koxinga and Chinese Nationalism: History, Myth, and the Hero (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977).

23 Meicun Yeshi, Luqiao jiwen, in Taiwan lishi wenxian congkan 臺灣歷史文獻叢刊 (Nantou: Taiwan Sheng Wenxian weiyuanhui, 1995), 59.

24 Huacun Kanxing shizhe, Tan wang, Shiyuan congshu 適園叢書, in Congshu jicheng xubian 叢書集成續編 (Taipei: Xin Wenfeng chuban gongsi, 1989), 1: 35a.

25 Ji Liuqi, Ming ji bei lue, Ming Qing shiliao huibian 明清史料彙編 (Yonghe, Taipei County: Wenhai, 1968), 11:24b–25a.

26 Chen Bisheng, Zheng Chenggong lishi yanjiu 郑成功历史研究 (Beijing: Jiuzhou chubanshe, 2000), 77–78.

27 Zheng Chenggong zupu san zhong, 6, 45.

28 Jiang Risheng, Taiwan waiji (Taipei: Wenhua tushu gongsi, 1988), Ch. 1, p. 2.

29 Jiang Risheng, Taiwan waiji, Ch. 1, p. 3.

30 Zheng Chenggong zupu san zhong, 83.

31 Tang Jintai, Kaiqi Taiwan diyi ren Zheng Zhilong, 59.

32 John E. Wills, Jr., “Yiguan's Origins,” 121.

33 For the history of Chinese community in Japan during the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries, see Patrizia Carioti, “The Origins of the Chinese Community of Nagasaki, 1571–1635,” Ming Qing Yanjiu 14, no. 1 (2006): 1–29.

34 Cited in Kawaguchi Choju 川口長孺, Taiwan Teishi ki ji 臺灣鄭氏紀事 (preface dated 1828), Taiwan wenxian congkan 臺灣文獻叢刊 (Taipei: Bank of Taiwan, 1958), 2; Inagaki Sonoto, Tei Seikō, 42, 44, 45.

35 A rubbing is printed in Zheng Chenggong wenwu shiji 鄭成功文物史迹 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2010), 8.

36 Hayashi Gahō and Hayashi Hōkō, Kai hentai, 15.

37 Kawaguchi Choju, Taiwan Teishi ki ji, 2–3.

38 Inagaki Sonoto, Tei Seikō, 45.

39 Jiang Risheng, Taiwan waiji, Ch. 1, p. 3.

40 Tang Jintai, Kaiqi Taiwan diyi ren Zheng Zhilong, 81.

41 Shen Yun, Taiwan Zheng Shi shimo 臺灣鄭氏始末 (Wuxing: Liu Shi Jiaye Tang, 1919), 3:2a–b.

42 Saitō Kōji 齊藤孝治, Mitsuwa: Tei Seikō yibun 秘話：鄭成功異聞 (Tokyo: Inaha shōhō, 2013), 468–69.

43 Ming ji bei lue, 11:25a–b; Tan wang, 1:35a–b.

44 Liu Xianting, Guangyang zaji, Congshu jicheng chubian 叢書集成初編 (Taipei: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1937), 2:69. Meicun Yeshi, Luqiao jiwen, 59.

45 Taiwan waizhi xiuxiang Wu hu nao Nanjing zhuan 臺灣外志繡像五虎鬧南京傳, in Taiwan wenxian huikan 臺灣文獻匯刊, ed. Chen Zhiping 陳支平 (Xiamen: Xiamen Daxue chubanshe, 2004), Ch. 1, p. 429.

46 Jiang Risheng, Taiwan waiji, Ch. 1, p. 9.

47 Tang Jintai, Kaiqi Taiwan diyi ren, 75.

48 Xie Jinyan 謝進炎 and He Shizhong 何世忠, Zheng Chenggong chuanqixing de yisheng 鄭成功傳奇性的一生 (Tainan: Shifeng chubanshe, 2000), 51.

49 Ino Kanori 伊能嘉矩, “Zheng Shi yiwen (1) 鄭氏異聞 （一 ）,” Taiwan guanxi jishi 臺灣慣習記事 6, no. 8 (August 1906): 57. Chinese version translated by Li Rongnan 李榮南 and published by Taiwan Sheng Wenxian weiyuanhui 臺灣省文獻委員會 in 1992; original Japanese page number 36 (of 35–38).

50 Chen Bisheng, Zheng Chenggong lishi yanjiu, 80.

51 Kawaguchi Choju, Taiwan Teishi ki ji, 7.

52 Qian Chengzhi, Suo zhi lu, Taiwan wenxian congkan 臺灣文獻叢刊 (Taipei: Bank of Taiwan, 1960), 20.

53 Huang Zongxi, Sixing shimo, Taiwan lishi wenxian congkan 臺灣歷史文獻叢刊 (Nantou: Taiwan Sheng Wenxian weiyuanhui, 1995), 1.

54 Chen Bisheng, Zheng Chenggong lishi yanjiu, 80. Inagaki Sonoto, Tei Seikō, 4–5.

55 Becoming a maidservant in the household of a daimyo or high-ranking retainer allowed the girl to learn feminine deportment and home economics skills. The girl received nominal wages but her parents had to spend a fortune to provide for her. Such training resembled modern-day finishing schools for aspiring brides. See Anne Walthall, “The Life Cycle of Farm Women in Tokugawa Japan,” in Recreating Japanese Women, 1600–1945, ed. Gail Lee Bernstein (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 48.

56 Fukuzumi Nobukuni, Tei Seikō no haha 鄭成功の母 (Tokyo: Kodanshya, 1987), translated into Chinese by Ye Zhusuan 葉珠算 as Zheng Chenggong de Riben muqin 鄭成功的日本母親 (Yonghe, Taipei County: Daotian chubanshe, 1992).

57 Maruyama Masahiko 丸山正彥, “Taiwan kaichuang Zheng Chenggong 臺灣開創鄭成功” (1895), trans. Zhang Zhuliu 張鑄六, in Taiwan wenxian huikan, Ch. 2, 149; Xie and He, Zheng Chenggong chuanqixing de yisheng, 244; Zhou Zongxian, 周宗賢, Haishang youlong Zheng Chenggong 海上遊龍鄭成功 (Taipei: INK yinke wenxue, 2009), 175.

58 Information acquired during a personal visit on November 13, 2014.

59 Jiang Risheng, Taiwan waiji, Ch. 1, p. 7.

60 Xuxiu Siku quanshu tiyao續修四庫全書提要, “Shibu Zashi lei史部雜史類,” 453–54.

61 Weng Jiayin, “Shiqi shiji houban de Zhangzhou haishang yu tongshi 17世紀後半的漳州海商與通事,” Lishi Taiwan 歷史臺灣 6 (November 2013): 9.

62 Tang Jintai, Kaiqi Taiwan diyi ren Zheng Zhilong, 78–79.

63 Tang Jintai, Kaiqi Taiwan diyi ren Zheng Zhilong, 76.

64 Victorio Riccio, “Acts of the Order of Preachers in the Empire of China,” in Jose Eugenio Borao Mateo, Spaniards in Taiwan, Vol. II: 1642–1682 (Taipei: SMC Publishing 2002), 587.

65 Leonard Blussé, “Dueling Wills: Dutch Administration and Formosan Power, 1624–68,” in Early Modern East Asia: War, Commerce, and Cultural Exchange: Essays in Honor of John E. Wills, J., eds. Kenneth M. Swope and Tonio Andrade (London: Routledge, 2017), 65–82.

66 Jiang Risheng, Taiwan waiji, Ch.1, pp. 10–11.

67 Jiang Risheng, Taiwan waiji, Ch. 1, pp. 4–10.

68 Seiichi Iwao 岩生成一, “Li Tan, Chief of the Chinese Residents at Hirado, Japan, in the Last Days of the Ming Dynasty,” Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko 17 (1958): 27–83, trans. Xu Xianyao 許賢瑤, “Ming mo qiaoyu Riben Zhina ren Jiabidan Li Dan kao 明末僑寓日本支那人甲必丹李旦考,” Taibei wenxian 臺北文獻, Zhi zi 直字128 (June 1999): 203–05.

69 For a recent study of Li Dan, see Michael Laver, “One Neither Here nor There: Trade, Piracy, and the ‘Space Between’ in Early Modern East Asia,” in Sea Rovers, Silver, and Samurai, 28–37.

70 Weng Jiayin, “Shiqi shiji de Fulao haishang 十七世紀的福佬海商,” in Zhongguo haiyang fazhan shi lunwen ji 中國海洋發展史論文集, ed. Tang Xiyong 湯熙勇, Vol. 7A (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 1993), 75.

71 Mateo, Spaniards in Taiwan, Vol. I, 90–91.

72 John Wills Jr., “Yiquan's Origins,” 121.

73 Taiwan waiji, Ch. 1, pp. 11–12.

74 Taiwan waiji, Ch. 1, pp. 12–13.

75 Wei-chung Cheng, War, Trade and Piracy in the China Seas (1622–1683) (Leiden: Brill, 2013).

76 Cheng-heng Lu, “Between Bureaucrats and Bandits: The Rise of Zheng Zhilong and His Organization, the Zheng Ministry (Zheng Bu),” in Sea Rovers, Silver, and Samurai, 134.

77 Prior to meeting Tagawa in Japan, Zhilong had had a wife, née Chen 陳, in Macao. After returning to China, Zhilong had yet another wife, née Yan 顏, and several concubines, née Chen 陳, Li 李, and Huang 黃. Yan gave birth to Shi’en 世恩, Chen gave birth to Shizhong 世忠 (who was assigned as an heir to Zhilong's dead brother Zhihu 芝虎), Li gave birth to Shiyin 世蔭, and Huang gave birth to Shixi 世襲, Shimo 世默, and daughter Wanshe 婉舍. Tang Jintai, 196.

78 For a study of the Zheng family's relations with the bakufu, see Patrizia Carioti, “The Zheng Regime and the Tokugawa bakufu: Asking for Japanese Intervention,” in Sea Rovers, Silver, and Samurai, 156–80.

79 Meicun Yeshi, Luqiao jiwen, 59. Chen Bisheng, “Cong ‘Hui’an Wang Zhongxiao quanji’ de liangtiao shiliao zhong shuoming 1646 nian Zheng Chenggong shi zenyang zai haishang qibing de 從《惠安王忠孝全集》的兩條史料說明1646 年鄭成功是怎樣在海上起兵的,” in Chen Bisheng, Zheng Chenggong lishi yanjiu, 120.

80 Ji Liuqi, Ming ji nan lue, in Ming Qing shiliao huibian 明清史料彙編 (Yonghe, Taipei County: Wenhai, 1968), 11:6a–b.

81 Jiang Risheng, Taiwan waiji, Ch. 5, p. 64.

82 Fei Shi 匪石, “Zheng Chenggong zhuan 鄭成功傳,” in Zheng Chenggong zhuan 鄭成功傳, Taiwan lishi wenxian congkan 臺灣歷史文獻叢刊 (Nantou: Taiwan Sheng Wenxian weiyuanhui, 1995), 73–74.

83 Inagaki Sonoto, Tei Seikō, 6.

84 Zheng Zhilong himself sent four requests. Altogether, from 1645 to 1686, Zheng Zhilong and Zheng Chenggong sent Japan twenty-two requests; see Patrizia Carioti, “The Zheng Regime and the Tokugawa bakufu,” in Sea Rovers, Silver, and Samurai, 160–72.

85 Yoshimi Nishikawa 西川如見, Nagasaki yawagusa 長崎夜話草 (1720), cited by Kawaguchi Choju in Taiwan Zheng Shi jishi, 20–21; 芳誕碑; Zheng Chenggong de Riben muqin, 228.

86 Jiang Risheng, Taiwan waiji, Ch. 6, p. 85.

87 Song Zhengyu, Dongcun jishi 東村紀事, in Dongcun jishi wai si zhong 東村紀事外四種 (Nantou: Taiwan Sheng Wenxian weiyuan hui, 1993), 1.

88 Dong Jiazun 董家遵, “Lidai jielie funü de tongji 歷代節烈婦女的統計,” in Zhongguo funüshi lunji 中國婦女史論集, 2nd ed., ed. Bao Jialin 鮑家麟 (Banqiao, Taipei County: Daoxiang chubanshe, 1992), 111–17.

89 Huang Zongxi, Sixing shimo, 2. Qian Chengzhi, Suo zhi lu, 20.

90 Song Zhengyu, Dongcun jishi, 2.

91 Chen Bisheng doubts the validity of this legend. See Chen Bisheng 陈碧笙, “Zheng Chenggong fen rufu shuo zhiyi郑成功焚儒服说质疑,” in his Zheng Chenggong lishi yanjiu, 107–16.

92 Kawaguchi Choju, Taiwan Teishi ki ji, 8.

93 For an English translation of some documents of the negotiations, see Lynn A. Struve, Voices from the Ming-Qing Cataclysm: China in Tigers’ Jaws (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 184–203.

94 Weng Jiayin, “Zheng He zhanshi buyi: Jiang Shusheng yizhu ‘Meishi riji’ de huixiang 鄭荷戰史補遺：江樹生譯註梅氏日記的迴響, ” Lishi yuekan 歷史月刊187 (2003.8): 11.

95 Andrade, Lost Colony, 302, 394.

96 Wu Baiyao 吳百堯, “Youguan meidu bingcheng de fangwen jilu 有關梅毒病程的訪問記錄,” Tri-Service General Hospital, July 30, 2003.

97 Zheng Yangjun 鄭仰峻, “Zheng Chenggong siyin kao 鄭成功死因考,” Gaoyuan xuebao 高苑學報 12 (2006/7): 211–28.

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Pi-ching Hsu

Pi-ching Hsu is Professor Emerita of San Francisco State University. She has a History PhD from the University of Minnesota, after receiving a BA in Foreign Languages and Literature from National Taiwan University and an MA in East Asian Studies from the University of Minnesota. Her expertise is in premodern Chinese social and cultural history and her works explore the juncture of history and literature, focusing on gender, emotions, and humor. She is the author of Beyond Eroticism: A Historian's Reading of Humor in Feng Menglong's Child's Folly and Feng Menglong's Treasury of Laughs: A Seventeenth-Century Anthology of Traditional Chinese Humour.