Koxinga and Chinese Nationalism: History, Myth, and the Hero 0674505662, 9780674505667

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HARVARD EAST ASIAN MONOGRAPHS 67

KOXINGA AND CHINESE NATIONALISM HISTORY, MYTH, AND THE HERO

KOXINGA AND CHINESE NATIONALISM HISTORY, MYTH, AND THE HERO

by Ralph C. Croizier

Published by East Asian Research Center Harvard University

Distributed by Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England 1977

° Copyright, 1977, by The President and Fellows of Harvard College

The East Asian Research Center at Harvard University adminis­ ters research projects designed to further scholarly understand­ ing of China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Inner Asia, and adjacent areas. These studies have been assisted by grants from the Ford Foundation.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Croizier, Ralph C Koxinga and Chinese nationalism. (Harvard East Asian monographs ; 67) Bibliography: p. 99 Includes index. 1. Koxinga, 1624-1662. 2. Generals—China—Biography. 3. Taiwan—History. 4. Nationalism—China. I. Title. II. Series. DS753.6.K6C76 951’.249*030924 [B] 76-30404 ISBN 0-674-50566-2

CONTENTS

PREFACE

vii

I.

History, Myth and Nationalism

1

II.

In Search of the Historical Koxinga

6

III. Myth, Model, and Archetype in the Traditional Chinese Hero

28

IV. The Nationalist Configuration

50

V.

63

His Undisputed Legacy in a Divided China

VI. History and the Hero

*

79

NOTES

87

BIBLIOGRAPHY

99

INDEX ILLUSTRATIONS

111 opposite page 1 following page 49

PREFACE This is a study of how the perception and manipuladon of histori­ cal symbols change in response to new historical circumstances. It is appropriate therefore to note how a particular set of historical circumstances of the last two decades—the availability of Taiwan as the only authentic Chinese cultural area open to foreign stu­ dents of Chinese history—shaped the origins of this study. Like others of my generation, my first direct exposure to a real China was in Taiwan, first as a graduate student in 19631964, later as a professor (but still very much a student) in 19691970. During the first stay my attention was initially drawn to Koxinga—but not so much to Koxinga as to how his image re­ flected changing perceptions of the foremost historical hero on Taiwan, and not so much to Taiwan as to how Taiwan rep­ resented and fit in with larger patterns in Chinese history. During my second stay I plunged into the questions of historical con­ sciousness and its modern uses which had distracted me from my thesis writing five years earlier. In a society so obviously undergo­ ing rapid socioeconomic change yet pervaded by historical sym­ bols and associations, some of which were obviously being ma­ nipulated for political ends, questions of historical continuity, na­ tional identity, and cultural change took on a poignancy and an immediacy lacking when studied in American university libraries. Whether my perception would have been substantially altered had I been living in that other Chinese society across the Taiwan Strait, I cannot say. Perhaps I would not have hit upon Koxinga as my subject for studying the transformation of historical symbols. But I think it will be clear from this study that I see Koxinga’s significance in much broader terms than just Taiwan, and that I believe that many of the same issues of historical consciousness are important in both Chinas. In other words, if the origin of this study was Taiwan, I hope it will go beyond Taiwanese history into Chinese history in general. The origins of this study also go back to two remarkable, but very different, teachers at the University of California. Joseph Levenson first sensitized me to problems of historical process,

identity, and consciousness. Wolfram Eberhard helped show me how historical consciousness operates at the level of popular cul­ ture. My debt to both is incalculable. In addition, I was fortunate enough to have friends such as Laurence Schneider, who shares my taste for the ambiguides of historical symbols, and Frederic Wakeman, another connoisseur of historical ambiguides and also a bona fide seventeenth-century specialist. Both gave me very helpful readings of this study. Other friends and colleagues, notable Jack Wills, Andrew Nathan, and Sue Fawn Chung, provided advice and encouragement. I also am grateful to the University of California, Center for Chinese Studies, and especially Jo Pearson, for moral and clerical support and to the University of Rochester East Asian Center for similar help at an earlier stage. Finally, as my earlier paragraphs indicate, this study could not have taken its present shape without direct experience of a Chinese culture area. The Joint Committee on Contemporary and Republican China of the Social Science Research Council supported my research on Taiwan and Hong Kong in 1969-1970 and the East Asian Center of the University of Rochester enabled me to make a shorter follow-up trip in 1971. To all the above named individuals and institutions, and to countless unnamed faces and impressions on Taiwan, my deepest thanks. Ralph Croizier Rochester, New York June, 1975

Chapter I HISTORY, MYTH, AND NATIONALISM . . . the drive of nationalist theory is to discover a past which will support the aspiradon of the present. In other words, this is the stage of legend-making.

K.R. Minogue, Nationalism What makes the hero in history? What needs in his own and later times does he meet that men should remember, celebrate, and even worship him? And does a consciousness of that heroic image guide his actions in his own lifetime? Large quesdons to which this study can offer only partial and tentadve answers based on the life, and even more the posthumous reputation, of one figure universally recognized as a hero in his own culture. The hero is the seventeenth-century Ming loyalist, Cheng Ch’eng-kung, “Koxinga” in most Western accounts. The focus here will be on the images of the hero that have grown up in the three centuries since his death, and what these have meant to later men in different times. Thus it is image and myth, not historical reality, that forms the bulk of this study. But in any society that takes its past seriously (as China did and does) the “history” that influences living men’s actions is always to some degree mythical. Similarly, the historical figures who become heroes to later ages do so as symbols of values and issues relevant to those later times. Koxinga is such a figure. His changing image in the centuries after his death draws more from myth than from history. But in reflecting the changing needs and values of those centuries it, too, becomes part of history, part of the dialogue between past and present that is the essence of historical consciousness. This is not to belittle his role in mid-seventeenth-century history when he was one of the bulwarks of the prolonged proMing resistance in south China and a figure of international

2

importance in the nexus of early European-East Asian commer­ cial and political relations. Moreover, although Ming loyalism ultimately proved to be a lost cause and his successors were unable to hold the coastal maritime empire he had built, Koxinga’s last battle did result in Taiwan becoming an integral part of the Chinese empire. His conquest of Taiwan also resulted in his posthumous image being indissolubly linked to the subsequent history of that island. This intimate association with Taiwan throughout its many political vicissitudes of the last century has strongly influenced Koxinga’s variegated modern image. From the late Ch’ing court’s incorporation of him into the official Confucian pantheon, to the Shinto shrine the Japanese conquerors built at his temple in Tainan, to his association with Taiwan as territoria irredenta by twentieth-century Chinese nationalists, to his special significance for the Nationalist government in exile since 1949, and finally to the People's Republic’s citation of him as an historical precedent for the anti-imperialist liberation of Taiwan—all these pardes have found him useful as inspiration for their respective causes and claims to Taiwan. But just as Taiwan’s recent history has been inextricably tied to the larger course of modern Chinese history, so these shifting images of Koxinga should be seen as part of a more general phenomenon in modern China. That is the remak­ ing of traditional heroes into examples of modern, and especially nadonalistic, values. Other examples come readily to mind—Yueh Fei, Wen T ’ien-hsiang, Shih K’o-fa. Historical heroes who died resisting foreign invaders have been especially in demand, although other types have also been grist for the mill of nationalisdc historiog­ raphy. This modern transformation can be seen as a nationaliza­ tion of historical heroes, “nationalization” in two senses. First, through modern nationwide communications, espcially a national education system, essentially regional figures celebrated in the folklore and even popular religion of an area are given nation­ wide publicity. Second, the motives and achievements of tradi­ tional figures are now interpreted in nationalist terms. Yueh Fei,

3

with his traditional temples confined to Chekiang but taken up in the twentieth century first by Yuan Shih-k’ai and later by Chiang Kai-shek as a national patriotic symbol, is a good example of the first type.1 Ch’in Shih Huang-ti, or even Confucius, could repre­ sent the second. In all cases well established historical reputations, both positive-and negative, are reshaped to stress^nationalistic Of course, inculcating a sense of national pride and unity, and projecting this back into the past, has been a primary function of historical education in all modern nations.2In China we see this starting in the educational reforms at the end of the Ch’ing period with textbooks strongly influenced by the Japanese model of national history.3 In the early Republic the tendency toward nationalistic glorificadon was partially checked by the liberal ten­ dencies in educational circles during the May Fourth era plus the sheer inefficiency of the government. But under the Nanking government a militantly nationalistic history prevailed (at least officially) and the search for inspiring “national heroes” was in full swing. The types of heroes varied. The Kuomintang’s in­ creased cultural conservatism meant that long-hallowed Confucian figures including the sage kings Yao, Shun, Ytï, and of course the Sage himself could be honored for their great contributions to the nation and the national culture.4The same held true for great historic rulers who had unified expanded China. Thus emperors such as Han Kao-tsu, T ’ang T ’ai-tsung, and even the Confucian arch-villain, Ch’in Shih Huang-ti, got more than their share of nationalistic praise. But with Japanese aggression an overriding national concern, martial figures from the past, especially those martyred in the cause of national defense, were even more in vogue. The Chinese Communists have naturally been interested in finding historical heroes with a more revolutionary or popular flavor, either from Confucian-despised scientists, such as the great Ming pharmacologist, Li Shih-chen, or more commonly from leaders of peasant rebellions, such as Huang Ch’ao or Li

4

Shih-ch’eng. Still their suspicion of upper-class figures has not discredited many of the same national heroes already celebrated by previous regimes. This has been especially evident in periods of relative ideological relaxation. Apart from indicating a continued pride in China’s past, the celebration of such disparate but defi­ nitely upper-class figures as Ch’u Yuan, Han Kao-tsu, Wu Tset’ien, and even at times Confucius, has also reflected the need to supplement a history of impersonal social forces with vivid con­ crete personalities in order to meet the objective of both popularizing history and using it to inculcate approved values. Such concerns were thoroughly discussed in the literature on “reappraisal of historical figures” in the fifties and many exam­ ples of popularized nationalistic historical biographies were pro­ duced in the “Series of Small Books on Chinese History” edited by Wu Han in the early sixties.5 This type of literature disappeared along with other kinds of historiography during the Cultural Revolution and it is still uncertain if and when it will re-emerge. Yet only a few of the formerly praised “national heroes” have been explicitly repudiated, and the recent re-evaluation of Ch’in Shih Huang-ti shows that class background need not necessarily invalidate a historical figure who can still illustrate a present political lesson. Koxinga, for one, still enjoys the accolade of “national hero.”6 In brief, Koxinga has been prominent throughout the na­ tional (and nationalistic) historiography of modern China. There­ fore in tracing his changing image we can follow not just the vicissitudes of modern Taiwan but also China’s changing perspec­ tive on her past. But before coming to the “nationalization” of our hero, we must consider the process of traditional image making. Despite the importance of this process in traditional Chinese historiography and culture, systematic analytical literature on it is still rather sparse. Moreover, the existing sources on Koxinga leave annoying gaps about his particular apotheosis. Nevertheless we can reconstruct in outline how after his death he soon became popular folk hero and deity to the Min-nan culture area (South

5

Fukien-Taiwan) and how on the higher level of national politics he evolved from a symbol of anti-Manchu resistance into a Ch’ing-sponsored exemplar of Confucian loyalty. Even before the pressures and distortions of modern nationalism and revolu­ tion, there was more than one image of the hero. In the dis­ crepancies between these different images can be seen some of the tensions or ambivalence about the official Confucian value system at the lower levels of Chinese popular culture. In the twentieth century recasting of those older images can be seen some of the forces reshaping Chinese politics, culture, and historical con­ sciousness. The process of both premodern and modern image-making also involves the question of sources. For this we must look at the earliest materials about his life. But the objective here is less the reconstrudon of that life in its historical actuality (a task the difficulty of which will become apparent as soon as we look into the early fusion of myth and history) than tracing the beginning of the quasi-historical images of Koxinga which have played a role in the subsequent history of both Taiwan and China. In plainer words, we are concerned here not with the man but the image, not with reality but with symbol, not with history but with historical consciousness and the way that it shapes and reflects later history.

Chapter II IN SEARCH OF THE HISTORICAL KOXINGA The lives of few men in history are richer in dramatic possibilities than was Coxinga’s. It is small wonder, then, that even those who have professed to be writing biographical accounts have been led into colourful tales which have every merit save that of truth. . . There is hardly a single fact in Coxinga’s life which has not been questioned, denied, or contradicted in the years since his death. Donald Keene, The Battles of Coxinga, London, 1951, p.44. Primary Sources The fundamental problem in reconstructing the life of Koxinga is that the primary sources are so few and the secondary sources so many. With reliable facts so difficult to separate from the rich accretion of legend, what can we know for certain about the man and his life? The answer is very little. But before trying to reduce his biography to the bedrock of solidly established fact, we must consider what authentic contemporary information is avail' able about his life. Reliable contemporary sources are surprisingly sparse in comparison with the numerous accounts that appeared one or two generations after his death, and it is from the latter that Koxinga’s historical reputation was initially formed.1 Some of them are drawn at least in part from the memories of his actual contemporaries and perhaps also from no longer extant written records, but they are for the most part inextricably mixed with hearsay and already richly embroidered legend. Writing at a time when the turbulent events of mid-century were already acquiring a distant romantic aura in the stability of K’ang-hsi’s later reign, the authors of such accounts took full advantage of the dramatic possibilities Keene has noted. These more colorful accounts then became much more influential for the picture of Koxinga held by later generations than the sparse and prosaic records from his

7

own time. For example, Chiang Jih-sheng’s Taiwan wai chi (Unof­ ficial record of Taiwan), written at least a generation after Koxinga’s death, became much better known than the diary kept by Koxinga’s chief supply officer, Yang Ying, although the former is not nearly so reliable in its information. The Taiwan wai chi in fact is a prime source for the mythologizing of Koxinga’s life and will be drawn on heavily later. Here, on its value as a historical source, it should be noted that the presumed author was a native of Fukien and probably lived on Taiwan in the latter days of the Cheng regime. He thus had access to relatively recent material on Koxinga. But the form he chose for the story of Koxinga’s family over four generations does not inspire confidence in its historical reliability. It is the Chinese historical romance in the style of San kuo yen i (Romance of the Three Kingdoms) or Chan kuo ts'e (Intrigues of the Warring States). This meant that oral tradition, including miraculous ele­ ments, and invented dialogues were included along with events that are verifiable historic fact. There is also, according to a leading modern scholar of the period, a strong likelihood that “the extant Wai chi has passed through emendation, coloring, and reediting at other’s hands.”2 Thus, although Taiwan wai chi is the longest, most detailed, and most colorful early account of Koxin­ ga’s life and times, it is unreliable when it cannot be checked against other independent sources.3 Similar questions arise about other standard accounts even when they adopt a more formally historical and less novelistic style. Perhaps the earliest biography is the Cheng Ch'eng-kung chuan by Cheng Chu-chung, uncertainly dated at 1702.4 The au­ thor may have been related to the Cheng family, although pub­ lishing the book under firmly established Manchu rule he used Ch’ing reign titles and is correctly pro-Ch’ing in his judgments. It deals solely with Koxinga as distinct from the Wai chi's coverage of the entire four-generation Cheng family enterprise. It is much shorter, and much more restrained in its narration of dramatic events. Nevertheless, despite its pro-Ch’ing position and more

8

soberly historical style, the portrait of the hero that emerges is not too dissimilar. The author clearly admires his extraordinary vir­ tues and delights in recounting his heroic exploits. The question then arises of how careful Cheng Chu-chung was in critically using the sources available to him forty years after Koxinga’s death and whether rapidly proliferating myths have not entered into his apparently factual history. For instance, Cheng Chuchung is the only early author to recount the dramatic episode of Koxinga burning his scholar robes in the Confucian temple and vowing to wear armor until the Ming was restored. Yang Yunp’ing has questioned the probability of such an incident, unre­ ported in any contemporary source.5To the critical historian such incidents raise the possibility that here too the author may have been carried beyond verifiable fact by the dramatic qualides inher­ ent in Koxinga’s life and legend. The Cheng Ch’eng-kung chuan, like the Taiwan xvai chi, would become a very influential source on Koxinga, but again it is a source more valuable for the image than for the man's life. The same can be said for the very brief biography, Ssu hsing shih mo, (A complete account of him who received the imperial surname) contained in the collected writings of the famous schol­ ar and Ming loyalist Huang Tsung-hsi. Another Cheng Ch’engkung chuan is also sometimes attributed to him, but this is clearly a confusion with Cheng Chu-chung's biography, perhaps to give it greater currency by associating it with Huang Tsung-hsi's name. The Ssu hsing shih mo, however, may well be from Huang's pen. It contains no information not found in other sources and is chiefly interesting for the perspective this great Ming loyalist took on Koxinga. There are other accounts written about the same time that give additional information but were not influential in shaping the earlier historical image of Koxinga because they remained in manuscript until the twentieth century. One of these, Hai shang chien wen lu (A record of what was seen and heard on the sea), is part of a larger work attributed to a native of southern Fukien,

9

Yuan Min-hsi, whose family may have served with Koxinga. Some of the information in it does seem to come from an inside knowl­ edge of the Cheng regime and is very useful on such episodes as Koxinga’s logistic problems after arriving on Taiwan. Still, this too is a sympathetic account written several decades after his lifetime and its complete reliability is therefore not beyond question. The same can be said about Hsia Lin, Min hai chi yao (Important records of the Fukien sea) which was also written around the end of the seventeenth century but only discovered in manuscript in 1925. All these works should indeed be used with extreme caution since the potential for myth making was so great by the time they were written and some (almost certainly the Taiwan wai chi) also acquired later accretions of legend in the transmission of the text. According to strict standards of critical historiography all should be checked against contemporary sources, but only a portion of the later lore can be verified or disproved by this method. We are probably not worse off for contemporary material on Koxinga than we are for other Ming loyalist generals, but the legends about him are so rich that the absolutely reliable information about his life looks very meager in comparison. Because his was a lost cause, the records of Koxinga’s regime suffered the fate common to those whom military defeat and dynastic legitimacy relegated to the category of “rebels.” Of his personal writings and records only a few poems, samples of his calligraphy, edicts and other communications survived, mainly in books written about him. There is, however, one authentic record of his regime preserved in the diary of his leading finance or supply minister, Yang Ying. The Ts'ung cheng shih lu (Veritable record since the punitive expedition) is a detailed eyewitness account of Koxinga’s activities from the launching of his Ming restoration enterprise in 1649 to his death in 1662. It is by far the most revealing and most reliable document on those years, but like other pro-Cheng works has only been published in the twen­ tieth century and thus was not part of Koxinga’s public image

10

until recently.6 In popular works on him it still is much less used than the more colorful Taiwan wai chi, although all scholars rec­ ognize it as the most valuable extant source on his life. For other contemporary sources on Koxinga we are forced to rely on what his enemies knew and wrote about him. Ch’ing court records on the military and political problems he'posed for the government are undoubtedly “authentic/* although the Ch’ing court’s information on him may not always have been accurate.7 There are also unofficial accounts left by his opponents, most notably the Ching hai chi shih (Record of quieting the seas) by Shih Lang, the Ch’ing commander who crushed the regime of Koxinga’s successors in 168S. As a former subordinate of Koxinga, Shih Lang was well acquainted with the workings of the Cheng regime but his account deals only incidentally with Koxinga himself. On the whole, these Ch’ing sources are essential for setting Koxinga in the larger political picture of mid-seventeenth-century China, but they tell relatively little about the man and his purposes. European sources certainly contain vivid details about him but this is almost all based on hearsay and is more a testimonial to the hold he took on foreign imaginations than a picture of the historical figure. That fanciful image of “Koxinga, the pirate” will be examined later. Here we should note that contemporary Dutch sources are invaluable for two aspects of his career. First, although their information on Koxinga’s objectives and activities is mainly second hand until 1661, the Dutch had ample opportunity to see him in action during the battle for Taiwan. Dutch sources, notably the account Verwaerloosde Formosa by the governor at Tainan, Frederic Coyett, give us a much fuller and more reliable picture of Koxinga’s last campaign than any of the Chinese sources.8 Sec­ ond, the archives of the Dutch East Indies Company contain a great deal of material relating to the maritime commercial empire which financially sustained Koxinga’s military efforts.9 The in­ ternational economic and political significance of Koxinga’s career can be reliably evaluated only after careful study of these voluminous records. Contemporary Japanese records, such as the

11

registers of foreign ships calling at Nagasaki, will also be necessary for this task.10 Taken all together these various primary sources still present a rather poor picture compared to the figure offered by later historians. Their more inventive accounts, plus unwritten popu­ lar legends, have prevailed in shaping both popular and literary images of our hero. These images will be our chief concern, but first we might see what kind of life of Koxinga can be recon­ structed using only these reliable contemporary sources. A Bare Bones Life of Koxinga Koxinga’s birth presents fewer problems to the historian than his death, but even so not everything about it is perfectly clear. The exact date, for instance, is difficult to establish with certainty although the year is 1624, probably in August. The place unques­ tionably is Hirado, a small coastal town near Nagasaki. His mother was Japanese with the surname of Tagawa. His father, Cheng Chih-lung, was a maritime adventurer from Nan-an hsien in southern Fukien.11 From a fairly humble family with some gov­ ernment connection as Yamen runners, the young Chih- lung had taken to the sea to find his fortune through trade, piracy, or whatever other opportunides presented themselves. He had be­ come part of the cosmopolitan maritime complex of Chinese, Japanese, and Europeans that dominated East Asian waters, had learned Portuguese in Macao, been baptized with the Chrisdan name, Nicholas Iquan, briefly served as interpreter for the Dutch, and then linked himself with the Fukien merchant-adventurer, Li Han, who had contacts as far away as Japan. There in Hirado he found and married Miss Tagawa. It was a legitimate marriage, but he left her soon afterwards and within a few years had established himself on Taiwan and then at Amoy as the pirate chief of the South China coast. The main issue of this Madame Butterfly kind of marriage was Koxinga, or to use his infant name, Cheng Sen.

12

But Chinese sailors were more solicitous of their foreignborn sons than fictionalized nineteenth-century American succes­ sors and, unlike Lieutenant Pinkerton, Chih-lung called his son home to Fukien at the age of seven. For some reason, possibly Chih-lung’s Chinese wives, the mother remained in Japan. By this time Chih-lung was undisputed master of the Fukien coast with an enomous fleet engaged in foreign trade, piracy, and selling pro­ tection to other traders. Actually he was no longer a pirate. Un­ able to suppress him the weakening Ming court had granted him the certificate of respectability which marked the really successful bandit. He had been named “Admiral in Charge of Pirate Sup­ pression.” Naval power, commercial wealth, and official position made Chih-lung and his family virtual overlords of Fukien. The young Koxinga was raised in this environment of newly acquired wealth and power. Even discounting the usual biog­ raphical details of youthful precocity, he apparently showed an aptitude for classical Chinese learning and was encouraged in this by his self-made father. Scholarly achievement and official de­ grees were all the more prized by families recently risen to promi­ nence by somewhat dubious means. First degree holder (hsiu-ts’ai) at fifteen, by nineteen the promising and very well connected young scholar was brought to the Ming court at Nanking where he became a disciple of the famous scholar Ch’ien Ch’ien-i. But the times were not ripe for the regular road to scholarlybureaucratic disdncdon. The southern Ming court at Nanking was unable to offer effective resistance to the invading Manchus and with its disintegration he withdrew with his father to Fukien. There another Ming prince, the T ’ang Wang, was set up as em­ peror with court in Foochow. This regime was almost entirely dependent upon the Cheng power in Fukien. As one of the favors and titles granted to the Cheng family, the T ’ang Wang (reign title, Lung Wu Emperor) conferred the imperial surname upon Chih-lung’s son. This is the origin of the term Kuo Hsing Yeh (Lord of the imperial surname), transliterated into most Euro­ pean languages as Koxinga.12 The emperor also gave him a new

13

personal name, Ch’eng-kung (“achievement”) which also would stick to the hero throughout his life and afterward. Finally, Lung Wu gave the twenty-one year-old Cheng Ch’eng-kung a military command of uncertain significance, and the title Chung Hsiao Po (Earl of loyalty and filial piety). This is the origin of his close personal connection with the Ming cause and the intimate rulerofficial relationship with the Lung Wu Emperor (or his memory) which looms so large in most accounts of Ch’eng-kung’s life. Its significance, in myth and biography, will be examined later. The bare historical fact is that the T ’ang Wang’s regime collapsed very quickly when Cheng Chih-lung decided that his position in Fukien might best be preserved by making a deal with the advancing Ch’ing armies. Denuded of military support the T ’ang Wang was killed or committed suicide in 1646. Chih-lung’s calculations actually proved mistaken for the Ch’ing removed him from Fukien to an increasingly close confinement in Peking. Standard accounts have it that Cheng Ch’eng-kung tearfully re­ monstrated with his father about the disloyalty of abandoning the T ’ang Wang and the folly of trusting Manchu promises.18 How­ ever much this incident has been dramatized, we do know that it marked the turning point in his life. Gathering a small band of followers around him he sailed from Amoy to Nan Ao island (off the coast of extreme northern Kwangtung province) where he raised the flag of Ming resistance with the self-proclaimed title, “The Enfeoffed Earl of Loyalty and Filial Piety, Great General, and Suffering Minister—Kuo Hsing.” Thus from the beginning he asserted his special connection with the Ming ruling house. At about the same time his mother, who had only been brought from Japan in the previous year, was killed when Ch’ing troops took Amoy. This incident too has received much popular dramatization, but we can only speculate about its effect on the “orphaned subject’s” anti-Manchu resolve. He seems to have attracted support very readily, for by 1647 his original band of ninety followers had grown into an army large enough to lay siege to the major city of Chuanchou. After being

14

repulsed there, he continued to campaign along the southern Fukien coast with growing success. The ease with which he be­ came an important leader in the anti-Manchu resistance must have partly been due to many of his father’s former supporters rallying behind the son, but it suggests remarkable leadership qualities in so young a man. There was also the Ch’ing’s difficulty in securing and bringing stable administration to the large areas their armies had so rapidly overrun, plus the continued existence of large pro-Ming armies in nearby southern provinces. The establishment of another Ming prince, the Kuei Wang, as the Yung Li Emperor in Kwangtung created a major center of resis­ tance which by engaging the main Ch’ing armies in the south and southwest diverted attendon away from pacifying Fukien. Koxinga was quick to identify himself with the Yung Li court by using its reign titles and accepting official titles from Yung Li. In 1648 he received the dtle Wei Yuan Hou (Marquis of Wei Yuan) and in the next year, as Yung Li desperately needed mili­ tary assistance in Kwangtung, the more exalted tide of Duke of Changchou. Koxinga was unable or unwilling to save the Yung Li cause in Kwangtung and instead concentrated his power in south­ ern Fukien. A key event in his ascendancy there was the wresdng of Amoy from his uncle, Cheng Lien, in 1650. Apparently Koxinga also had him assassinated and then incorporated Cheng Lien’s troops into his army.14 With this he was in unquesdoned command of the Cheng family patrimony in Fukien and had his father’s old base in the strategic twin islands of Amoy and Quemoy as the center for his military campaigns and growing maridme commercial empire. This overseas commerce, with his junks reaching as far as Japan and Southeast Asia, provided the economic foundation for his mainly coastal and maritime empire. In land battles with the Ch’ing forces he was by no means uniformly successful. But his navy was far superior to anything the Manchus possessed and it gave him freedom to strike anywhere along the coast from north­ ern Kwangtung to the mouth of the Yangtze. As his wealth,

15

power, and territorial holdings grew, in 1655 he reorganized his following into a regular civil and military administration with the usual six boards and seventy-two military commanderies (then). Apart from his continued recognition of the Yung Li Em­ peror, Koxinga maintained good relations with Ming remnants in the lower Yangtze valley, notably the two generals Chang Mingchen and Chang Huan-yen. Yet when a genuine Ming prince, the Lu Wang, took refuge with Koxinga at Amoy, he gave him shelter and respect but no obedience. The Lu Wang’s subsequent depar­ ture from Amoy has raised questions for some historians about Koxinga’s devotion to Ming legitimacy. But he did rename Amoy as Ssuming Chou (Thinking of the Ming) and took more tides including Yen P’ing Wang (The peace-preserving prince) from the Yung Li Emperor. More important, he also rejected persistent Ch’ing overtures in the mid- 1650s although the Manchus used his father as bait and promised the son official position and command over his troops as “Duke of Hai Teng.”15 By 1658 Koxinga was strong enough to launch a major thrust into the lower Yangtze valley. His first “northern expedition” was checked by a typhoon in which his fleet suffered heavy damages. But the following year in 1659, allied with Chang Huan-yen and his army, he struck directly up the Yangtze to Nanking. His huge fleet, reportedly several thousand ships, and large army broke the main Ch’ing defenses at Chiukiang and laid siege to a poorly defended Nanking. Concurrently Chang Huan-yen took large areas of the lower Yangtze back from Ch’ing control. But on the verge of apparent victory, Cheng’s army was disastrously de­ feated at the gates of Nanking, his overconfidence and poor military strategy apparently being a major factor in the debacle. His shattered forces beat a maritime retreat to their southern Fukien haven, but the bid for national power was now finished. Although he was able to smash a Ch’ing invasion fleet sent against Amoy in 1660, the Ming restoration in the lower Yangtze had collapsed and in the southwest the Yung Li resistance had almost expired. Koxinga and his island bastion were alone against

16

the whole might of the Ch’ing empire. Koxinga’s solution to this problem was the invasion of Taiwan which could serve as a safe rear base and source of food supply. Thus in March of 1661 he personally led a large segment o f his forces in an expedition against the Dutch stronghold at Fort Zeelandia (near present day Tainan). Despite opposition within his own ranks to the idea of moving to that malarial wilderness and a stubborn defense by the badly outnumbered Dutch garri­ son, he succeeded in expelling the Dutch. The last months of his life were spent in colonizing and establishing a regular adminis­ tration on Taiwan with his new capital at Tainan. Koxinga may also have had ambitions for further maritime expansion, for he sent a message to the Spanish governor in Manila threatening to add the Philippines to his holdings. But there were to be no more conquests for the hero. On June 23, 1662, at the age of thirty-nine he died of a mysterious illness at Tainan. Just before his own death word had reached him of the Yung Li Emperor's death in Yunnan and his own father's execution in Peking. There is also a curious story involving adul­ tery by his eldest son and insubordination by his generals back in Amoy which according to many accounts drove him wild with rage. But the factual accuracy of that episode is not beyond question and it will be examined later. His regime was in fact continued by that same son, Cheng Ching. He too established his capital on Taiwan after a combined Dutch-Manchu fleet drove him out of Amoy in 1663. A decade later national politics again provided the opportunity to revive the Cheng fortunes on the Fukien coast as Cheng Ching reoccupied Amoy during the revolt of the three feudatories. But by the end of the 1670s Ch’ing power was re-established in South China and Cheng Ching was unable to hold onto his Fukien possessions. Driven back to Taiwan, he died in 1681. Two years later Shih Lang led the invasion fleet that finally overcame the Cheng navy. On September 5, 1683, Koxinga’s grandson, Cheng K’e-shuang,

17

surrendered Taiwan to the Ch’ing. This ended the enterprise that Cheng Ch’eng-kung had started almost four decades earlier. Unanswered Questions From this abbreviated biography it is evident that a rough oudine of Koxinga’s life is possible, but on many key points the evidence is insufficient or ambiguous. These ambiguities range in magnitude from the exact way in which his mother died to the sincerity of his commitment to Ming restoration. For all such questions there is the double difficulty of separadng historic fact from later legend and of interpreting the relatively sparse con­ temporary sources. No doubt through careful use of all existing sources more can be learned about the man and his position in seventeenth-century history. Such research may throw valuable light on the nature of South Chinese anti-Manchu resistance, the growing maridme commerce of the southeastern coast, early Sino-European relations, and other important topics. But it is not likely to separate entirely the man and his contemporary historical significance from the mythicized historical image of him. In a sense it is easier to assess his place in late Ming history than it is to find the man among the myths. This is because all the glorification of his achievements does not hide the fact that ultimately he failed, that ultimately Ming restoradonism was a lost cause. Thus the main questions about his historical significance are: how instrumental was he in prolonging the anti-Manchu resistance in South China and what effect did his enterprise have on the growth of the southeastern maridme commercial complex? No definitive answer is possible here, but the general configura­ tion of the probable answers can be sketched out. In comparison with the Yangtze valley and the southwest, the Fukien resistance was perhaps something of a sideshow in the overall pattern of the Manchu conquest. The Ch’ing’s preoccupa­ tion with major centers of resistance elsewhere seems to have been important for Koxinga’s growing power along the Fukien coast in

18

the 1650s. It also explains his initial successes in the Nanking expedition with major Ch’ing armies still busy in the southwest. But on the national strategic scene 1659 was already too late, for in the previous year the Yung Li Emperor and his military protector, Li Ting-kuo, had been driven out of their capital in Kunming and forced into the Yunnan-Burma borderlands. This event freed the Ch’ing armies to turn their attention to Koxinga. It is unclear how and why the Nanking campaign collapsed but, apart from Cheng’s tactical errors, two essential ingredients of success seem to have been lacking. One, the major Ch’ing military power was no longer tied down in the southwest. Two, the populace of the lower Yangtze did not flock to the Ming banner in sufficient numbers with sufficient enthusiasm. Cheng Ch’eng-kung’s one chance for a major national political role was to rally the rich lower Yangtze behind his cause. For a few weeks at the gates of Nanking that goal seemed within reach but ultimately it was the classic military, and political, epitaph of too little and too late. After that defeat he (or his successors) could not even hold their southern Fukien base and it remained for another turn in national politics, the rebellion of the three feudatories, to revive the Cheng cause on the main­ land. Although able to harass the land-based Ch’ing power, by itself the southeastern maritime complex was unable to generate enough military power to compete successfully on the national scale. This brings us to Koxinga’s effect on that area’s commercial development. An answer here is even more problematical without a comprehensive study, particularly of the Dutch trade records. But again we can speculate with some confidence. From his father’s days the Cheng regime depended upon overseas trade. The piracy of Chih-lung’s youth and the continual warfare Koxinga engaged in were not in themselves very beneficial to trade, but for most of the middle of the century the Cheng maritime power so dominated the Fukien coast that it could protect and promote trade. Even more troubled conditions in the lower Yangtze may also have diverted some of China’s foreign

19

trade to the Fukien coast.16 Certainly maritime commerce flourished in the Fukien-Taiwan area in the 1640s and 1650s. But in the long run Koxinga’s political cause may have harmed its commercial development more than it helped. For one thing, the strategic imperatives that made it necessary for him to attack the Dutch on Taiwan did not help trade with the foremost European commercial power. Even more serious, Koxinga’s making the coastal commercial area a center of anti-Manchu resistance tended to link overseas trade with political resistance in the mind of the Ch’ing court. This led the Ch’ing to enforce stringently the kind of controls that the imperial government had normally im­ posed on maritime trade. More immediately it led directly to the policy after 1661 of forced inland migration so that the Cheng regime would have no coastal population to rely upon. The gen­ eral picture seems to have been a growth of Fukien’s overseas trade at the height of the Cheng power followed by a relative and perhaps absolute decline after its collapse. It is not unlikely that the game of national politics, which Koxinga felt compelled to play, damaged the economic prospects of his home area. Thus, if his career did not succeed either in reviving the Ming or benefiting Fukien, in the way of a concrete legacy we are left only with Taiwan. We are on safe ground in saying that if he had not seized Taiwan from the Dutch it would probably not have come within the borders of the Chinese empire. The landoriented Ch’ing court showed little interest in maritime expansion and had to be persuaded to annex Taiwan in 1683 on the grounds that otherwise it would continue to be a center of pro-Ming subversion. If Koxinga had not taken the island and settled a Chinese population there, it almost certainly would have been a Dutch-held Philippines, perhaps with a larger Chinese immigrant population. There is no little irony in the fact that Koxinga’s very last campaign—one forced on him by adverse circumstances and almost peripheral to the main cause of his life—should have turned out to be his only lasting historical achievement.

20

But concrete historical achievements and later historical in­ fluence are not necessarily synonymous. We are concerned here primarily with the latter. For that the really significant questions about his life relate more to his personal qualities than to his achievements. And in this area, where the subsequent image of the hero so dominates the few objective sources, historically reli­ able answers are much more difficult to come by. Probably the central question relating to Koxinga’s character and motivation is the depth of his professed Ming loyalism. Was he unswervingly dedicated to Ming restoration as most Chinese and Japanese accounts testify, or was he primarily concerned with personal ambition and his own power as most European accounts imply? No clear-cut answer is possible but several ambiguous facets of his life bear on this quesdon. One is the celebrated personal relationship with his ruler, the T ’ang Wang. This relationship lasted only twelve months from his introducdon at court in September of 1645 to Lung Wu’s death the next year. But the close bond of affection between the be­ leaguered emperor and the talented youth is stressed in all sub­ sequent accounts. Unfortunately there are no reliable contem­ porary descriptions of this episode, the Ts’ung Chengshih lu begin­ ning only in 1649. We do know that the T ’ang Wang bestowed a high honor in granting the imperial surname (although the same honor was earlier conferred on his cousin) and we do know that Koxinga would not follow his father’s orders to switch allegiance to the Ch’ing. But we cannot be certain of the veracity of accounts like that in the Cheng Ch'eng-kung chuan that tell of the emperor confiding his doubts about Cheng Chih-lung’s loyalty to the son and Koxinga’s fervent protestations of undying loyalty in re­ sponse.17 We cannot even be certain that Ch’eng-kung’s remon­ strances with his father about abandoning the Ming cause have not been touched up to dramatize the hero of Confucian loyalty. This was in many ways the crucial period of his life, when he turned from a scholarly to a military career, from his father’s

21

leadership to Ming loyalism and his own career. The dual rela­ tionship with his own father and with his adopted father-ruler seems to be central to this turn, but again the sources leave the dynamics of that relationship ambiguous. Later we will try a more imaginative reconstruction of how all this might have worked on the formation of the hero, but first in pursuing the question of Ming loyalism reladons with other sources of Ming legitimacy should be considered. As shown above, after 1648 he did recognize the Yung Li Emperor but kept his own forces clearly separated. He also tried in 1650 and 1656 to render aid to the emperor in Kwangtung, although without success. Given the geographic barriers between them and the political as well as military vicissitudes of Yung Li’s court, it is difficult to fault Koxinga for not coming into doser contact with what he recognized as the center of Ming legitimacy. His relations with another claimant to the Ming throne, the Lu Wang, are more ambiguous. After the Lu Wang had been driven from Chekiang and northern Fukien he took refuge with Koxinga at Amoy. There is some discrepancy in the sources as to how he was treated.18 Apparendy the generosity of Koxinga’s financial support declined and he never gave this Ming prince any polidcal authority. But, in view of previous bad reladons between the Lu Wang’s court and that of his own ruler, the T ang Wang, this is hardly surprising and need not reflect on Koxinga’s loyalty to the Ming dynasty as disdnct from this pardcular prince. These were the only claimants to the Ming throne with whom Koxinga had contact. His behavior toward all of them leaves litde ground for suspecdng his Ming loyalism. To be sure, other mem­ bers of the Ming royal house took refuge with the Cheng regime at Amoy and on Taiwan and none of these were crowned as emperor. But that question is more germane to his son, Cheng Ching, than to Koxinga, for he only received word of the Yung Li Emperor’s death shordy before his own, thus giving him no dme to set up another claimant on the throne.

22

More troublesome is the question of why he negotiated with the Ch’ing court in the years 1652-1656 during which they made six separate overtures to him. This involves his relationship with his father who was used by the Ch’ing in an effort to get the son to surrender. Their correspondence is interesting not only for the father-son relationship but also for Koxinga’s political maneuver­ ing. A convincing case can be made that he was only playing for time, and perhaps also for his father’s life.19 But one cannot be sure what his response would have been if the Ch’ing had been willing to grant him the larger territorial base and continued control over his own forces that he demanded. Finally, there is his Taiwan expedition and its implications for the Ming cause. Koxinga himself argued that Taiwan would con­ stitute a secure base from which to carry on the longer fight. Many of his followers, perhaps for personal reasons more than princi­ ple, were less certain and one of the leading Ming loyalists, his ally in the Nanking campaign, Chang Huan-yen, explicitly re­ monstrated with him for abandoning “the central plain” in favor of an overseas wilderness.20 With his dreams of capturing Nan­ king destroyed and the other Ming armies sorely pressed, had Koxinga abandoned the larger vision in favor of a secure maridme kingdom for himself? The evidence is again inconclu­ sive. He continued to use Yung Li reign tides even after hearing of the emperor’s death in Burma, but the names he chose for the administrative subdivisions of his new dominions did not echo Ming loyalism the way Ssuming Chou had when given to Amoy in 1655.21 Similarly, although he is alleged to have invoked heaven’s blessings for the cause of Ming restoration on two occasions dur­ ing the stormy crossing from Amoy, much of his other rhetoric seems to suggest that he saw the island as more of a refuge than a springboard back to the mainland. For instance, on sighting Taiwan he exclaims: “This (Taiwan] is proof of Heaven’s compas­ sion not letting me be forsaken. Heaven has pitied this orphaned subject and let me have this haven.”22 The rhetoric used in his proclamation on setding Taiwan referred to “one great effort and

23

then eternal ease," "passing [fields] down to sons and grandsons," and ‘‘eternal prosperity.”23 There is also his poem “On Restoring Taiwan" which alludes to third century B.C. patriots who fled to an island over the sea rather than surrender to the Ch’in con­ queror and ends with the line, “Amid trials and suffering, I cannot bear to leave.”24 The proclamation may simply be political rhetoric; the poem pathos of momentary depression. Yet both suggest he was resigned to a rather long-term occupancy in his new territory. Along with his idea about the Philippines, it could be interpreted as a turning away, even temporarily, from the political struggle on the mainland to a maritime kingdom dominating the East Asian trade routes. But his premature death makes any answers about his future plans for Taiwan purely conjectural. From his overall record on Ming loyalism there is ample basis on which to build the later image (one that he cultivated in his own lifetime) of the paragon of loyalty. Yet just because such an image was politically useful one cannot be entirely sure about the man’s motives. If Koxinga never sacrificed the Ming cause, he also never had occasion to sacrifice any of his own power or interests for it. Ultimately Ming loyalism would confer historical immortality upon him as martyr to princi­ ple in a hopeless cause. But if the anti-Manchu cause had not been so hopeless, that same Ming loyalism could have served to advance Koxinga’s own political fortunes. More than one new Chinese emperor started out laboring in the cause of a fallen dynasty and ended up founding his own. The question of his devotion to the Ming cause is one of inner motivation and remains basically un­ answerable. Other questions about his personal qualities and leadership ability are somewhat more manageable once we strip away the exaggerations of myth and legend. In military ability he clearly was neither a Kuan Yü nor a Chu-ko Liang. Although not lacking in courage, he did not directly participate in the fighting. As a strategist he was successful at times but also made some grievous mistakes. The most costly of these was his decision to wait out the

24

garrison at Nanking rather than storm the city when he h a d superior forces.25 He also seems to have been caught unprepared by the Ch’ing counterattack and to have managed the battle very badly, and so was overwhelmed by probably numerically inferior forces. His overall record as a siege tactician was, in fact, rather poor. Even pro-Cheng accounts claim he was tricked into aban­ doning the siege of Chuanchou and he similarly failed to take Changchou and Foochow when he had superior forces. Even in his victory over the Dutch at Fort Zeelandia, it was only after the exhausted garrison abandoned hope of relief and, according to the Dutch governor, only when a deserter showed Koxinga how to seize a strategic redoubt that he breached the fort’s defenses.26 Where then did his reputation as a military leader come from? Not entirely from myth. He did win victories on land, and on the sea his fleets were a match for the Dutch and much more than a match for anything the Ch’ing sent against him. In general his strongest point as a strategist was in the use of naval power at key points along the coast. It was only in large-scale land battles that he was out of his element. There his self-confidence and unwillingness to listen to subordinates cost him heavily, as even he was willing to admit after the Nanking disaster.27 But the key to Koxinga’s success probably lay less in his military than his political and organizadonal abilities. Admittedly he had the family name and connections in recruiting followers, but he must also have shown remarkable political skills in building a powerful organization out of the motley crew of adventurers that prevailed on the Fukien coast. The administrative machinery he set up at Amoy and later in Taiwan show no mean skill as an organizer. In addition, for all the myths about him, he must have projected an aura of destiny and personal charisma that drew older and more experienced men to serve him. The sources also testify to a strict and impartial discipline with which he kept his followers in line. This included the execution of close relatives for dereliction of duty—behavior that shows, while family connec­ tions were important in starting his regime, he was able to tran-

25

scend the pitfalls of nepotism in the name of a larger cause. Such strictness may have been necessary, but it may also at times have extended to an excessive harshness that cost him supporters. It has frequendy been noted by historians that the two figures who were instrum ental in destroying the Cheng regime—Shih Lang, the admiral who conquered Taiwan in 1683, and Huang Wu, the general who proposed the coastal evacuadon policy to the Ch’ing—both left Koxinga out of fear of the harsh­ ness of his discipline for relatively minor offenses. There are also proven incidents of behavior that do not stricdy accord with the image of lofty heroic virtue. He was not above duplicity in dealing with his enemies—probably in his negotiations with the Ch’ing, certainly in his reassurances of peaceful intentions toward the Dutch on Taiwan. This, after all, was just political strategy. More questionable is his professed sorrow after arranging the murder of his uncle, Cheng Lien. But this hypocrisy too was probably necessary in the rough world of warlord politics. It is not surprising that occasionally he used the tactics of his opponents. He was part of a time in which treachery, duplicity, and cruelty were commonplace. It may not fit in with the glorified image of the hero, but it should not surprise the historian that Koxinga could tell politically expedient lies or mas­ sacre prisoners.28 Only the lacquered image need be without flaws. One last question remains about the man’s life. That is the manner of his death. No other episode is so overgrown with contradictory and wildly implausible accounts. The only first­ hand contemporary document, the Ts’ung Cheng shih lu, is silent on the subject. Later pro-Cheng accounts, such as the Taiwan wai chi and Min hai chi yao, tell of him getting a chill in June of 1662 but continuing to see his officials until the disease turned worse. Thereupon, after a suitably dramatic speech (the contents varying in different versions), he died of this unspecified illness. The Ch’ing court heard a more lurid account. According to the Shih lu

26

he had gone mad with anger upon hearing of his son’s disobedi­ ence. He then bit his finger, and died. Pro-Ch’ing sources gener­ ally mention this madness, although some have him slashing his face with a sword, even more obviously suicide.29 Modern historians have raised the possibility that these ac­ counts of madness, and even his son’s rebellion, might be con­ scious or unconscious Ch’ing slurs on their old enemy, especially since his following was still in active opposition to the dynasty.30 However, the story of his son’s adultery, Cheng Ch’eng-kung’s anger, and his Amoy generals’ disobedience is also told in sub­ sequent pro-Cheng accounts.31 The fits of madness and selfmutilation are more questionable. Apart from their value as Ch’ing propaganda, they also smack of dramatic invention. An extraordinary man, even to his enemies, Koxinga must have died an extraordinary death. Simple illness would hardly suffice, so his sympathizers tell of the burden of grief from the almost simul­ taneous deaths of his father and his ruler capped off by his favorite son’s gross misconduct. Such heavy sorrows facilitated, if they did not cause, the fatal illness. The hero dies of a broken heart. His enemies preferred to stress spectacular madness. Seventeenth-century European accounts usually picked up this madness theme, but with interesting variations according to their dealings with Koxinga and their various national prefer­ ences for the dramatic.32 Thus the Spaniards have him dying of apoplexy because of God’s frustration of his evil designs on the Philippines.33 The Belgian priest, Rougemont, works guilt over his numerous crimes and massacres into the fatal illness. A Dutch account has the madness occasioned by severe financial losses. And a French version, perhaps most imaginative of all, attributes it to romantic rivalry between father and son. All of this is more material for the fanciful European images of “Koxinga, the pi­ rate” than information on how he died. However, much of it seems to have a common source in the Italian Jesuit Vittorio Ricci who had lived in Amoy and in 1662-1663 served as ambassador to the Chengs for the Spaniards in Manila. Although he failed to

27

reach Taiwan at the time of Koxinga’s death, he did go to Amoy the following April when the story of is deàth would still have been fresh. The version Ricci carried back to Manila which, with suit­ able embellishments, became the basis of Spanish accounts, seems close to that which the Ch’ing court picked up from sources in Fukien. Both stressed the psychological basis of the illness, the fits o f madness, and self-injury. This does not conclusively substan­ tiate its authenticity, but it does suggest that soon after his death this version was current in Amoy. The political differences in the Cheng camp between Taiwan and Amoy (Cheng Ching had to enforce his claims to the Cheng patrimony by force of arms on Taiwan) might have led to inventing or believing such tales. Perhaps the story of final madness was used to justify the Amoy generals' disobedience to Koxinga’s last orders. But in all other matters his successors and followers continued to extoll the repu­ tation of their founder. Historical common sense says that it is far more likely that he died either of malaria (which was endemic on Taiwan and took a very heavy toll of the early Chinese settlers) or, as one modern Chinese physician suggests from the descriptions of his symptoms, from pneumonia.34 Malaria would have been most likely to have produced the “madness” and deliriums mentioned in so many accounts. We cannot be sure whether he died of grief, rage, disappointment—or a common cold with complications. As with so much about his life, the manner of his death remains a historical mystery and a potent source of myth. All these uncertanties about the man and his life may be vexing to the conscientious historian, but they are the very stuff out of which emerges the image of the hero. And, even if new documents and more careful research could resolve some of the questions, it would not change that image and the role it has played in subsequent history. Let us now turn from the frustrat­ ing search for fact to an exploration of the significance of myth and mythmaking.

Chapter III MYTH, MODEL AND ARCHETYPE IN THE TRADITIONAL CHINESE HERO ... the line dividing the heroic and magical is hard to draw. There is no single and clear-cut answer to whether popular imagination conceived its heroes as gods, genii, or just superior men. Robert Ruhlman, “Traditional Heroes in Chinese Popular Fic­ tion” Foreign Images, Exotic and Dramatic Just as in his lifetime Koxinga’s activities extended beyond the bounds of purely Chinese history, so the posthumous image of him spread to far distant lands. Quite early he became one of the very few figures in Chinese history to make an impression on European consciousness, but the view of him in the West was radically different from what prevailed in China or Japan. In­ stead of a paragon of loyalty and virtue, he appears in Europe as a freebooter, tyrant, and pagan—“Koxinga, the pirate.” The reasons for this are not hard to seek. His relations with the Dutch and Spanish had been hostile; the Dutch lost a major colonial trading center to his armies, the Spanish were badly frightened by his threats. On this score the Manchus had even more reason to hate him, yet within a few decades of his death the Ch’ing court joined in the tributes to his greatness. Thè difference is that the Europeans had no place in Chinese culture and its values. For them loyalty to a fallen dynasty was just one party against another in the strange politics of that remote land. Koxinga could not symbolize to Europeans the principle that struck so deep a chord in Chinese and Japanese minds. But there is more. Koxinga also touched a romantic strain in the European imagination about those mysterious far-away Asian lands which maritime expansion was pulling into the orbit of Europe. Images 28

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o f the barbaric East—its wealth (for had not this "pirate” amassed a huge fortune?), but also its mystery, cruelty, and bizarreness— fed their fanciful picture of Koxinga. The fact that he challenged with some success the European dominance of the seas that was the basis for their tenuous littoral position in Asia might have added to the element of fear in their perception. In both East and West he emerged as a figure of extraordinary abilides and ambi­ tion whose colorful life would intrigue later generations, but the European needs and fancies that his image would fill were very different from those in China. One of the earliest sources about Koxinga in Europe was the book by the former Dutch governor on Taiwan, Frederic Coyett’s Verwaerdloosde Formosa (Abandoned Formosa) originally pub­ lished anonymously in Amsterdam in 1675. Actually it does not give that negative a picture of Koxinga, who is seen as a worthy opponent albeit rather "heathen and savage” in his character. But the loss of Formosa and the capture of Dutch colonists had al­ ready alarmed public opinion in Holland and the book’s first appendix, “A Truthful Account of the Chinese Atrocities” de­ scribed in lurid terms the massacre of Dutch prisoners, especially clergy, and the fate worse than death of Dutch women captured on Taiwan.1 The fact that Koxinga had treated the garrison in Fort Zeelandia most generously by allowing them to withdraw with their arms and private property paled beside stories of crucified missionaries and white women handed over to Koxinga’s officers. The death of the Reverend Anthonius Hambroeck, first described by Coyett, would later be immortalized in some patriotic doggerel by the poet Helmers—and by 1775 the good pastor had become the leading figure in a tragic play about the fall of Formosa.2 In the final scene his daughter vainly implores Koxinga to spare her aged father and then, when the headsman’s axe falls, she throws herself melodramatically from the casde wall with the words, "Vengeance, Heaven, for his blood! . . . and mine!*’ Murderer of the innocent, defiler of the sacred, his heart sealed against all appeals to pity—at times the European image of

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Koxinga looks more like Fu Manchu than anything recognizable from the Chinese sources. We might expect this in a staged drama, but a look at two later Spanish histories shows even more strikingly how European imag­ inations could run wild over this figure. Because of its supposed connection with his designs on the Philippines, the Spaniards were particularly fascinated by the manner of his death. Diaz, in Conquistas de las Isias Filipinos, tells how on hearing of the frustration of his plans in Manila, “he roared like a goaded bull, and th e saliva dropped from his mouth.” The fearful pirate is then struck down by a great depression which turns into fever and madness so that he dies, “making frightful faces and movements.”3 More monster than hero, he dies a monster’s death. Ferrando, Historia de los PP Dominicos, presents an almost identical account: . . . the proud pirate became furious; the pupils of his eyes turned into fierce balls of fire. . . In his horrible frenzy he tore his flesh, bit his lips and tongue until they bled, furiously attacked anyone who approached him, and passed a sentence of death on the king and governors of Spain. These terrible paroxysms lasted five whole days; finally, suffocated by rage, he delivered up his perverted soul to the demons. Thus died Attila of the East.4

This is perhaps a bit overdrawn, but most of the early Euro­ pean accounts present a not dissimilar picture of him. The Bel­ gian priest, Francois Rougemont wrote in 1673: “His death was undoubtedly a working of divine vengeance and justice, God demanding punishment for his pride and cruelty.”5 The Ital­ ian traveler, J.F.G. Careri, calls him a “Tyrant who through the just Judgements of God, had dy’d with Rage,”6 and d’Orleans, Histone de deux Conquérons Tartares has a similar account.7 The general picture as tyrant and bloodthirsty pirate is confirmed by Du Halde’s influential eighteenth-century opus, A Description of China, which ignores his alleged atrocities against Dutch Protes­ tants but chooses Koxinga’s cutting off the ears and noses of Ch’ing prisoners at Amoy as the incident that characterizes “the famous Pirate.”8

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By the late nineteenth century increased familiarity with Chinese sources began to modify this imaginauve and hostile image. For instance, an anonymous English writer in The China Review for 1884 presented a “Life of Koxinga” which recognized him as a “remarkable man” with “extraordinary force of charac­ ter.” It continued, however, to call Koxinga a pirate and quote very hosdle Spanish appraisals of him.9 Davidson’s Formosa Past and Present went much further in rehabilitating Koxinga by prais­ ing his military and political abilities and also defending his moral character.10 The Reverend William Campbell felt constrained to reply in his Formosa Under the Dutch (London, 1903) that, while it was necessary to present a balanced and objective appraisal of Koxinga, one could not overlook his brutal treatment of Christian missionaries. After noting that Koxinga killed the brave Reverend Hambroeck and took his daughter, “a very sweet and pleasing maiden,” into the pirate’s harem, Campbell ends up calling Koxinga “a coarse unholy brute.”11Even by the twentieth century, objectivity did not come easily to European writers. Later, more scholarly, writers have come to see Koxinga in a more sympathetic light. Their histories of China put him more in the context of Ming loyalism and do not see his clashes with European maritime expansion as necessarily indicating evil on his part. But old images die hard. If he ceased being customarily referred to as tyrant, despot or “coarse unholy brute,” the “pirate” tag has stuck. In the 1920s Herbert Giles could still write about how Taiwan “attracted his (Koxinga’s) piratical eye.”12 The most recent important exercise in world history, William McNeils’ The Rise of the West still refers to “the pirate king Koxinga.”13 And, more surprising, the most influential East Asian history textbook of the last decade, E.O. Reischauer and J.K. Fairbank, East Asia: The Great Tradition, though giving a short accurate account of his career in the China chapters cannot avoid mentioning “the fa­ mous Chinese-Japanese pirate” when discussing his image in Ja­ pan.14 Old images seem to have more staying power in the West than in modern China.

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The other interesting foreign image of Koxinga, t h e Japanese, in many ways is just as dramatic and unhistorical as t h e European, but far less hostile. Sharing the Chinese value of “lo y ­ alty” the Japanese also took Koxinga as a paragon of t h a t virtue—a hero, not a pirate. But there are also interesting varia­ tions from the Chinese image. In Japan he becomes not so m u ch the loyal Chinese minister laboring in a righteous cause, as a dashing and adventuresome Japanese hero doing great and noble deeds in an exotic foreign setting. The extent to which his hold o n the Japanese imagination sprang from their interest in M ing loyalism in general is uncertain. Figures like Chu Shun-shui h a d popularized the Ming cause in Japan. What is certain is that his widespread fame in Japan came directly from the work of Japan’s greatest playwright, Chikamatsu Monzaemon. His Battles o f Koxingay first produced in 1715, had an enormous and lasdng impact in Japan—doing for Koxinga what Shakespeare did fo r the melancholy prince of Denmark in England. But there was one important difference. Chikamatsu and the subsequent play­ wrights, novelists, and biographers who wrote about Koxinga al­ ways portrayed him “as a Japanese with a Chinese father.”15 Chinese accounts do not stress his half-Japanese parentage. Japanese accounts always show his mother and her virtuous suicide as a key influence in shaping the hero’s personality. In China he is a general but not a warrior; Chikamatsu and his emulators have him excel in feats of arms and physical strength. In the Battles ofKoxinga he subdues a tiger with his bare hands and in his warmaking he disdains the clever ruses and stratagems of Chinese generals. His Japanese clothes, habits, and mannerisms are the outward manifestations of a thoroughly Japanese charac­ ter. His Chinese father and the distant lands he fights in only serve to lend a dramatic and exotic coloring to this portrait of the Japanese hero. After 1895, this Nipponized Koxinga (Kokusenya in Japanese pronunciation) would have a direct political useful­ ness to Japan’s colonial enterprise on Taiwan, but long before that he was already a firmly established figure in Japanese popular history and folklore.

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Role and Model, Apotheosis Confucian Style Although these exotic foreign images of our hero are of considerable interest, his real posthumous career as symbol and model has been in Chinese history. Full appreciation of this re­ quires some understanding of model figures and role-playing in Chinese history. From Confucius’ time on, Chinese moral and polidcal philosophy had put heavy emphasis on history, and espe­ cially the behavior of exemplary historical figures, as a guide and inspiradon to correct behavior. By the seventeenth century this emphasis had created several well-defined model types; one of the most influential being the loyal minister to a fallen dynasty. T he Mongol and Juchen invasions, several centuries before, had already created vivid prototypes for this role which were firmly impressed upon Ming thought. Wen T ’ien-hsiang, preferring death to service under a new dynasty, was still a living symbol. Yueh Fei, martial hero and irredentist patriot, was a slightly different model of unswerving loyalty and determination. Koxinga’s posthumous image would resemble and draw on both, but there is also the question of how this model shaped his own life. We have seen how at the very beginning of his independent political career he inscribed Ku Ch’en (“the orphaned Qoyal] minister”) on his banner. It would be the key to his approved historical image. It may also have been, through the influence of the historical models and roles already established for him, the leading influence on his life. For one thing, playing a clearly defined role which was recognized by others as well as himself worked to his political advantage during his lifetime. It probably was one factor explaining his success in raising so formidable a following so quickly. But such role-playing need not be seen just as cynical political manipulation. The consciousness of such a role and the historical reputation it could give to him who played it could also be a powerful influence on behavior. Through all the myths about his life, what we reliably know suggests that this was an image, or role, that he consciously cultivated. Given the func­ tion of history in traditional China, it is not too much to suggest

34

that public figures played out their lives with a dual consciousness of historical models that had gone before them and of how th e y would fit such models in the eyes of those who would come a f te r them. Life imitates art or rather, in Co'nfucian China, imitates history. Of course, for Koxinga this and all other speculations ab o u t his motivation are difficult to substantiate. What we can recognize is his posthumous reputation growing along the lines of the a l­ ready established model of the diehard loyal minister. It was natural that at first this should be closely linked to a specifically Ming loyalism. Huang Tsung-hsi’s tribute to him “who was given the Imperial surname” is clearly part of that loyalist scholar's commemoration of the fallen dynasty. The Ch’ing suppression o f overtly pro-Ming books may explain why more such literature was not published and why many sympathetic accounts of his life survived only in manuscript. In any event, as the last surviving organized center of Ming resistance, the Cheng regime was an obvious focus for loyalist nostalgia. According to modern legend it was also the birthplace of South Chinese anti-Manchu secret societies, specifically the T’ien ti hui (Heaven and Earth Society). The attribution is historically dubious, for there are no pre­ twentieth century references to this. It will later be examined as part of a distinctively modern, nationalistic mythmaking about Koxinga. But the T ’ien ti hui was active both in Taiwan and along the southeastern coast by the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and it is not impossible that Koxinga and his regime may have served as symbol or inspiration to underground antiManchu dissidents. Certainly the whole anti-Manchu secret soci­ ety movement flourished in just the geographic area and maritime complex which had been Koxinga’s base. Nevertheless, any direct connection with later anti-Manchu activity is unproven and probably nonexistent. Fortunately, his apotheosis as a symbol of loyalty would not depend on the lost cause of Ming restorationism. As memories of the bitter mid­ century struggles faded by the later K’ang-hsi period, the Ch’ing

35

dynasty itself began to grant official recognition to its old foe. In 1700 the desecrated graves of Koxinga and his son were restored in their native place of Nan-an and a memorial temple erected for them. Furthermore, K’ang-hsi officially recognized them as loyal officials of the Ming, to be distinguished from the traitorous subjects who had risen against him in the revolt of the three feudatories. An earlier temple to Koxinga in Tainan apparently was also allowed to exist, and by 1787 he was included in the imperially recognized list of “loyal and pure” (chung chieh) histori­ cal officials. Perhaps, as one of Koxinga’s modern admirers suggests, these were modest enough honors for a man of his achievements and reputation.16 Still, it represented official con­ firmation that he had filled his chosen historical role. He had made the Confucian pantheon, put there by his former enemies as recognition of eternal moral principles that transcended par­ ticular polidcal causes. Later in the dynasty, when serious internal rebellion and the pressure of Western imperialist encroachments threatened its very life, these honors would be magnified. Responding to petidons from local Taiwan literati the Ch’ing official Shen Pao-chen requested imperial sanction to build an official temple to him in Tainan. In 1875 a “Yen P’ing Chun Wang Szu” was dedicated with Koxinga canonized as “loyal and pure.” A plaque from Governor Liu Ming-ch’uan eulogized: “Koxinga, with family destroyed and ruler dead, showed this continuing loyalty and in a hopeless situation created this great enterprise.”17 Imperial calligraphy and official incense smoke solemnized his Confucian apotheosis. God and Hero, Apotheosis Folk Religion Style A recognized place in the approved histories, imperial com­ memoration, an official temple—this was one kind of apotheosis in tradidonal China. But there was also another, related but different, that instead of being conferred from above grew up from below. It was not unusual for exceptional historical figures to acquire a position in folklore, flcdon, and popular religion that

36

also amounted to apotheosis. This aspect of the litde tradition touched and interacted with the Confucian literad-imperial gov­ ernment great tradition at many points, but it is still analytically separable in several ways. First, the popular apotheosis was much more regional in focus. For Koxinga this focus was the “Min-nan culture area” of southern Fukien and Taiwan. Second, it grew on a lower social and political level and was much more dependent on oral tradition. Finally, it was more thoroughly suffused with the obviously supernatural and mythical. The differences and connections can be seen in the proliferation of myths and legends about Koxinga. Earlier we looked at this process with the objective of trying to sort out fact from fiction and found any firm judgments extremely difficult due to th e infusion of myth into even very early written accounts of Koxinga. As noted then, much of the more fanciful material in such works as the Taiwan wai chi must have come from early oral tradition. Similarly, much of the same material still exists in oral tradition collected much later in Fukien and Taiwan.18 At least in part this may have been drawn back again from literary sources. As stu­ dents of popular fiction have shown, the interacdon between written and oral tradidons is very complex. Thus we cannot sim­ ply divide the images of Koxinga into an oral folklore and a literary history. But we can reconstruct from both written and oral sources a picture of the hero that probably reflects his popular image much more closely than the rather austere official figure in the Confucian temple and certainly comes closer to it than the bare bones life we constructed using only reliable historical sources. There is also no doubt that it makes a more colorful, dramadc, and interesting portrait. Several of the main features of the official image of Koxinga can also be found in the popular version. His virtues of loyalty, determination, sagacity, and bravery are all illustrated in the popular tales told about him. The “great enterprise” (pacificadon of Taiwan) that Liu Ming-ch’uan praised in the temple plaque is the basis of Koxinga’s position in Taiwanese folk religion. But

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both his character and his achievements are presented somewhat differently. There is more emphasis on the unusual, the miracu­ lous, or supernatural, and this is conveyed mainly through specific stories or anecdotes about him. For example, the historical rec­ ords show him to have possessed considerable physical courage. Even the highly reliable Ts’ung cheng shih lu has him remarking after a close call during the siege of Hai Teng that he did not fear cannon fire for heaven would protect him.1® Popular legend seized on such material to portray the hero as indifferent to danger because of his great faith in heaven's support for his sacred cause.20 Although only the Japanese stressed personal feats of arms, Chinese accounts also extoll his bravery such as when, facing a terrible storm at sea, he rejected pleas to turn back and instead used his own personal cannon to bombard and quell the rebellious waves.21 In the Confucian temple loyalty and purity prevail; in folklore a heaven-storming daring and bravery are equally prominent. It is the difference between model and hero. The model exemplifies certain key virtues; the hero may possess them but he also has extraordinary qualities and powers that set him apart from ordinary mortals. These wondrous powers often partake of the supernatural and involve divine assistance. The most celebrated instance of this in Koxinga’s career was when during his approach to Taiwan, in response to his prayers for heaven’s favor in preserving the Ming cause, the waters suddenly rose to allow his ships to pass through an otherwise unusable channel.22 This is part of the maritime hero’s mastery over the waters. On several other occasions he was able to quiet storms at sea either through direct appeals to heaven or by the use of a magic jade band given to him by a Taoist immortal.23 Legends describe several such magic articles with which he overcame various perils and difficuldes. According to one version he is told in a dream that he must go to Taiwan to obtain “three precious things” necessary for restoring the Ming.24 One is the jade to use in controlling the waters. The second is a black flag to use in subduing the wild aborigines of Taiwan. The

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third is a magic grainpot which never empties and thus can feed his entire army. His cause and the hope of Ming restoration is doomed when he loses the jade band in a storm as he is rushing to the Pescadores to meet a Ch’ing invasion attempt. There are also stories of a great “mouthless cannon" which Koxinga raises from the water near Amoy. He gives it the rank of general in his army and is the only one able to use it. When the Manchus attack Amoy this cannon sinks their ships and drowns the Ch’ing emperor.25 There are other supernatural dimensions to the hero. At his birth strange lights glow in the sky over Japan. Or, in the more elaborate version of the Taiwan wai chi, a great storm heralds his birth during which a huge creature emerges from the ocean depths and dances on the waves for three days and nights.26 There is also the sound of drums and smell of incense. The actual birth, commemorated to this day by a stone birth marker on the beach at Hirado, takes place when his mother dreams a great fish leaps from the sea into her bosom. When she awakes, a son is born. But these wonders are not the only indications of his special destiny. Long before his birth in distant Japan there are portents back in Fukien that a great hero will appear. A mysterious tile is found in Amoy with a cryptic inscription that only later can be seen to have forecast Koxinga’s career.27 More intriguing are the feng-shui legends about his native place. Near Nan-an there is a potent rock formation with a prophetic inscription by the famous Sung philosopher, Chu Hsi, who had served as a local official there. It forecasts a “Master of the Seas” from that place.28 Moreover, his grandmother is buried with supernatural aid in a site possessing royal feng-shui. With all these portents the usual biographic details of a precocious childhood and the physiog­ nomist who sees a future hero in his youthful face are only to be expected.29 Yet the prophecies of greatness are tied to the idea of a fate or destiny which even the hero cannot avoid. As one part of this, the feng-shui which produces the hero also foredooms his enterprise. At the mouth of a river near the Cheng family village there are

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five horse-shaped rocks, but only the first four face out to sea. The fifth looks backwards to the land, indicating that the Cheng’s maritime empire will last only four generations. Human interven­ tion also contributed to this fate. When the founder of the Ming dynasty visited the crane- shaped rock where Chu Hsi had written “Master of the Seas” he exclaimed, “An Emperor’s birth place!” and, fearing for his dynasty, ordered the inscription changed to alter the prophecy. It was enough to prevent Koxinga from be­ coming “the real dragon emperor.”30 In historical fact, as distinct from these legends, the Manchus did desecrate the Cheng ances­ tral graves in an effort to destroy the source of his power. Aside fromfeng-shui there are other prophecies and portents pointing to the inevitability of his premature death. One of the earliest concerns his animal motif, the “Whale of the Eastern Sea,” which according to prophecy will die when it returns east.31 In confirmation, shortly before his death a dead whale appears on the beach at Tainan.32 Another prophecy by a Taoist immortal in Fukien claims that his life will reach its end at “brick city.” There­ fore Koxinga avoids the major southern Fukien city of Chuanchou because in his dialect it is a homophone for “brick.” But after capturing Tainan he discovers that locally it is called Ch*uan-to.u Ch’eng, “city of bricks.” Hearing this, he exclaims, “How difficult it is to escape fate!,” and dies.33 The idea of a fate against which the hero struggles but, for all his abilities and ambition, is unable to overcome is a popular and more superstitious echo of his official image as the model of loyalty striving in behalf of a lost cause. In a sense it absolves him from personal responsibility for failure. We see this most clearly in another legend about a jade seal. Koxinga climbs Yü Shan (Mount Morrison, the highest peak in Taiwan) in order to obtain a preciousjade for his seal from the mountain god. Ferocious leeches guarding the path make way for him showing he is indeed a heaven-favored hero. After obtaining the jade he has seven characters engraved on it for his seal, Kuo hsing Cheng Ch’eng-kung chih yin (The seal of him who bears the imperial surname, Cheng Ch’eng-kung). But when put to paper the seal

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prints Nan wu Kuan Shih Yin p'u sa (Praise to the Bodhisattva, Kuan Yin). This is because jade can only be used for an emperor’s seal and Cheng Ch’eng-kung, as his brokenfeng-shui had already indicated, was not destined to be the true dragon.34 Finally, numerous supernatural phenomena, including a meteorite shower and a great storm similar to the one at his birth, mark the death of the hero.35 Another motif in his life reappears in legends of his death. His original given name was Sen (three trees meaning luxuriant foliage) and his teacher had given him the student name of Ta-mu, “great tree." At his death an enor­ mous “iron bark tree” falls and is floated down from th e mountains in the great storm that accompanies Koxinga’s death. His followers believe the tree is heaven-sent and use it for his coffin.36 Whereas European legends about Koxinga’s death seized on the story of frenzy and madness, Chinese folklore dwelt on the manifestations of heaven’s recognition of his heroic sta­ ture. In this the folklore accords perfecdy with his more official image. Popular commemoration of Koxinga also resembles but dif­ fers from his role as model of Confucian virtues. Especially on Taiwan there is great stress on the benefits he confers on his people and their descendants. This ancestral reverence for him can be seen in the popular names given certain special articles. A special kind of cake, a superior kind of fish, an unusual worm, in southern Taiwan are all prefaced with Kuo Hsing (“Koxinga’s”). These items all are unusual and above average in quality.37 At another level, the southern Fukien-Taiwan area’s failure to use the usual name Ch'ing-ming festival for the annual spring rite of sweeping ancestral graves is supposed to have originated in Koxinga’s aversion to placing the character Ch’ing before Ming.33 Finally, both in southern Fukien and Taiwan there are many sites that are popularly associated, correctly or not, with Koxinga’s name. The sites near Amoy and Tainan are mainly authentic, but more interesting are a number of places in northern Taiwan supposedly visited by him on a tour of inspection of the island. In

41

historical fact he never made such a tour, but it is strongly im­ pressed upon Taiwanese folklore as an indication of his position as founding father or common ancestor to the island’s Chinese inhabitants. There is a Koxinga well in central Taiwan where he stuck his sword in a rock to produce a miraculous spring.39 Al­ legedly at certain times a supernatural sword can be seen floating in it. The same origin is given to a spring near Hsinchu where the numerous birds that gather there are, according to local legend, the souls of his soldiers.40 As a variation of this sword and spring legend there is a version where his sword changes into a dragon which reappears on the surface of the pool at times of imminent disaster. According to a local informant early in the twentieth century, it was last seen at the time of the Japanese occupation.41 Even more significant are the stories about his taming and pacifying the wild and hostile landscape of Taiwan to make it a safe place for his people. These dangers include its original in­ habitants, the Taiwan aborigines, whom he subdued with a magic black flag, but at the same time showed mercy by not killing too many of them. There are also monsters and hostile forces which succumb to his prowess. Tortoise Mountain Island on the east coast near Ilan originally was a giant vapor-spitting tortoise which, after he killed it, changed into the island.42 Near Taipei a large oriole-shaped rock emitted poisonous vapors which dazed his army until Koxinga himself fired his magic cannon “mouthless general” at it and destroyed the rock’s power.43 These stories are more than just local color. They indicate the position Koxinga acquired in Taiwanese popular consciousness as a forefather and protector of his people, a culture hero to the pioneers from southern Fukien who settled the island wilderness. And in Chinese folklore it is a short step from culture hero to deity. His life and achievements had proved his potency; the benefits to the settlers of Taiwan proved his beneficence. The combination led directly to honoring his memory and appealing to him for help. In Chinese popular religion this meant deifica­ tion and in fact, beneath the level of official recognition, Koxinga

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holds a fairly prominent place as a deity in Taiwanese folk relig­ ion. It is difficult to trace this popular apotheosis in any detail. There was a Cheng family temple in Tainan where the Ch’ing conqueror of the island, Shih Lang, paid his respects to his former overlord in 1683.44 But this may have been np more than a private temple for the usual family religion of ancestor worship. Early Ch’ing literary references to a K’ai Shan Wang Miao, “Temple of the King Who Opened Our Mountains,” is more suggestive, for this later became his most commonly used title in Taiwanese temples. Apparently this temple was built in Tainan during the Cheng regime and was allowed to continue as a private temple since it did not use Koxinga’s official Ming-conferred titles. It was rebuilt by private subscription several times in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries before Shen Pao-chen obtained permission to build an official temple to him in 1875. This fragmentary record of one temple in Tainan is a poor basis for reconstructing his emergence as a popular deity, but we do know that when the Japanese did a survey of temples on the island in 1930, they found Koxinga to be the chief deity in 57 of them. In many more his image was found as a secondary deity. One cannot be sure how far back this widespread popular worship goes, but it is a fair assumption that it is not a recent phenomenon. It is also a fair assumption that his popular apotheosis influenced the official imperial canonization. Shen Pao-chen’s original memorial was spurred by a petition from local Taiwanese gentry and the Grand Secretariat’s edict speaks of Taiwanese praying to him in dmes of drought and flood.45 At a time when the Ch’ing was desperately worried about holding the territorial outposts of the empire, it was politic to make this concession to the sensibilides of fronder inhabitants. Thus, some two centuries after his death the pirate’s son and Ming diehard was established in both the state cult and local popular religion. In the former he was known by his official title, Prince of Yen P’ing, model of Confucian loyalty; in the latter he

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became the Sage King Who Opened'Our Mountains, god and culture hero to the populace of Taiwan. Model, god, and hero— different images, or more precisely different facets of the same— it was the kind of immortality open to the exceptional few in traditional China. “The Hero With a Thousand Faces” So far we have been concerned with placing Koxinga, the man and the image, in his Chinese cultural and historical setting. But by now something disturbingly familiar should be beginning to emerge out of his life and the myths about it. Birth in a remote and exotic place marked by supernatural signs, precocity and signs of future greatness in childhood, a series of trials and suffer­ ings, great bravery and great deeds, selflessness and immeasur­ able benefits secured for his people, finally a premature death at the height of his powers—is this not the archetypical hero figure Joseph Campbell has dubbed “the hero with a thousand faces?”46 Comparison with heroes, and especially the heroic myth, in other times and places suggests that Koxinga fits this archetype. What then are the essential characteristics of the universal hero, the constants that transcend individual and cultural peculiarities? First, he is physically prepossessing. The outer marks of his great­ ness are visible. Thus, most biographies of Koxinga speak of his noble stature, the dragon cast to his face, his inspiring presence. Even as a child the physiognomist sees in his face the career of a hero. Along with this all heroes must be exceptional in their abilities, their virtues (although vices or weaknesses may also be present), and, perhaps above all, in their bravery or daring. The hero dares and accomplishes what ordinary men can never aspire to. Koxinga’s anti-Manchu resistance, conquest of Taiwan, and vanquishing of mythical monsters there all fit this well enough. But beyond his appearance and abilities the hero must be dedicated to some great enterprise and be indifferent to personal gain. Although there may be some grounds for doubting the

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latter point about the historical Koxinga, his Ming loyalist im age certainly meets this requirement. Next, the hero must suffer. Partly this is the loneliness of his pursuit which sets him a p a rt from other men. Koxinga, as we have seen, deliberately chose t h e “orphan” role and image. But the hero’s suffering is more th a n just loneliness. He must undergo severe trials to prove and steel himself for his great deeds. Campbell writes of the childhood o f the hero: “The child of destiny has to face a long period o f obscurity. It is a time of extreme danger, impediment, or dis­ grace.”47 For the future Koxinga there is birth and infancy in Japan (heroes often are born in a remote and dangerous place) but even more a difficult motherless childhood in Fukien. Several accounts stress his suffering and longing for his mother as a child.48 All mythical aspects aside, the transition to a Chinese environment may have been psychologically difficult for this Japanese-reared and Japanese-speaking seven-year-old. In maturity, there are his trials and labors in building up his Fukien coastal empire and conquering Taiwan, always alone and uncom­ forted. This loneliness, especially the lack of parents or their surrogate, may be a stronger mark of suffering in Chinese culture than elsewhere. As for “the child of destiny” aspect, the mythology about Koxinga abounds with evidence ranging from supernatural por­ tents to ancestral/ing-5/mi that he is marked by destiny. There is also his life symbol, the “Whale of the Eastern Sea.” Symbolic of his mastery over the ocean, it appears at both his birth and death. The supernatural assistance and magic weapons he uses are likewise typical in tales about the hero. And, finally, the hero should die young, as Koxinga does—thirty-nine years old at the height of his powers and immediately after his greatest accomplishment. This death should have about it a touch of the ironic or inevitable, as well as the tragic. Koxinga’s has the prophecies about returning east or reaching “brick city” plus the luridly dramatic details of his illness. In the death of the real culture hero, however, there is also the theme of sacrifice and the benefits he confers upon his people.

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T he monster is slain, the enemy repulsed, a haven won for his people, though the hero dies in doing it. Koxinga dies in reaching and pacifying Taiwan, but he leaves it as settled Chinese territory. So far Koxinga seems to fill the qualities expected of the hero in the West, and in other cultures. There are only two aspects where he might be somewhat lacking. One is in feats of physical prowess. This is more prominent in both European and Japanese heroes, as we saw in the Japanese image of Koxinga. Physical violence does not fit the Confudan emphasis on dvil virtue and the power of moral example. Thus as a model of Confudan virtues we cannot expect to find Koxinga performing great feats of arms. Yet that other folkloric image of Koxinga propagated in popular myth contains something of this, such as in the tales of the enemies and monsters he kills with his magic cannon “mouthless general.” The second aspect, more clearly lacking, is romantic love. There is no Brunnhilde or Guinevere for Koxinga. The only women mentioned in his life are his mother and his first wife, but the latter is only important in connection with his son’s offenses and indpient rebellion. Our hero lacks a lady-love. Yet she may be more specifically a part of Western chivalric mythology than an essential accompaniment to the archetypical hero. In China, any­ way, the hero’s mother might be instrumental in molding his character (Yueh Fei as well as Koxinga) but he does not need a love life. In sum, then, Koxinga conforms to the essentials of this archetype. Of course, he is not entirely a mythical figure. The myths about him had to work with the raw data of a historical life, and so perhaps we should not expect to find all aspects of the mythical hero type fully developed in him. Again this was charac­ teristic of traditional Chinese culture which more often than not created its heroes out of history instead of pure myth. But, espedally for Koxinga, his life itself had so many of the ingredients for the heroic myth that, embroidered and developed after his death, that life could read like mythical archetype. In this there might be

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another factor in his posthumous apotheosis. Beyond the p articu ­ lar needs of Chinese culture, and of Chinese history and politics in the last three centuries, is it possible that Koxinga fulfilled a m o re universal need in all peoples—the need to create and celebrate th e hero? Freudian Undertones to the Chinese Hero? Prudence suggests that we leave the question of archetype here after noting the apparent similarities between Koxinga a n d heroes elsewhere. Speculation about the significance of a r ­ chetypes in any given culture is always fraught with the danger o f misinterpreting its particular symbols, and it is beyond our scope to develop a comprehensive theory about Chinese culture a n d personality as a framework for any psychoanalytic analysis of this specific case.49 But the combination of fact and legend that goes into making Koxinga’s Chinese image touches on psychoanalytic theorizing about the meaning of the archetypical hero at so many points that we cannot abandon it just yet. Otto Rank, one of the early Freudians, in 1914 wrote an essay, “The Myth of the Birth o f the Hero.”50 In it he noted how the mythical hero (his examples coming entirely from Europe or the Near East) was frequendy of secret royal birth while the father who raised and suppressed him was in reality a false father against whom the hero must rebel to prove his real (royal) self. Rank gave this the obvious Oedipal interpretation. A more general psychoanalytic interpretation of hero myths sees all the hero’s strivings in the psychological terms of adolescent maturation, but it is Rank’s two fathers for the hero that fits Koxinga so strikingly. “He who bears the imperial surname,” Koxinga, does in fact transcend his own father’s unsavory pirate background and un­ principled defection to the enemy by becoming the adopted son of the Ming emperor. His new royal father is then conveniendy killed so that the fledgling hero has only to serve a memory while striking out on his own. His old, biological but false father can be repudiated out of loyalty to the other ruler-father. Although it is

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extremely unlikely that any such event actually occurred, modern nationalistic legend has it that after refusing to follow his father into the Ch’ing camp Koxinga raised the banner Sha fu pao kuo. “ Kill Father, Repay Country.” There is enough in the historical record, including the correspondence between Koxinga and his father in Peking, to suggest that the rebellious son was not so unambivalent about his act. But he did not submit to his father’s orders and entreaties that he surrender to the Ch’ing even when it became clear that his father’s life was at stake. The justification was loyalty to the dynasty, but close beneath the surface was the repudiation of an unworthy father.51 And just beneath that, loy­ alty to his “true” royal father? When news of Cheng Chih-lung’s execution reaches Koxinga on Taiwan he is appropriately griefstricken, but in most accounts the death of the last Ming emperor, Yung Li, affects him even more. There is also the curious story about Koxinga and his son, Cheng Ching. According to the Taiwan wai chi and other sources, shortly before his death Koxinga hears that Cheng Ching, whom he had left in command back at Amoy, had committed adultery with one of his younger brothers’ wet nurses. In a rage Koxinga orders that his son, the wet nurse, and his son’s mother (Koxinga’s first wife) all be executed. The generals in Amoy are stunned by the severity of this punishment and refuse to obey the order. According to some sources, news of this disobedence is a pre­ cipitating factor in Koxinga’s fatal illness. If the story is true, why such a ferocious reaction to his son’s sexual misbehavior? Why does it extend to killing his wife for failing to govern the house­ hold more stricdy? Again it is tempting to see Koxinga’s overreaction to his own son’s assertion of sexual prerogatives as being related to his own guilt feelings abput his behavior toward his father. Morality and purity had been instrumental in justifying a lack of filiality that amounted to defacto parricide. Loose morals, and incipient rebellion, from his own son therefore had to be ruthlessly suppressed. The psychological cost of filial disobedi­ ence in China came high.

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In speculating about the hero’s inner conflicts, Koxinga's mother should not be forgotten. He saw her only briefly after she was brought to Fukien in 1645 and then she died in the Manchu sack of Chih-lung’s palace. There is an even more curious legend about Koxinga’s behavior after he found she had been violated by the Manchu troops. “Using the barbarian method,’*he slit open her abdomen with his sword, apparently to cleanse the corpse of defilement.52 Many Chinese as well as Japanese accounts stress the deep affection and longing he felt for his mother during their separation and after her death. Was she an idealized pure woman to him, beside whose purity any slip in sexual standards in his own family seemed monstrous? Could the dead idealized mother have also been a factor in his Draconic effort to purge his own house? But this takes us away from myth and archetype and back to problems about the personality of Koxinga himself. More ger­ mane here is the question: does the Chinese hero, and this hero in particular, reveal anything about Chinese culture and personali­ ty? The deep emotional bond to, and idealization of, his mother is a cliche in the lives of “great men” in Chinese history ever since Mencius. It probably does reflect the structure of emotional ties in Chinese families. Whether this intense mother-son relationship also inhibits the development of romantic love attachments is more conjectural. But father and son are closer to the heart of our problem. Does the Chinese hero have to overthrow his father, and does he require loyalty to a father-surrogate to justify rejecting filial piety? In China as elsewhere, the hero must be daring and assertive to be a hero. Other examples that come readily to mind—Yueh Fei, Kuan Yü, Wu Sung—are not known as models of filial piety, although only Koxinga can be said to have killed his father. Still it would seem that the Confucian family system’s strong suppression of the young male made it necessary for the hero, who is usually young, somehow to shake free of its re­ straints. In Koxinga’s case political loyalty and a literal fathersurrogate facilitated this self-assertion. So perhaps it is not too far

49

fetched after all to see in Koxinga not just the Confudan loyalist and not just the Taiwanese culture hero, but also the realization of the Chinese son’s deeply suppressed desire to overthrow and surpass his father.

THE TAIWANESE FOLK RELIGION IMAGE: STATUE IN MATSU TEMPLE Lukang, Taiwan (Courtesy Inez de Beauclair)

THE JAPANESE IMAGE OF KOXINGA Based largely on Chikamatsu’s extremely popular puppet play, he becomes a completely Japanese figure.

THE PEOPLE S REPUBLIC IMAGE: ANTI-IMPERIALIST LIBERATOR OF TAIWAN (Ch’eng Shih-fa, “Cheng Ch’eng-kung” 1955.) The central picture shows Koxinga ordering the defeated Dutch to leave Taiwan. The Taiwanese aborigines in his retinue show the unity of all China’s minority peoples in resisting the imperialist invaders. The series of pictures around the margins illustrate the stages in the liberation of Taiwan from the Dutch.

THE OFFICIAL NATIONALIST GOVERNMENT IMAGE: STATUE IN REBUILT CHENG CH ENG-KUNG TEMPLE Tainan, Taiwan

Chapter IV THE NATIONALIST TRANSFIGURATION

In terms of this doctrine [nationalism], the past is always by d e fin i­ tion the past of the “nation,” all achievements “national” achieve­ ments, expressions of the “national” genius to be preserved, c o m ­ memorated, or revived because they establish the “national” id e n ­ tity and foster pride in it. Elie Kedourie, Nationalism in Asia and Africa

Koxinga and Anti-Manchu Nationalism So far our discussion of Koxinga whether as model, popular deity, or archetype has been based on the traditional images of th e hero. This image was not static, but it was relatively stable after th e end of the seventeenth century. The rapid and dramatic shifts in Koxinga’s image have come only with the profound changes o f the last hundred years. We now must try to show how his shifting image has reflected these changes, especially those immediately affecting Taiwan, but also the larger changes general to modern Chinese history. The chief of these will be the rise of modern nationalism. These changes began with the erection of the official temple of Koxinga in 1875 which was at least partly in response to West­ ern imperialist inroads on the empire and the consequent concern with frontier defenses. It was typical of the Ch’ing, in responding to these dangerous new challenges, to invoke a traditional image and the traditional virtue of loyalty. In the crisis of 1895, with the short-lived attempt to set up a Taiwan Republic in order to keep the island out of Japanese hands, Koxinga was again called upon. The Ch’ing governor and twelve-day president of the Republic T ’ang Ching-sung, put the following inscription in Cheng Ch’eng-kung’s temple:

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from hsiu-ts’ai to enfeoffed prince... expelling the foreign barba­ rians from the realm, opening up a new world for one thousand autumns—those of principle who are willing to serve China are once again stimulated by this heroic spirit.1 T h e whole episode of the abortive Republic and the futile resis­ tance against Japan were still deeply immersed in traditional dynastic loyalty and localism.2 Similarly, this invocation of Koxinga only adumbrated the theme of national resistance which would come to dominate his image in the twentieth century. Expressions of pro-Ming sentiment linked to Koxinga’s name by some local scholars in Tainan were even more simply echoes of a dying past.3 But the two young Taiwanese students who went to their teacher seeking to burn their scholars’ robes in emulation of Koxinga looked both backward toward the dramatic historical gesture and forward toward the sacrifices modern Chinese nationalism would demand of Chinese youth. Their teacher talked them out of the dramatic gesture, but both died in organiz­ ing a student uprising against the Japanese.4 However,the new nationalistic image of Koxinga grew up outside of Taiwan, and out of new political forces. These were the anti-Manchu revolutionary nadonalists of the turn of the century. They too would draw on an established image of the hero, but the image they chose differed from the image of earlier opponents to the Manchus. More signiflcandy, it has also differed from the image of earlier opponents of the Manchus. From this dme on, Koxinga begins his modern nationalistic transformation. The earliest and most detailed contribution to this transfor­ mation was a “Biography of Cheng Ch’eng-kung” written by an anonymous Chinese student in Japan under the pseudonym, “Fei Shih” (rebellious stone). It first appeared in the overseas student journal, Chekiang ch’ao (Chekiang Tide) in 1900, and was re­ printed in several other student journals, Hupei hsueh-sheng shih (Hupei Student World), Hsin Hunan (New Hunan), and Kiangsu yueh k’an (Kiangsu Monthly) all published in Japan.5Signiflcandy,

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none of these provincial student organizations had any particular claims on Koxinga. Fei Shih’s Koxinga is a national figure, not a Min-nan culture hero. But he is not the kind of nationwide symbol that he had become in the Confucian pantheon. That exemplar of Confucian virtue could be appropriated by the alien Manchus in their overall patronage of traditional Chinese cultural values. The image Fei Shih created could never be. For this new Koxinga was not just part of the Ming cause in its struggle with the Ch’ing, a position that allowed the victors to appropriate his image once that particular cause was historically dead. Rather, Koxinga was now cast as a prototype of the national hero fighting alien con­ quest and domination. The same alien conquerors still ruled China, making him all the more relevant, but in principle his new position went beyond the anti-Manchu cause. It represented na­ tional self-determination—China for the Chinese—the essence of modern nationalism. Thus, although Fei Shih extolled many of the familiar virtues about him and recounted most of the same accomplishments as earlier authors, he read a new meaning into the life of the hero. Nationalism, not loyalty, became Koxinga’s outstanding virtue; inspiration to patriotic revolution, not cultural benefits in Taiwan, became his current relevance. In fact, Fei Shih devotes little atten­ tion to Taiwan itself. He points out the shame of letting Japan wrest Koxinga’s territorial legacy out of Chinese hands in 1895.® But he is not strongly anti-Dutch. Instead, in good Social Dar­ winist fashion, he blames the Chinese themselves for being so weak as to permit European imperialist expansion. “The Euro­ pean’s eastward aggression is only the Yellow Man’s shame.”7 Koxinga’s conquest of Taiwan occupies only a few pages of the biography and is only incidental to his lifelong mission of resisting the Manchu invaders. The constantly recurring theme in this floridly hortatory biography is patriotic inspiration and national shame. The theme of national shame and lamentations about lack of patriotism pervades the literature of the early student nationalist

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m ovem ent. Here, Koxinga’s heroic patriotic deeds and spirit are contrasted with the shameful inertness of contemporary Chinese a n d he is offered as a corrective to that defect in national charac­ te r. To make our Chinese people deeply examine the great meaning o f nationality and embrace the bitter virtue o f death before capitulation—everyone should turn to Cheng Ch’eng-Kung.8

Looking through Chinese history the author finds his country sadly lacking in such heroes (Yueh Fei’s star apparently had not y et risen on the horizon of Chinese nadonalism) and singles out Koxinga as the brave exception who shows that Chinese too can rise to heights of patriotic self-sacrifice. But, if the concept of nationality had replaced the Confucian Way as the core of a new value system, there were still carryovers from the past in the minds of China’s impatient young nationalists and in their image of Koxinga. For instance, Fei Shih’s biography could not completely get away from the theme of Ming dynastic loyalty, although it was secondary to loyalty to the nation or “nationality” (Kuo-min in the writer’s terminology). He still had to quote the supposed deathbed lamentation of the hero to the founder of the Ming dynasty, “How can I have face to meet the First Emperor?”9 Similarly, familial loyalties cannot be ignored. Cheng Chih-lung is portrayed as a tyrant and traitor, but Koxinga still feels deeply for him and weeps at his death. Isolation from family comforts is shown as one of the great sources of suffering in the hero’s life. This emphasis serves the dramatic purpose of heightening pathos, but it also shows that this tension between family and nation was a very real one to those of Fei Shih’s generation, one that many of them probably knew in the same personal terms of breaking with parental authority that marked Koxinga’s life. There were at least two other more or less full accounts of Koxinga. One was an even shorter “biography” by an unidentified sixteen-year-old student writing in China with the pseudonym Ya

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Lü. This appeared in the student journal Kiangsu.10 The other was a play, “Record of a Maritime Hero,” by a Ku Jih-sheng.I11The first six acts were published in the Min poo but it was never completed. Both stressed the present-day need for a Chinese hero and chose Koxinga for that role. Ku Jih-sheng describes how the inspiradon came to him in a very revealing preface to the play. Residing in Japan he went to the coast to escape the summer heat and stood on a hill looking longingly across the waters to his homeland. A Japanese passerby asked him if he was Chinese and, on learning that he was, asked if he knew of his country’s great hero Cheng Ch’eng-kung who had been born in Japan. On hear­ ing these words the author felt a great sorrow, for now the home­ land that Koxinga had striven so manfully and suffered so gready to restore was still occupied by the enemy invaders. This was the inspiration for wridng the present play so that his brothers, now a nadon of slaves under the Manchu yoke, could see of what heroic stuff their ancestors were made. In his present distress and misery he would sing of Koxinga and his deeds in the hope that the Chinese people would recover the brave spirit they now had lost.12 As one might imagine from this background, the printed pordon of the play was heroically dramatic, or melodramadc, and brim­ ming over with patriodsm. Ya Lu’s justification for invoking Koxinga ran along similar lines and is worth quodng for the passionate rhetoric that charac­ terized this patriodc literature. I do not seek a successful hero, but rather an unsuccessful hero; I do not seek a fulfilled hero, but rather an unfulfilled hero. I do not seek a hero whose name loudly echoes with pomp and glory in the world, but rather a hero whose name has not been on the lips of passersby for several hundred years. Alas! Brave o f spirit, bold of soul. Unwilling to rest content on an ocean isle. Amid sounds of wind and waves. Who else but the great man of all ages, Cheng Ch’eng-kung? Who else but Cheng Ch’eng-kung?13

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W h o else? There would be other heroes as modern Chinese nationalism established its own pantheon, but from this time on Koxinga’s place in it was secure. As the precocious teenage author pointed out, apart from spirit, the true national hero must fulfill tw o missions: drive out the foreign aggressor and acquire new territory for the nation. Koxinga qualified on both counts. Now, with the yellow race imperiled by the expanding white race, China could only find one national hero who had defeated them, “our ow n Cheng Ch’eng-kung who drove out the Dutch ancestors of m odern European power.“14 The perilous present required another such hero: “Where can we find a man like Cheng C h ’eng-kung to revive the glory of our motherland?”15 Apart from these fairly systematic reconstructions of Koxinga, laudatory references to him are scattered throughout th e revolutionary literature of this decade. The T ’ung meng hui revolutionary and poet, Ch’en Ch’u-ping, wrote a poem “Thoughts on Climbing Ku-liang Isle (a former base for Koxin­ ga’s troops) After Sailing Over from Amoy,” in 1908 which ends with the lament, “I cannot bear the memory of Cheng Ch’engkung.”16 Other writers also linked lost Taiwan with patriotic pathos about Koxinga. The precocious patriot, Ya Lü, again praised Koxinga in an irredentist article about Taiwan in a sub­ sequent issue of Kiangsu.17 Later the leading revolutionary organ, Min pao, would run a long series on the history of the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia which contained an essay on “Cheng Ch’eng-kung’s Independent Taiwan.”18 Besides the customary nationalistic praise for Koxinga, this account gives what may be the earliest version of him raising a flag after the break with his father which bore the decidedly unfilial inscription, “Kill father, repay country.”19This, of course, marked a clear resolution of the tension between family and nation, filial piety and patriotism. Subsequent nationalistic writers, especially the more culturally conservative, would not be so unambiguous about this. The Min pao also had other passing references to Koxinga, usually in the context of the anti-Manchu struggle. The most famous of its

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contributors to mention him was Wang Ching-wei.20 Another luminary in the revolutionary ranks, Chang Ping-lin, admitted that he went to Taiwan in the hope of imbibing there some of the “ancient virtue” left by Koxinga.21 Nationalists and revolutionaries need symbols and ancestors. Koxinga, with his record of anti-Manchu resistance, was a natural choice for modern and-Manchu revolutionaries. But one might doubt whether it really was an “ancient virtue” that Chang Pinglin sought for his cause. Rather, it was inspiration for the modern virtue of ethnically exclusive nationalism. Connections between Ming loyalist opposition to the Ch’ing and this modern sendment can be misleading. Ya Lii in his ardcle on Taiwan referred to Koxinga organizing the Heaven and Earth Society as a means of carrying on the Ming restorationist struggle.22 This is one of the earliest references to the modern nadonalisdc myth which at­ tempts to establish a direct link between Koxinga and the Kuomintang revoludonary movement via the anti-Manchu secret sociedes. Its main significance is not the alleged connecdon (for which there is no firm historical evidence) but m odern nationalists’ need to establish a feeling of condnuity with forces that go well back into China’s history. Although it would bear resemblance to some aspects of earlier images of Koxinga, the modern nationalistic image of the hero was in reality something new. As China entered a new world, it recreated its nadonal heroes. The Hero in Republican China After the revolution of 1911 anti-Manchuism was no longer the most pressing issue for Chinese nadonalists and accordingly there was less interest in invoking Koxinga’s ghost on their behalf. Not that the new nationalistic image of the hero disappeared. He could still be found in the histories and especially history textbooks of the early Republican period, but in a position no more prominent than that given many other historical heroes.

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In his native place were the monuments customarily erected to a famous figure. The Cheng clan built a park to his memory,23 and in the clan temple there were statues of Koxinga, his son, and his grandson. In 1915 this temple was visited by and received an official inscription from the governor of Fukien.34 Later an offi­ cial memorial temple to Koxinga was built at the site. All this was relatively modest compared to the honors that had been con­ ferred on him before and would be given to him later, but he was still a useful symbol for nationalists in the early Republic. At the time of another upsurge of revolutionary nationalism, the Kuomintang revolution of 1927, an article on him appeared in the Linguistics and History Research Bulletin of Sun Vat-sen Univer­ sity25. The main reason it gave for studying Koxinga was that his history of resistance to foreign aggression would further stimu­ late the current national revival and rights recovery movement. It also noted the importance of Koxinga defeating the Dutch but did not develop the anti-imperialist moral from this lesson as force­ fully as later left-wing nationalists would. A real revival of interest in Koxinga came with Japan’s es­ calating aggression against China in the 1930s. His connection with Taiwan, now territoria irredenta for Chinese nationalists, seems to have been partly responsible for Koxinga’s place in anti-Japanese nationalism, but there was also the general search for historical heroes who had fought foreign invaders. At the time of the Manchurian Incident in 1932, an article in the magazine Fukien Culture (Fuchien wen-hua) paired Koxinga with Ch’i Chikuang, the Ming general who had repulsed Japanese pirates along the Chekiang-Fukien coast.25 Both showed great patriotism and performed great services for their country. Therefore both were relevant for inspiring resistance to the modern-day Japanese pirates. Three years later another article in the same magazine linked Koxinga even more explicitly to a call for liberating all lost territories—Manchuria, the Ryukyus, and Taiwan—from Japan­ ese hands.27 Nobody noticed the irony in invoking the halfJapanese Koxinga in an anti-Japanese cause, or what the Japanese occupiers of Taiwan were currendy doing with his image there.

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The 1930s also saw several new biographies of Koxinga. Wang Chung-ch’i, Cheng Ch'eng-kung, Shanghai Commercial Press, 1934, is still perhaps the best scholarly biography of the hero. But it was too scholarly to have much mass appeal. Shorter, more popularized biographies specifically aimed at youthful read­ ers were probably much more influential in shaping popular attitudes. In 1934 a Chang I-p’ing wrote a short biography in the series, “Stories about China's Famous Men,” for the Shanghai Young People’s Bookstore. By 1940 it had gone through nine printings. Koxinga is portrayed as a tragic hero whose memory is “eternally imperishable.”28 The author laments the loss of Taiwan, but is rather muted in calling for any revenge against Japan. A somewhat more sober account, Record of the Prince of Yen P’ing’s Taiwan Maritime Nation, published by the Commercial Press in 1937, also praises Koxinga and hopes that his example will alert contemporary patriots to the peril of their country.29 By this time the idea of the nation in peril and the need to invoke historical heroes to save it was almost four decades old. Koxinga’s spirit had already been summoned against the Manchus, the European imperialists, and now against the Japanese. Just after the war a somewhat longer and more interesting biography, also intended for young readers, was published by the Nanking Youth Publishing House.30 It still showed very strongly the influence of the wartime atmosphere. As usual, Koxinga was offered as an inspiration to patriotic self-sacrifice in a time of crisis. More specifically, the author, named Li Hsun, stressed the theme of youth renouncing normal civil pursuits to take up arms in a national emergency. The relevant incident in Koxinga’s life was his supposed burning of his scholar’s robes in the Confucian temple. To make the point unmistakably clear to even the most obtuse student, the cover had a picture of the youthful Cheng Ch’eng-kung throwing down his writing brush and lifting up a sword. This too was a highly dramatized, or even fictionalized, ac­ count of the hero. For dramatic effect his intense personal loyalty

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to the T ’ang Wang was stressed, without any real attempt to reconcile this with the larger patriotism that supposedly moti­ vated him.31 Perhaps the intended suggestion was that personal loyalty to the leader of the nation is loyalty to the nation. Or perhaps it was just an inconsistency between surviving elements in the traditional image of the hero and his new nationalistic reincar­ nation. However, the dramatic conflict with his father was not emphasized. Was defiance of parental authority considered an unsuitable theme in a “model figure for youth?” Yet another echo of traditional values in what may fairly be called a conservative nationalist’s picture of Koxinga came through in the praise for his civil administration as well as military leadership. As the author somewhat piously commented, “China does not bestow respect purely for military prowess; only when it is supplemented by civil virtue is it given.”32 The economic de­ velopment and sinicization of Taiwan was a prominent part of Koxinga’s civil virtue. In fact, with its current relevance to Chinese politics, Taiwan assumed a larger role in Koxinga’s total achieve­ ments. His deeds had made Taiwan forever part of China, and through the Heaven and Earth Society set up by his minister, Ch’en Yung-hua, the spirit of national independence was trans­ mitted from Taiwan down through the centuries to all of China.33 The basis for the recent reunion of Taiwan with the Chinese motherland therefore was laid long ago by this great patriot. The year 1945 was a good time for the Nationalist govern­ ment to remember Koxinga and his special connection with Taiwan. They could not know at that time that the political for­ tunes of twentieth-century China would soon force them into a much closer association with Taiwan and Koxinga. Japanese Counterpoint on Taiwan The twentieth century produced a new nationalistic image of Koxinga in China, but on Taiwan he underwent a different sort of modern metamorphosis. Long before the Japanese acquired the island in 1895, Koxinga was no stranger to them. We have already

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examined the colorful literary image created primarily by Chikamatsu and how Koxinga became a Japanese hero. Report­ edly there was a shrine to him in Kyoto in the late eighteenth century and in 1852 the local daimyo erected a monument at his birthplace near Nagasaki.34 By the twentieth century there were no less than four markers all claiming to be the spot of his birth.35 Thus the Japanese were well prepared to incorporate Koxinga into their empire along with Taiwan. The first colonial governor quickly erected a torii (ceremonial gate) in front of the official temple in Tainan and in 1898 proclaimed it a shrine in the national Shinto religion. The official Chinese name, Ymp'ingchün wang szu, was replaced by the popular Taiwanese title, “Shrine of Him Who Opened Our Mountains.“36 The name change was significant for the stress the Japanese put on his role as Taiwan culture hero as distinct from nadonal hero. He was not just half-Japanese: he was all Taiwanese. One historical play about him even suggested that, after restoring the Ming dynasty, he intended to live out his life on Taiwan.37 Above all, he was no symbol of ethnic Chinese nationalism. Although his determination to restore the Ming was praised, this was portrayed as loyalty rather than patriotism. By 1907, Yosaburo Takekoshi could completely divorce Koxinga from any Chinese nation and transmute his enemies from Manchus into Chinese. In hisJapanese Rule in Formosa, Takekoshi wrote: “And thus the island, which China had torn from Koxinga’s descendants by intrigue, bribery, and brute force, passed again into the hands of the Japanese, in whose veins flows the same blood as filled those of Koxinga.”36 Just as the inhabitants of the island were to be educated to a new idendty, Koxinga became a Japanese hero and his patrimony the rightful possession of Japan. The press and educational sys­ tem of colonial Taiwan were put to use in building that image. Textbooks praised him as a great hero; popular literature ex­ tolled his character and exploits. One of the more interesting examples of the latter was the historical play referred to above. Tided “The Last Days of Koxinga,” it was written for the Taiwan

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branch of the “Patriotic Women’s Association” by a Kashima Oto in 1915. The preface clearly states that since Taiwan had become Japanese territory, Koxinga is a Japanese hero whose heroic virtues are suitably edifying material for a patriotic organization. This and other accounts, both popular and scholarly, all emphasize the Japaneseness of the hero. His virtues—loyalty, determination, courage—naturally are derived from his mother whose influence and magnificent example of “Yamato damashi” in her death became the inspiration for his heroic career.39 Simi­ larly, his tastes and habits are usually Japanese whether in per­ sonal matters, such as his alleged preference for celebrating New Year in the Japanese manner,40 or in the military tactics he uses. Siege tactics such as blockade and tunneling, armored soldiers, firearms for his troops41—all allegedly came from Japan. We do know he maintained commercial contact with Japan and several times asked the Tokugawa government for military assistance. It is possible that he obtained both tactics and weapons from Japan. However, the alleged influence of his fencing teacher in Japan seems rather farfetched since he left for Fukien at the age of seven.42 Besides this “Nipponization” of Koxinga, the Japanese image maintained much more of this premodern character than was true for the image that was simultaneously developing in China. In Taiwan he was still paragon of an essentially prenationalistic political loyalty and culture, hero to his local people long after modern Chinese nationalism had claimed him for its own. This did not mean that the Japanese were just preserving traditional images of him on Taiwan. They selectively drew on the aspects of his earlier Chinese image that were useful to their purpose of stressing Taiwan’s separateness from China proper. They could also invoke his spirit on behalf of the modern cause of Japanese imperial expansion. At the outset of the first SinoJapanese war, Yoda Hyakusen wrote: “Koxinga fought against the Ch’ing with his Japanese temper and spirit. Now let us get Taiwan in order to ease his soul and develop a bud from the seed he

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sowed.”43 And this could extend beyond Taiwan. During the Pacific War, Ishihara Michihiro noted that Koxinga’s expulsion of the Dutch and planned expulsion of the Spaniards from the Philippines was in a direct line of succession of plans for south­ ward expansion that ran back to Hideyoshi.44 Now that the Impe­ rial Japanese Army had finally realized these plans the heroic soul of Koxinga might well rejoice. The whole “China Incident” was indeed a modern parallel to Koxinga’s attempts to rid East Asia of Western imperialist domination. Obviously, Koxinga could serve to sanction more than one vision of a new political order in East Asia. But within two years of the appearance of Ishihara’s book the Japanese imperialist image of Koxinga would vanish along with the whole Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Contrasting images of the hero would soon reappear on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, but these would both be emphatically Chinese.

Chapter V HIS DISPUTED LEGACY IN A DIVIDED CHINA

. . . when we today commemorate Cheng Ch’eng-kung’s 300th anniversary o f the recovery of Taiwan, its deep significance lies not just in deepening our respect and reverence for Cheng Ch’engkung’s life work, but even more in stimulating the entire nation’s faith and dedication for the work of opposing Communism and resisting Russia. National Hero, Cheng Ch'engkung, Taichung, 1961

Three hundred years ago today. . . Cheng Ch’eng-kung drove the Dutch colonialist from Taiwan. This was die first victory scored by the Chinese people in resisting foreign capitalists’ aggression. To­ day, when United States imperialism is still occupying our Terri­ tory o f Taiwan and when the people o f our country are in the thick of the struggle to liberate Taiwan, our commemoration of the victory won by Cheng Ch’eng-kung is o f particular significance. Fan Wen-lan, Speech to Na­ tional Committee o f Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Peking, 1962.

After the Chinese Nationalist government’s withdrawal to Taiwan in 1949, Koxinga acquired a very special dual significance for the Kuomintang. First, there was the striking historical paral­ lel with the nationalist hero who almost three centuries earlier moved to that island bastion in order to carry on the cause of the legitimate government of China. Second, there was the Kuomintang’s urgent need to conciliate the Taiwanese population and develop the island into a base for the return to the mainland. The unhappy events in Taiwan soon after the reversion of 1945 made

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the second factor all the more pressing now that the entire for­ tunes of the Nationalist government rested upon its success in ruling Taiwan. Any symbol linking Taiwan to China’s national destiny was suddenly very precious, and Koxinga was the most obvious one available. Therefore, like its predecessors who had governed Taiwan, the Nationalist government showered more honors on the island’s outstanding historical figure. Even before the retreat to Taiwan, the provincial government had recognized April 29, the date of Koxinga’s landing on Taiwan, as a special day. His erstwhile Confucian temple and Shinto shrine in Tainan now became a national monument adorned in 1950 with a four-character plaque in Chiang Kai-shek’s calligraphy, Chen Hsing Chung-hua— “Revive China.” Ten years later, in time for the tercentenary of his landing, a much larger temple with encomiums from many gov­ ernment dignitaries was built on the old site. That anniversary was the occasion for rather elaborate official ceremonies, including the unveiling of a large bronze statue in the center of Tainan, and a spate of specially commissioned publications. Subsequent an­ niversaries were also celebrated, though on a less elaborate scale. In 1964, for instance, national, provincial, and civic governmental representatives attended a ceremony at his temple followed in the evening by a bonfire and civic rally at the statue.1 Aside from his place on the government’s official calendar, Koxinga was commemorated in place names—Ch’eng-kung, Yen P’ing, or Kuo Hsing appearing in the names of several towns, villages, wards, and streets.2 As for unofficial honors, there were still the numerous temples to him, but another type of monument was a more interesting comment on the changing times. The small central Taiwan community of “Anvil Mountain,” with prompting and assistance from both the Taichung county government and Chiang’s other son, Wei-kuo, in the army, decided to build a huge ferro-concrete statue of Koxinga. The obvious inspiration was the big concrete Buddha on Pa-kua Shan in nearby Changhua which is slightly bigger, and infinitely uglier, than the great Buddha of

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Kamakura. Anvil Mountain originally planned a seven-story, eighty-two foot high monster that would “familiarize travelers with Anvil Mountain and also promote the development of the tourist industry.”3 But financial difficulties forced them to cut plans back to a forty-foot figure, with a base large enough to house a small display room and souvenir shop. Evidently it has not been so successful as their Changhua Buddha model in putdng Anvil Mountain on the tourist map, but it certainly indicates how mod­ ernization is affecting all facets of life on Taiwan, even the hero business. Yet Koxinga has not been featured much in the electronic media that have made such an impact on popular culture in Taiwan during the last few years. There is a screenplay on his life that won a cultural award from the political department of the ministry of defense.4But it was never produced. Nor has the story of Koxinga been included in the historical spectaculars made in Hong Kong and Taiwan in recent years. On television, there was a lurid melodrama called “Recovering Chih Kan Ch’eng [The Fort in Tainan]” which outdid even the Dutch playwright Helmus in historical implausibility.5 This latest creative version of Koxinga’s last victory develops a romantic interest between the dashing Tainan patriot who aids Koxinga and the Dutch governor’s halfChinese daughter. It was shown by the Taiwan Television Com­ pany on August 16,1964, supposedly to critical acclaim. The only other television production to come to my attention is an old Taiwanese-language movie about him shown in 1972. An infor­ mant in the Taiwan television industry told me in a personal communication in 1969 that there were governmental instruc­ tions not to show plays about Koxinga. This suggested interesting hypotheses about official fears of reviving his popular Taiwanese folk image through the mass media, but in view of the incomplete enforcement of any such ban this now seems unlikely. Perhaps the degree of official respect for Koxinga has made producers leery of any movie or television play that might seem to cheapen his image.

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Whatever the reason, the main source for Koxinga’s image in Nationalist Taiwan continues to be the printed word. There has been no shortage of official, semi-official, and private publica­ tions about him. These range from serious scholarly works to chidren’s literature and magazine or newspaper articles. The image that emerges through all this shows strong continuity with the nationalistic image of Koxinga constructed before 1949, but there are also new features reflecting the changed political cir­ cumstances of China and Taiwan. Most obvious, his position in the modern nationalist’s pantheon of historical heroes has been greatly enhanced. For example, a laudatory biography for the tercentenary celebrations, Min-tsu ying-hsiung Cheng Ch’eng-kung (National hero Cheng Ch’eng-kung) compared him with such great heroes as Yueh Fei, Wen Tien-hsiang and Chu-ko Liang, but ranked him higher than all of them.6 This was because he combined in one man Yueh Fei’s patriotic loyalty, Wen T ’ienhsiang’s self-sacrificing determination, and Chu-ko Liang’s un­ selfish achievements. Koxinga now took a back seat to nobody. This heightened estimation of his historical position was a direct reflection of his special relevance to the current situation. The Kuomintang now pushed this relevance,or special connec­ tion, in several ways. One was through the story that Koxinga or his followers founded the anti-Manchu Heaven and Earth Society on Taiwan which preserved the cause of Chinese national resis­ tance for two centuries until Sun Yat-sen absorbed the antiManchu secret societies into his national revolutionary move­ ment. Hence they claim a direct line from Koxinga’s Ming loyalism to the Kuomintang’s modern national revolution. The historian Hsiao I-shan commented that it was therefore no acci­ dent that the national revolution should come full circle and find its place for regeneration in Taiwan.7As noted earlier, there is no historical evidence for either a Taiwan or a seventeenth-century origin for the anti-Manchu secret societies and references to the link with Cheng Ch’eng-kung seem to appear only by the early twentieth century. There are no direct references to the Cheng

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regim e in extant versions of the secret societies’ own origin legends, but some modern historians have speculated that the “first elder brother” of Triad rites refers to Koxinga and the “second elder brother” to his minister, Ch’en Yung-hua.8 The logic used in establishing this connection seems rather weak. Hsiao I-shan elsewhere admits that the Heaven and Earth Society probably did not come into existence until 1735, although he hastens to add that an earlier predecessor to it could have been formed on Taiwan.9 The evidence for a Taiwan origin is that for the Chu I-kuei rebellion on Taiwan in 1721 there are some con­ temporary ambiguous references to blood-oath ceremonies and a tang (party, clique, society) of the rebels. The tradition of periodic anti-Ch’ing rebellions on Taiwan is then taken as evidence of an underground organized opposition. The later, documented ac­ tivities of the secret societies in Fukien and Kwangtung allegedly show that Koxinga’s Ming diehards spread their underground organization back to the mainland in order to carry on the antiManchu fight. By any standards of critical scholarship this makes very un­ convincing history. It may be that the Cheng origins were so buried in disguised references and legends that they were lost completely to later members, but why should a proscribed proMing underground organization have to hide what would seem to be a highly honorable connection with Cheng Ch’eng-kung? And why are there no earlier references to the Heaven and Earth Society and its activities on Taiwan? Finally, why does this story only appear in the twentieth-century and even then it is not mentioned in most of the important early twentieth century schol­ arship on the origins of the secret societies?10 It would appear that historical fact is once again less important than historical myth and its contemporary uses. In recent years pro-Kuomintang accounts, published in Taiwan or Hong Kong, on the origins of the secret societies have all faithfully recreated this line going back to Koxinga. Sober historians in their more scholarly writings admit that it is not completely “proven,” but they hasten to affirm

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the “probability” of the story.11 More popular writings simply affirm that the secret societies, and hence the national revolution, can be traced back to Taiwan and Koxinga.12 If it all started with Koxinga, as these accounts imply, then Nationalist mainland emigres should draw inspiration from his choice of Taiwan and native Taiwanese should realize that from the beginning they were in the mainstream of China’s national revolution, not just bystanders dragged into it by recent polidcal events. But the secret society connection is not the only way in which Koxinga’s special relevance is pushed. There is also the historical parallel of retreat from the mainland and determination to re­ store China to her rightful government. Sometimes specific les­ sons are drawn from this parallel, such as the strategic necessity of holding the off-shore islands and the need to coordinate military and political planning.13 But too explicit a parallel with the pres­ ent situation usually is avoided. After all, Koxinga did not win in the long run and his descendants were unable to preserve his patrimony on Taiwan. Thus, it is his patriotic spirit and heroic example that provide the relevant lessons for Chinese today. With almost too much insistence, these post-1949 works claim that the historical situations are only superficially parallel, for though Koxinga and President Chiang are represented as both great patriots and statesmen, there are vital differences which insure that history will not repeat itself. In the first place, despite being foreigners the Manchus were not so oppressive and alien to Chinese culture as the Russian-puppet Chinese Communists.14 Next, the Nationalist government is better oganized than Cheng’s after the founder’s death. And finally, the Nadonalist govern­ ment has powerful allies in a world-wide struggle against com­ munism. As one popular biographer expressed it: Taiwan of three hundred years ago and Taiwan three hundred years later have very great differences in time and position, dis­ similarities in manpower and materials. But in the goal o f‘recover­ ing our ancient land’ they have the same significance.15

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Koxinga would serve to inspire the present by his heroism, not intimidate it by the failure of his own cause. The remaining relevant aspect of Koxinga’s legacy was Taiwan itself, now an indispensable base for national recovery. T h e theme of gratitude for the present island base echoes through many of the eulogies to him. An article in the magazine, “Free Youth,” commented: “As for his heroic unbending antiCh’ing struggle, we can only read about it in history books. But as for his opening the wilderness restoration of Taiwan, the bles­ sings extend right to today. We soldiers and people on Taiwan all benefit from his deeds.”16 There is something like his Taiwan culture hero image in this, but under the Kuomintang “the bless­ ings” go beyond Taiwan. As a commentator noted during the 1964 celebration of the anniversary of his recovery, Koxinga’s achievement went beyond even the great Sung patriot, Wen T ’ien-hsiang. For by restoring Taiwan to Chinese rule he had made possible the imminent reconquest of the mainland.17 Thus, while post-1949 accounts give much more play to his conquest and settlement of Taiwan, it is always put in the larger context of national recovery. Dramatic episodes from his Taiwan campaign are now stock in trade for popular literature about him. The elementary school history textbook, for instance, describes the miraculous rising of the waters on his approach to Taiwan, and there is plenty of blood and thunder about his battles with the Dutch. But, with a few exceptions, the anti-imperialist theme continues to be muted, at least compared with recent writings on the mainland. His civil exploits on Taiwan—the sinicization of the island through a regular administration, promoting agriculture, establishing Confucian temples, and taming the aborigines—also receive a great deal of attention. This too is not exacdy new, but it has become more important. The Japanese had emphasized Taiwan in an attempt to sepa­ rate Koxinga from a Chinese nationalist identity. For the Kuomintang, however, Taiwan became the bond or proof of his larger patriotism, since it was an integral part of his plan for

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restoring all of China to Chinese rule.18 As official evidence of this, in 1968 Chiang Ching-kuo dedicated a new temple to Koxinga on Quemoy dramatizing how the historical hero’s old base was the focal point for the Nationalist government’s ambi­ tions to return to the mainland.19 Or, in the realm of officially approved creative literature, the award-winning screenplay for the ministry of defense ended immediately after Koxinga’s death with his son unfurling the banner, “Counterattack the Mainland, Restore the Motherland.”20 Anti-Imperialist Fighter in Communist China Such enthusiastic approbation of Koxinga by their enemies might have turned the Communists away from him, but in view of Koxinga’s record of being hero to different parties for different reasons, it is not surprising to find him honored almost as much in the People’s Republic as on Taiwan. This is not to say that Com­ munist and Nationalist reasons for praising Koxinga are com­ pletely different. They reach a “united front” on the issue of national resistance against foreign invaders. Manchus are no more popular with Communist than with Nationalist writers. Both sides agree in giving Koxinga the accolade “national hero” (min-tsu ying-hsiung) for resisting alien rule over China. But after this general agreement the two sides begin to differ in their estimation of Koxinga. Nationalist eulogies of him either approve of or show a certain ambivalence about the traditional values and virtues that Koxinga upheld. For example, they fre­ quently stress the personal basis of his loyalty to the Ming house and especially to his first sovereign, the Lung Wu Emperor. Some Communist accounts also talk about “loyalty” (chung) but usually it becomes a more general love of country and love of the Chinese people. Similarly, most of his Nationalist biographers made much out of the classic conflict between filial piety and political loyalty, thus heightening the pathos of the hero’s life by showing the psychic costs of repudiating his family to serve his king and

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country. Always, of course, he was applauded for making the right choice—country before family. But to the Communists there is not even a choice for any respectable national hero. His father is simply a “traitor”(Aan chien) and Koxinga naturally raises the banner, “Kill Father, Repay Country,”just as any good young citizen of the People’s Republic should do.21 The tension, or ambivalence, over traditional values which characterized much of Kuomintang nationalism has disappeared with Chinese com­ munism. Yet the Communist image of Koxinga is not without its sources of tension too. As with many national heroes from China’s past, the problem comes from his upper-class associations and dynasdc loyalties. This has meant that in the last few years he has dropped from view along with all other historical figures who are idendfied with the “feudal oppressors.” But before 1966 the value of patriotic national heroes and the special relevance of Taiwan outweighed his class affiliations. The Marxist (or Maoist) justifica­ tion for this was, “When a nation is under attack by another nation, the national contradiction is in ascendancy and class con­ tradictions drop to a secondary place.”22 Therefore, after the Manchu invasion and the defeat of Li Tzu-ch’eng and the other peasant armies, the contradiction between Chinese and Manchus took precedence over that between peasants and landlords. In opposing the Manchus Koxinga was responding to the principal need of his time and serving the interests of the Chinese people.23 In one of the more restrained and scholarly treatments of Koxinga, Professor Chu Chieh-chin of Sun Yat-sen University argued that, as a subject of a feudal court, Koxinga was bound to have feelings of feudal loyalty and heroism. “But his consistently putting aside private gain and fighting the Ch’ing rulers to his death was not just out of loyalty to the House of Chu but also arose out of nationalist feelings and allowed him to unite with the broad masses in opposing the murderous Ch’ing rulers.”24 Ui ity with the masses in a national cause therefore becomes the redeeming virtue for a feudal courtier. It also becomes the source of his

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power and key to his heroic exploits. All Communist accounts stress his solicitude for the common people and their support for him. As Chu Chien-chin concluded, “Each of Cheng Ch’engkung’s achievements can be said to have been the result of the masses* cooperation. From this we can see the greatness of the people’s power and its contribution to the Motherland.”25 Na­ tional hero thus becomes popular hero, though not quite people’s hero. Another aspect of this popular support arises from relations with non-Han minority peoples. For Koxinga these are the Taiwan aborigines. Nationalist accounts already had cited the blessings of civilization he brought to these primitive people and how they had accordingly been friendly in most cases. Communist descriptions of the “liberation” of Taiwan carry this much fur­ ther. In common with their Han brethren, the aborigines welcome and support Koxinga against the hated Dutch oppressors.26 The obvious point here is the unity of all China’s fraternal nationalities in the face of foreign imperialism, another useful lesson for the present-day situation in the People’s Republic. This leads directly to the main dimension of Koxinga’s image in Communist China—the successful anti-imperialist fighter. In the last two decades both Nationalsts and Communists have em­ phasized his liberation of Taiwan and the island’s unquestionable status as Chinese territory, but the Communists have made much more of his victory over the Dutch and of the harsh exploitative nature of Dutch imperialism on Taiwan. Almost all Communist biographies of Koxinga describe the battles at Tainan in vivid detail—exalting Koxinga’s strategy and bravery, stressing the im­ portance of the fervent support he received from the populadon of Taiwan, and ridiculing the oppressive but ineffective Dutch defenders. The epithet, “red haired devils,” is frequently applied to the Europeans, a term hardly ever found in Nationalist works.27 The Dutch hold on Taiwan and their nine-month de­ fense of Fort Zeelandia are explained solely in terms of superior firepower, but the moral of Koxinga’s victory is that superior

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weapons are no match for patriotic heroism and mass support.28 If the latter point sounds very similar to the Maoist line on the contemporary military situation vis-à-vis foreign technological superiority, that was exacdy what was intended. Parallels between th e Dutch occupation of Taiwan and American support for the Nationalists (which was equated with occupation) invariaby con­ cluded all accounts of Koxinga’s great victory. The Kuang-mingjih pao feature article on Koxinga’s regaining Taiwan warned Ameri­ cans that, if they persisted in their criminal occupation of Chinese territory, “the shameful fate of the previous Dutch aggressors m ust be their common fate.’’29 Koxinga thus becomes a great anti-imperialist fighter and direct inspiration for the urgent task o f liberating Taiwan. Accordingly the Communists celebrated the three hun­ dredth anniversary of the first liberation of Taiwan with almost as much fanfare as the Nationalists30 In Peking Ch’en Yi presided over a meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference where that august ceremonial body listened to a speech by the prominent historian Fan Wen-lan invoking histori­ cal analogy as an augury for a speedy liberation of the island. He was followed by various minority party leaders pledging their patriotic support for the sacred task. Ho Hsiang-ning, speaking for the Revolutionary Committee of the Kuomintang, enjoined, “members of the Kuomintang on Taiwan should learn from the patriotic spirit displayed by Cheng Ch’eng-kung and resolutely fight the U.S. imperialists.”31 In his home province of Fukien, especially in Amoy, other celebrations were held including public meetings, exhibitions at historic sites associated with Koxinga, several new publications, dramas, operas, and a documentary film on “historic relics relating to Cheng Ch’eng-kung’s patriotic achievements.”32 Admittedly this was a high point for Koxinga’s reputation in the People’s Republic. Since the mid-1960s he has fallen victim to the general disregard or suspicion of the past that marked the Cultural Revolution. The current status of the Taiwan question is

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also very relevant to the amount of attention he receives. In the early and mid-fifties the proliferation of books and articles about him came in the context of an active propaganda drive calling for a prompt armed liberation of Taiwan. The diminished attention to that task in the 1960s and more recently the shift towards a softer line on reuniting Taiwan with the motherland make Koxinga’s great exploit less immediately relevant. But Koxinga has not been attacked, or forgotten. His image remains intact waiting in reserve for the time when historical heroes might once again be invoked in the name of national defense and also for any change in the Taiwan situation which might again make armed liberation a high priority item. Communists and Nationalists re­ main united in their insistence that Taiwan is Chinese. And the competition for both Koxinga’s spirit and his territorial bequest to the Chinese nation still goes on. Taiwan Independence, A Third Claimant? Having seen how both sides of a divided China have con­ tested for Koxinga’s legacy, we might consider one more possible contender—the Taiwan Independence Movement. Just as its strength and prospects as a political force are difficult to gauge, so is the usefulness of Koxinga as a symbol for it. Up to now he has not figured very prominently in the movement’s activities or literature. Douglas Mendel mentions “pictures of Koxinga’’ at an independence movement meeting in Tokyo in 196333and George Kerr alleges that the former head of the Formosan Independence Movement in Japan, Thomas Liao, attempted to make Koxinga a symbol of Taiwanese identity but that a majority of his younger followers resented giving this role to “the old freebooter.”34 The pirate image is probably Kerr’s, not theirs. But more recently the best-known spokesman for Taiwanese independence, Peng Min-min, used a similar term in his autobiography, A Taste of Freedom, where he refers to Koxinga as “an adventurous seabaron.”35

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Peng’s brief and uneulogistic reference to him seems fairly representative of much of the independence movement’s at­ titude. A careful search of the movement’s literature has uncov­ e re d relatively litde on Koxinga and most of that is somewhat ambivalent about him. Ong Yok-tek’s (Wang Yu-te) Japanese language history of Taiwan has the longest discussion of him. He admits Koxinga’s popular appeal among Taiwanese but con­ cludes: From the point of view o f the history of Taiwan, we must differen­ tiate Koxinga’s personal appeal from the substance of the Koxinga Dynasty. . . The Koxinga Dynasty was something like the present Chiang Kai-shek regime. . . Its major interest was “Counter-attack the mainland.” For this, the Taiwanese people were forced to sacrifice themselves . . . Undoubtedly the people o f Taiwan were and still are indifferent to this cause.36

A personal communication from Ng Yuzin (Huang Yu-jen) of the “World United Formosans for Independence” reaffirmed these reservations about Koxinga: “Koxinga as a person is not important. The 20,000 people who came with him are important: they are the most ancient ancestors of most of the present Taiwanese.”37 Ng also denied that Koxinga ever was “a hot prob­ lem of discussion among Taiwan independence movement groups.” However, he does concede that “there are different opinions among Taiwanese, they are a personal estimation of Koxinga” and that “Some people such as Thomas Liao think Koxinga was the symbol or leader of the emigrants.”38 Apparently supporters of Taiwanese independence are not quite sure about Koxinga’s suitability as a symbol for their cause. As for his potential as a Taiwanese nationalist symbol, the crucial question would seem to be what Koxinga’s image has become in the minds of Taiwan’s silent majority. Is he still a Taiwanese culture hero, or has the Kuomintang expropriated him to their vision of Chinese nationalism?

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Although intellectuals (both Taiwanese and mainlanders) speak of Koxinga just as a historical figure, he continues to hold a fairly prominent position in Taiwanese popular religion. T h e Taiwan Provincial Historical Materials Society’s survey of temples on Taiwan in 1960 reported fifty-seven temples in which he was the chief deity.39 A personal check on some of these temples a decade later found many of them still in existence. There are also an indeterminate number of temples in which Koxinga is a secon­ dary deity. This figure seems fairly impressive but it needs to be qualified in two ways. First, with the exception of his official temple in Tainan, none of these temples are very large and they should be seen in the context of over 4,000 temples on the island. Second, it is difficult to infer from the mere existence of a temple how often a deity is worshiped and what the attitude of th e worshipers is toward him. Apart from random conversations with Taiwanese and those interested in Taiwanese religion,40 the only evidence that can be brought to bear is a survey on popular religion personally con­ ducted in January 1971. One thousand copies of a questionnaire listing thirteen popular deities were distributed by students in twenty-three cities and districts throughout the island. The ques­ tionnaire asked the informant to check the deities on the list that he had worshiped (pai-kuo) and to name the deity he considered most powerful (tsui yu ling). The term “worship” is somewhat ambiguous, for it can refer to paying respect or seeking to invoke the god’s aid on one’s behalf. Therefore we cannot be certain whether the 257 respondents who had worshiped Koxinga thought of him primarily as a god who could help and protect o r as a distinguished historical figure. Probably the two images are intermixed in many minds. Only 37 respondents considered him the “most powerful” deity and he ranked eleventh in terms of number of worshipers as compared to the other gods on the list.41 These figures, along with the temple statistics, suggest that he is not one of the principal deities in Taiwanese folk religion on the order of Ma Tsu or Kuan Ti. But the fact that over 25 percent of

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the sample had worshiped him also suggests that he continues to occupy a fairly secure position in the folk religion. His modern role as national hero may not have endrely eclipsed his position as “Sage King Who Opened Our Mountains.” There is one more check on his image among a segment of the population particularly important for the future—high school students. In 1970,530 questionnaires on historical atdtudes were distributed at senior secondary schools on Taiwan. Although efforts were made to get a geographical and socioeconomic mix, the sample is biased in favor of the more prestigious middle schools and thus probably contains a disproportionate number of upper-income and mainlander children. Unfortunately, it was impossible to distinguish native Taiwanese from mainlanders on the questionnaire. Still, a majority of those 530 are undoubtedly Taiwanese. In response to the question asking the student to list three “great historical heroes” 183, or 34 percent, chose Koxinga. This ranked him third in the survey behind only Yueh Fei and Wen T ’ien-hsiang.42 From the history textbooks used in Taiwan and the popular historical literature available to children, this is just the result one would expect. However, comparison with fig­ ures on the same questionnaire distributed in Hong Kong and Singapore suggests that there is a particular Taiwanese factor relevant to his popularity there. Yueh Fei and Wen T ’ien-hsiang rank one and two in all three places, but Koxinga is sixth in Singapore and hardly mentioned at all in Hong Kong. In other words, despite different textbooks in these three Chinese com­ munities, there is a consistent pattern in the two most respected historical heroes among these three Chinese populations until we come to Koxinga who is much more popular on Taiwan. In an attempt to be more precise about Koxinga’s image in the minds of Taiwanese schoolchidren, 175 essays were collected from junior and senior high school students at five different schools.43 The location of the schools, Hsin Chu and Tainan county, makes it almost certain that a very large majority of these students were Taiwanese. There were considerable variations in

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the amount of knowledge about him and what aspects of him were stressed, but certain significant themes appear. For example, over twice as many students mention his conquest of Taiwan as men­ tion the battle at Nanking. About one-quarter of the total refer to his civil development of Taiwan while hardly any mention his administration in Fukien. Yet, in making the somewhat arbitrary judgment of whether an individual essay put more stress on him as national hero or as founder of Taiwan, there was a more than two to one majority for the national hero image. Loyalty and patriotism were by far his most frequently mentioned virtues. This suggests that among the younger generation of Taiwanese educated by the Nationalist government the official image of Koxinga as national hero is stronger than any particu­ larly Taiwanese association. If so, the Independence Movement’s reservations about him as a symbol are perfectly understandable. But the evidence about his real position in Taiwanese popular consciousness is inconclusive and there is always the possibility that under different political circumstances Koxinga might well emerge as symbol of yet another cause. For three centuries diffe­ rent groups and causes have created their own images of Koxinga. As long as China needs national heroes, and as long as Taiwan remains an issue of political contention, there is no reason to suppose that the process is over.

Chapter VI HISTORY AND THE HERO After following Koxinga through so many metamorphoses what are we left with besides irony and ambiguity? Ambiguity about what meaning and purpose he himself intended for his life; irony from the different and conflicting meanings others have attributed to it. More detailed research might resolve some of that ambiguity, although it seems unlikely that historians can ever be certain about the actual historical figure. The irony implicit in his life and his changing historical reputation is even less removable. First, there is the irony of a pirate’s son becoming the last pillar of Confucian political legitimacy for the last native Chinese dynasty. Then there is the irony that his forced retreat from the mainland center of political action to the island wilderness of Taiwan re­ sulted in his only lasting legacy to the Chinese nation. After his death he is canonized in the Confucian pantheon by the very Manchu enemies he fought against for his whole adult lifetime. And, on another level, he is apotheosized in the folk religion of the island he reached only in the last year of his life, not in his home region of southern Fukien. Irony enough already for any one historical figure, but the pressures of nationalistic and revolutionary politics in the twen­ tieth century have given even stranger twists to his reputation. He has been hero to anti-Manchu revolutionaries at the same time the Ch’ing court was honoring him in the official pantheon. The Japanese deified him in a Shinto shrine, while to Chinese nationalists he was a symbol of patriotic resistance to foreign invaders. The Nationalist government in exile drew inspiration from his example, while their Communist enemies simultane­ ously praised him for setting a precedent for the liberation of Taiwan from imperialist hands. And through all these conradictory images runs the overriding irony that none of them corres­ ponds very well with the seventeenth-century historical person.

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But, no matter how much historical irony we wring from all this, there is more than just irony to be found in Koxinga and his many reincarnations. Although our main emphasis has been on his political significance, the other dimension as the archetypical hero may go even deeper into Chinese culture and social values. Transcending the particular Ming cause and even the principle of Confucian loyalism, there is something of the universal hero in Koxinga and also something of a distinctly Chinese hero type. Youth reversing or overthrowing the normal precedence of age, heroic assertion against impossible odds, total unswerving dedica­ tion, and ultimate sacrifice—this is a side of the Chinese historical hero (and of many of the heroes of popular fiction) that shows that the values of Confucian philosophy and family-centered social structure are not all there was to Chinese society and its values. But it is hazardous to venture more speculations about this aspect of Koxinga without much more supporting analysis of other hero types, both the martial heroic (Kuan Yii, Yueh Fei, or even Hua Mu-lan) and the self-sacrificng martyr (Wen T ’ienhsiang, Chang Huan-yen, or Shih K’o-fa). We are on surer ground when we expore his significance as political symbol. The modern image of national hero certainly has not been created de novo. It has had to build on older established images and thus contains many of the tensions and contradictions inherent in the rise of modern Chinese nationalism. National versus regional identification has been one of these. Even in his lifetime, we have seen the tension, or at least the alternative, between a Confucian-approved dynastic loyalty on the scale of national politics and regional warlordism based on his maritime power. After his death there are the distinctly different roles as paragon of Confucian political virtue and culture hero—popular deity in Taiwanese local religion. In the twentieth century the nationalistic mythmaking of anti-Manchu revolutionaries, Kuomintang integral nationalists, and Communist anti­ imperialists have all stressed his role as defender of the Chinese nation against external aggressors. But for all this emphasis on

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him as “national hero” there has still been enough potential left in his regional Taiwanese identity for the Japanese to sponsor him as symbol of Taiwanese separation from China and for at least some o f the Taiwanese local nationalists to toy with the idea of using him for their cause. Nevertheless, regionalism has become a minor theme in our hero’s twentieth-century career as evidenced by the Taiwan Independence Movements’ coolness toward him. The ease with which even the historical figure with the most potential for regional identification could be “nationalized” (that is, assimilated to the cause of national unity and defense) indicates the strength of a transregional national identification in China as compared to many other Asian countries. In modern India, for example, efforts to build the eighteenth-century Mahratti guer­ rilla fighter and chieftain, Sivaji, into a national hero have run afoul of both Mahratti local nationalism and bitter historical memories of his raids against non-Mahratti Hindu populations.1 But in China, perhaps partly because of those broader transreg­ ional Confucian political values, such essentially regional figures could have their local temples and cults yet still be readily assimi­ lated to the cause of nation building. Koxinga’s temple in Tainan is only one example of this. There is the much more famous Yueh Fei temple beside the West Lake in Hangchow which Chiang Kai-shek made into a kind of national shrine. And in Foochow the temple to the sixteenth-century subduer of Japanese pirates, Ch’i Chi-kuang, was refurbished in 1937 directly because, in the words of a local resident, “now we are fighting the Japanese.”2 Similarly, the tension between more particularistic tradi­ tional cultural values (especially those centered on familial and personal dynastic loyalty) and modern nationalistic values has generally been resolved in favor of the latter. For more culturally conservative nationalists the filial disobedience which was crucial to Koxinga’s career has had some disturbing implications. But usually these nationalists, such as the Nationalist government’s propagandists, have subsumed filial piety in loyalty to the nation—“i hsiao tso chung, subsume filial piety in loyalty”—as the

82

slogan ran on the cover of one of the popular biographies of Koxinga in the 1930s. Still the way these same biographies stress the pathos of his separation from family comforts shows that the issue (family versus country) was not entirely dead for them. There were also survivals of the older meaning of chung, “loyalty,” in the emphasis on Koxinga’s personal relationship with and dedication to his ruler, the Lung Wu Emperor. In fact, one can recognize a distinct continuity between the loyal martyr complex of traditional values, the virtuous official or general who sacrifices himself to a lost but righteous cause, and the most popular of the modern “national heroes.” Koxinga is only one good example. Yueh Fei (victim of inner betrayal), Wen T ’ien-hsiang (preferring death to serving a new ruler), Shih K’o-fa (fighting to the death in a hopeless cause), and Koxinga’s ally, Chang Huan-yen, all fit this pattern. Going further back in history, modern nationalistic hagiography dwells more on the tragic Su Wu (defeated but loyal Han general) than the victorious Pan Chao. The preference seems still to be for dramatic martyrdom, the ultimate sacrifice for moral principle, rather than sheer success. Most “national heoes” are tragic heroes as were the i-min “righte­ ous loyal survivors” of fallen dynasties in the past. But there is one important added factor for the modern category of national hero. All of the above heroes died in fighting a foreign enemy. A traditional loyalist figure like the T ’ang official Chang Hsün also has a strong local cult centered in Wuhsi but he has not been taken up as a national hero because he died in a civil war. Even the celebrated Kuan Yü, despite his prominence in folklore and popular religion, has received relatively little attention as a na­ tional hero because all of the Three Kingdoms were Chinese. Nationalist martyrs and heroes must die in defending the coun­ try, not just a dynasty. More radical revolutionaries, especially the Communists, have had less inhibition about casting off the traditional trappings of the hero to make him into something better suited for their purposes. Inconvenient features, such as Koxinga’s grief for his

83

fa th e r or personal attachment to a feudal ruler, can be ignored in th e popularized hagiographie history of the People’s Republic, b u t the national hero type still presents problems to Communist historians and publicists. Some of these come from the economic determinist aspect of Marxist historiography. If impersonal laws a n d broad social forces determine the cause of history, what role is le ft for individual heroes? Or, if in keeping with the populist emphasis of Maoism one stresses the broad masses as the real creators of history, again what role is left for the hero? Or, finally, if one modifies the determinism and populism enough to allow some influence on history by the individual actor, is it not prefer­ able to emphasize “revolutionary heroes”—those from the lower classes who led revolts against upper-class oppressors? All these factors have bedeviled Chinese Communist ap­ proaches to “national heroes” in history and to history in general. After 1949 evaluation of historical personalities became a leading question among historians in the People’s Republic. In the numerous discussions on the subject it was recognized that while China must erect a new “scientific” Marxist historiography, it could not ignore famous historical figures. In the first place, China’s historiographical tradition had always paid attention to individual figures and even when moving beyond previous, biased feudal judgments, the makers of the new historiography could not entirely neglect this.3 Perhaps more urgent, a popular Chinese history to serve the masses by stimulating their patriotism and revolutionary ardor could not just talk in terms of social forces and impersonal laws of development. Dramatic per­ sonalities, flesh and blood heroes, were needed. Therefore, the conclusion to most of these discussions was that, while history progressed according to definite laws and the broad masses were the creators of history, individual figures could exert an influence in accelerating or retarding historical progress.4 Heroes, of course, would be those who accelerated it along the lines of Marxist historical materialism; villains were

84

those who retarded such ultimately inevitable development. Where did this put those Chinese national heroes we have been discussing? Mostly on the side of progress, for they had defended the Chinese nation and its people against alien invaders whose reactionary domination would retard the development of new productive forces and hence proper Marxist historical evolution. The possibly embarrassing question of how defenders who failed, martyrs in a losing cause, could have accelerated historical prog­ ress was not asked. More troublesome were the upper-class affiliations of these national heroes, especially when as with Yueh Fei andShih K’o-fa they fought agaist peasant rebels as well as against foreign invad­ ers. In periods of relative ideological relaxation this question too was discreetly ignored as national unity took precedence over class struggle. Thus both the mid-1950s and early 1960s saw many laudatory biographies of historical figures who were by no stretch of the imagination popular or revolutionary heroes. The category of national hero—those who resisted foreign invaders—was par­ ticularly well represented. For example, the series edited by Wu Han seemed to stress Ming loyalists: Chang Huan-yen, Shih K’ofa, Hsia Wan-ch’un, a young scholar martyred for his adherence to the Ming, and even Yuan Shih-k’ai’s ancestor, Yuan Ch’unghuan, the early seventeenth-century Ming defender of southern Manchuria.5 It was only with the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 that the class associations of such figures doomed them either to outright rejection or at least neglect. Koxinga has fallen into the latter category, but the fate of his fellow Ming loyalist, Shih K’o-fa , is illustrative of the danger that the hardening of class lines and emphasis on revolutionary struggle posed for na­ tional heroes. On January 10, 1966, an article by Liu Hui ap­ peared in the Shanghai newspaper Wen hui pao criticizing the biography of Shih K’o-fa in the popular history series edited by Wu Han .6 The thrust of his attack was that Shih K’o-fa had spent more of his time and efforts in massacring the peasant armies that

85

h a d risen against the Ming than in fighting Manchus. By doing th is he had weakened the main force opposing the invaders. As fo r his own death at Yangchow, it was purely out of feudal dynas­ tic loyalty to the Ming court, not out of patriotism. According to class analysis, Shih K’o-fa was a tool of the feudal landlord class an d therefore no kind of Chinese nadonal hero. This touched off a lively debate over the next three months with some contributors defending Shih K’o-fa but a majority attacking him along the above lines. Before long this preliminary skirmish on the histori­ cal front was overtaken by the full-scale campaign against Wu H an’s use of another historical figure, Hai Jui, to criticize Mao Tse-tung . 7 With that the Cultural Revolution got into high gear and even national heroes had to run for cover. If Wu Han could use history to commit such a crime, then history, historians, and historical heroes were all suspect. There have been no more national heroes brought forth since, but this does not necessarily mean that Chinese have lost their fascination with figures from the past or the habit of citing them to point present lessons. When Ch’in Shih Huang-ti and Confucius are brought forth as prime examples for an intensive nationwide polidcal campaign, the di­ dactic function of historical personalities obviously has not disap­ peared. If, with the closing of scholarly publications in 1966, history seemed to be dead in China, the practice of looking to it for presently relevant heroes and villains remains very much alive. Fortunately for his reputation, Koxinga has been left out of these latest rounds of grappling with ghosts from the past. Shih K’o-fa has been denounced as a running dog of the feudal op­ pressors and Yueh Fei’s memorial temple in Hangchow has been converted into an exhibition hall on the history of class struggle .8 But Koxinga, if no longer publicized as he was earlier, continues to maintain his status as “national hero.” Even though national heroes have not fared well in the People’s Republic of late, the underlying nationalistic compulsion to find herqes in the past has not been destroyed and can be expected to revive.

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Koxinga, then, remains a hero to all modern Chinese. In this he succeeded in achieving that kind of immortality to which all traditional Chinese heroes aspired. He could not have foreseen that the revolutionary changes in values and perspective o f the last hundred years would transform the established roles and images of traditional China into something quite different, would make him into a kind of hero he probably would scarcely recog­ nize. In discussing another group of Ming martyrs, the loyalist defenders of Chiang Yin, Frederic Wakeman points out how they too are remembered for values alien to their own time and notes “that men who act for posterity can never be certain that their animating values will survive the historical future .”9 This has been Koxinga’s fate too. But he has been luckier than many great names from China’s past, for his immortality has weathered the sea changes of the last century. Though the specific content o f his reputation has been subject to many changes, he still has suc­ ceeded in attaining the hero’sjust reward of historical immortali­ ty. Or, to put it in the words of his colleague and fellow martyr, Chang Huan-yen, the “hope that for a thousand autumns men will tell of this.” 10

NOTES

I. History, Myth, and Nationalism

1.

2. 3.

4.

5.

6.

In 1914, Yuan Shih-k’ai created a national “martial temple” in Peking with Yueh Fei and Kuan Ytï as co-equal chief deities. R. F. Johnston, “Chinese Cult of Military Heros,” The New China Review 3.1:41-64 (February 1921) and 3.2:79-91 (April 1921). The classic study of this in Europe is Carlton Hayes, France: A Nation ofPatriots (New York, 1930). Two of the earliest Chinese history textbooks for the new middle schools were actually adaptations of existing “modern” style Japanese-authored histories of China. Lu Jui-cheng and Chao Cheng-pi, eds., Chung-hsueh hsin-t’i Chung-kuo li-shih (Shanghai, 1908). Ch’en Ch’ing-nien, Chung-hsueh Chung-kuo li-shih chiao-k’e-shu (Middle school Chinese history textbook; Shanghai, Commercial Press, 1910.) I have discussed the Nationalist government's attitude toward early culture héros in Chinese history in a paper, “The Rebirth of the Yellow Emperor: Kuomintang History Textbook Treatment of the Origins of Chinese Civilization.” Panel on “New Myths and Old Realities: Modern Chinese Reinterpretations of Ancient History,” American Historical Association Annual Meeting, December 1972. Two of the more comprehensive discussions of historical figures are: Ch'en Hsu-lu, tu n li-shih jen-wu p’ing-chia wen-t’i (On problems in the appraisal of historical figures; Shanghai, 1955) and Mi Wen-p'u, Kuan-yu li-shih p ’ing-chia wen-t’i (On problems of historical appraisal; Peking, 1956). The Wu Han-edited series (Chung-kuo li-shih hsiao ts’ung-shu) contained short popular biographies on such figures as Koxinga’s Ming loyalist collaborator Chang Huan-yen. In conversations with historians at Peking University, Fu-tan University, and Sun Yat-sen University in July 1973, at all places they agreed that Cheng Ch’eng-kung should still be considered a “national hero.”

II. In Search of the Historical Koxinga

1.

The best brief but fairly comprehensive, critical discussion of the main sources on Koxinga is Lai Yung-hsiang, “Chief Historical Materials on Koxinga,” Ming Cheng yen-chiu ts’ungchi (Collected researches on the Chengs; Taipei, 1955), pp. 1-15. For more extensive coverage of secondary works see “Cheng Ch’eng-kung wen-hsien

87

88

2. 3.

4.

5. 6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

chieh-t’i” (Annotated notes on literary materials on Cheng Ch’eng-kung) Lin T aihsiang, ed., Cheng Ch’eng-kung ti-san-pai-erh-shih-liu chou-nien tan chi-nien chan-lanhui t’u-chi (An illustrated catalog to the commemorative exhibition on C heng Ch'eng-kung’s 326th anniversary) Taipei, 1954, 14pp. Yang Yun-p’ing, ‘Taiwan uni-chi k’ao" (An examination of Taiwan wai-chi) Taiwan feng-wu 5.1:22 (January 1955). Yang Yun-p’ing characterizes it as: "You could say that it is a historical novel based on fact, or you could say that it is a historical account that uses the novel form to describe the Cheng family.” Taiwanfeng-wu 5.1:19. Huang Tien-ch’uan, ‘Taiwan wai-chi k’uo-pien” (Examinations of Taiwan wai-chi) Taiwan wen-hua 5.2:114-130 (July 1956) is more enthusiastic about the book's value as an historical source an d rejects the charaterization of it as a novel on the grounds that, although it contains oral traditions or legends, it is not deliberately created fiction. As with the other important works on Cheng Ch'eng-kung, there is an excellent edition with a critical introduction published by the Bank of Taiwan’s Office o f Economic Research. Cheng Chu-cheng, Cheng Ch'eng-kung chuan, Taiwan wenhsien ts’ung-k’an no. 67, (Taipei, 1960). Yang Yun-p’ing, “Cheng Ch’eng-kung fen-ju fu-k’uo” (Cheng Ch’eng-kung’s burn­ ing his Confucian robes) Taiwan yen-chiu, no. 1:31-37. The manuscript was found in a village near Koxinga’s ancestral home bearing th e title Hsien wang shih lu (Veritable record of the former king). Its present title was given when it was published by the Academia Sinica in 1931. A few passages in th e manuscript were marred by illegible characters, but generally the text was well preserved and with little chance of later alterations. The Bank of Taiwan has edited and republished available documents from the archives of the Ch'ing Grand Secretariat (Nei-ke) in their series Taiwan wen-hsien ts’ung-k’an, nos. 69, 157, 168, 175. Published anonymously in Amsterdam in 1675 the book created a sensation in Holland largely by its lurid descriptions of Dutch clergymen, women, and children at the mercy of cruel heathens. The book is available in English translation, William Campbell, Formosa Under the Dutch (London, 1903). Unfortunately Campbell omits the appendix on Chinese atrocities, but this can be found in a much less accessible translation, Pierre Martin Lambach, The Neglected Formosa (Taihoku [Taipei], 1923). Dutch sources and their relations with Koxinga are discussed in John Wills, “The Dutch Period in Taiwan History: A Preliminary Survey.” Conference on “Taiwan in Chinese History,” Asilomar, California, September 1972. See also Ts’ao Yung-ho, “Ts’ung Ho-lan wen-hsien t’an Cheng Ch’eng-kung chih yen-chiu” (From Dutch materials discussing research on Cheng Ch’eng-kung) Taiwan wen-hsien 12.1:1-14 (March 1961). Ts’ao Yung-ho uses these materials in his paper “The Rise and Fall of Taiwan as an Entrepot in the Seventeenth Century.” Conference on “Taiwan in Chinese history,” Asilomar, California, September 1972. A brief, reliable biography of him can be found in Arthur Hummel, ed., Eminent

89

12.

13. 14.

15. 16.

17. 18.

19.

20.

21.

22. 23. 24. 25.

Chinese of the Ch’ing period. See also Charles Boxer, “The Rise and Fall of Nicholas Iquan,” Tien Hsia Monthly 11.5:401-439 (1941). Also commonly spelled Coxinga, but with many other variants. Keene lists the following versions found in European sources: Cogseng, Con-seng, Kuesim, Cogsin, Coseng, Kue-sing, Quoesing, Coxiny, Quesim, Quesin, Coexima, the scholarly Latin Quaesingus, and inexplicable references to Maroto, Pompoan, and Pun Poin. Keene, The Battles of Koxinga, p. 45. This is an even more impressive variety than in the Chinese sources which variously refer to him as Cheng Ch'eng-kung, Chu Ch’eng-kung (using the imperial surname), Kuo Hsing Yeh, Kuo Hsing, Ssu Hsing, Pen Fan, Yen P’ing Wang, Yen P’ing, Hai Chu, Hai Shang. This dramatic scene is reported in Cheng Chu-cheng, Cheng Ch’eng-kung chuan, p. 5. This episode, somewhat bothersome to some of his more eulogistic biographers, is reported in almost all the early sources. It is discussed in some detail in Wang Chung-ch’i, Cheng Ch’eng-kung, pp. 25-26 and Chang T ’an, Cheng Ch’eng-kung chi-shih pien-nien, pp. 37-38. The correspondence between the Ch’ing and Koxinga, and between Koxinga and his father, is contained in Yang Ying, Ts’ung Cheng shih lu, pp. 44ff. Ts’ao Yung-ho shows how the lower Yangtze dominadon of trade with Japan was temporarily interrupted in mid-century. Ts’ao, “Taiwan as an Entrepot in East Asia in the Seventeenth Century,”, pp. 17-18. Cheng Chu-chung, Cheng Ch’eng-kung ckuan, pp. 3-4. The Ming shih and several unofficial histories claim that Koxinga had the Lu Wang drowned. The source of this error and impossibility of this event (the Lu Wang died after Koxinga) have been shown in the “cridcal notes” (Au»cheng) to the 1962 Taiwan edidon of the Ming shih. Ming shih (Official Ming dynasdc history) Kuo-fang yenchiu yuan (Ministry of defense research bureau; Taipei, 1962). 11,1506. This is the main argument in Chuang Chin-te, “Cheng Ch’ing ho-i shih-mo” (Complete account of peace negodadons between Cheng and the Ch’ing), Taiwan wen-hsien 12.4:1-40 (December 1961). See Wang Chung-ch’i, Cheng Ch’eng-kung, Shanghai, 1934, p. 57. All aspects of the Taiwan campaign are discussed at greater length in my paper “Cheng Ch’engkung’s Conquest of Taiwan: Intent. Event and Legacy,” Conference on “Taiwan in Chinese History,” Asilomar, California, September, 1972. This is somewhat of a moot point. He did call his capital on Taiwan “Tung tu Ming ching” (Eastern Ming capital) but all the other place names, such as “An p’ing chen,” “Tung ning,” “Ch’eng t’ien fu,” “Tien hsing hsien,” and “Wan nien hsien,” seem to suggest permanence and tranquility more than renewed campaigning on the main­ land. Min hai chi yao, p. 27. Ts’ung Cheng shih lu, p. 189. Yen P’ing erh wang chi (Collected works of the two princes of Yen P’ing) in Cheng Ch’eng-kung chuan, Taiwan Historical Materials Series, no. 67:128. Most serious historians agree that his errors were at least partly responsible for the Nanking defeat. There is a careful analysis of exisdng souces on the battle by Liao

90

26. 27.

28.

29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

Han-ch'cn, “Yen Fing Wang pei-cheng k’ao-p’ing” (A critical examination of the Prince of Yen P’ing’s northern expedition) Taiwan wen-hsien 5.2:47-74 (June 1964). W. Campbell, Formosa Under the Dutch, p. 450. Cheng Chu-chung, Cheng Ch'eng-kung chuan, p. 18, has him bitterly reproach himself in the temple to the spirits of loyal officials: “If earlier I had followed Kan Hui's words (one of his leading generals, killed at Nanking) it would not have come to this.” His execution of Dutch civilian hostages may or may not have been warranted by Dutch attempts to rouse the Taiwan aborigines against him. The Chinese sources do not discuss this. But the pro-Cheng account, Ts’ung Cheng shih-lu, pp. 178-179 does describe how he massacred Ch’ing prisoners after the naval battle near Amoy in 1660. His magnanimity towards defeated foes, for which he is praised in someeulogistic biographies, was not always shown. Ch'ing-tai kuan-shu chi-ming Taiwan Cheng shih chih-shih (Ch’ing official corre­ spondence recording events about the Cheng family on Taiwan) ch. 1, p.l. Li Sheng-yueh, “Cheng Ch’eng-kung te ssu-yin k’ao” (An examination of the causes of Cheng Ch'eng-kung’s death) Wen-hsien chuan-k'an 1.3:38-39 (August 1950). Such zsHai-shang chien-wen lu, p. 40, Taiwan wai chi, pp. 210-211 and Afin hoi chi-yao, pp. 29-30. These are nicely summarized in Keene, The Battles of Coxmga, pp. 69-73. Diaz, Conquistas de las Isias Filipinos, p. 636; and Ferrando, Historia de los PP Dominicos, vol. 3, p. 98. Li Sheng-yueh, “Cheng Ch’eng-kung te ssu-yin k’ao” (An examination of the cause of Cheng Ch’eng-kung’s death), Wen-hsien chuan-k'an, 1.3:35-43 (August 1950).

III. Myth, Model, and Archetype in the Traditional Chinese Hero

1.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

In English this can only be found in the Lambach translation, The Neglected Formosa, pp. 161-169. Coyett concedes that the Dutch women who were made concubines of Koxinga’s officers were not badly treated, except when those officers had jealous Chinese wives. Some of the Dutch women were later reluctant to be repatriated, p. 168. Excerpts from both are quoted in Keene, The Battles of Koxinga, pp. 61-62. Diaz, Conquistas de las Isias Filipinos, p. 636 quoted in Keene, p. 69. Ferrando, Historia los PP Dominicos, III, 98, quoted in Keene, p. 70. Francois Rougemont,Historia Tartaro Sinica Nova (Lourain, 1673), p. 108, quoted in Keene, p. 70. J. F. G. Careri, Voyage Round the World (London, 1704), p. 390. Henri d’Orléans, Histoire de Deux Conquérons p. 105.

91 8. 9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

P. F. B. Du Halde,/* Description of the Empireyof China (London, 1738) 1,229,232. G. P., “The Life of Koxinga,” The China Review 13.2 and 3:67-74,207-213 (1884). “Koxinga was perhaps the most remarkable character that modern history exhibits in the Orient. Of all the band of adventurous rovers that sailed the China seas there was none to compare in courage, enterprise, and ability with this young chief.“ James W. Davidson, The Island of Formosa, Past and Present (New York, 1903), p. 52. William Campbell, Formosa Under the Dutch, p. 544. H. A. Giles, China and the Manchus (New York, 1921), p. 54. William McNeil, Rise of the West, (University of Chicago Press, 1963) p. 695. E. O. Reischauer and J. K. Fairbank, East Asia: The Great Tradition, p. 648. Keene, Battles of Coxinga, p.74. Mao I-p*o, “Ch’ing t’ing tui Cheng te ssu-tsang chien-szu ho chui-shih” (The Ch’ing court’s establishing a funerary temple to and conferring posthumous title on Cheng) Taiwan wen-hsien 12.1:32-36 (March 1961). The author notes that 121 other historical officials were given the same accolade, “legal and pure,” and that Cheng Ch'eng-kung’s positive achievements far surpassed the rest of these martyrs to fallen dynasties. Inscriptions reproduced in Lin Tai-hsiang, ed., Cheng Ch'eng-kung ti-san-pai-erhshih-liu chou-nien.. ., p.10. The most valuable collections of these are: Wu Yuan-tzu, Cheng Ch’eng-kung ch’uanshuo (Legends about Cheng Ch’eng-kung; Amoy, 1933); Lou Tzu-k’uang, Taiwan ku-shih (Taiwan stories), 1,13-23 (Taipei, 1955); Lou Tzu-k’uang, “Cheng Ch’engkung ch’uan-shuo chih cheng-li” (Putting in order legends about Cheng Ch’engkung) Taipei wen-hsien, no. 1:101-130 (June 1962). Ts’ung Cheng shih-lu, p. 37. Wu Yuan-tzu, pp. 22-23. Lou Tzu-k’uang, Taipei wen-hsien, no. 1:112. Also Wu Yuan-tzu, pp. 18-20. Taiwan wai-chi, p. 194. Taiwan mm-chien wen-i chi (Collections of Taiwan popular tales) p. 85. Lou Tzu-k’uang, Taiwan ku-shih, pp. 13-20. Wu Yuan-tzu, pp. 14-15. Taiwan wai-chi, pp. 8-9. Wu Yuan-tzu, pp. 5-6. The feng-shui legends are summarized in Lou Tzu-k’uang, Taipei wen-hsien, pp. 102-103 and Wu Yuan-tzu, pp. 1-5. Cheng Chu-chung, Cheng Ch’eng-kung ckuan, pp. 2-3. Wu Yuan-tzu, p. 5. Wu Yuan-tzu, p. 30. Lou Tzu-k’uang, p. 119. Lou Tzu-k’uang, p. 121. Lou Tzu-k’uang, “Cheng Ch’eng-kung ch’uan-shuo te chien-t’ao” (Investigation of legends about Cheng Ch’eng-kung) Wen shih hui-k’an, no. 2:56 (December 1960). Lou Tzu-k’uang, Taipei wen-hsien, p. 117.

92 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

45.

46. 47. 48. 49.

50. 51.

Yen Hsing, “Cheng Ch'eng-kung i-shih wu tse” (Five items on the legacy of Cheng Ch’eng-kung) Tainan wen-hsien 4.3:49-50. Lou Tzu-k’uang, Hua shuo jen-wu (Informal discussions about important figures; Taipei, 1968), pp. 17-18. Wu Yuan-tzu, p. 41, and Chu Feng, “Cheng shih ching-shen yu Tainan min-su” (The Cheng spirit and Tainan folk customs) Tainan wen-hua 1.1:34. Wu Yuan-tzu, pp. 28-29. Wu Yuan-tzu, pp. 29-30. Wu Yuan-tzu, p. 29. Lou Tzu-k’uang, Wen shih hui-k'an, p. 58. Wu Yuan-tzu, pp. 27-28. What information we have on an early temple in Tainan is given in Yen Hsing, “Cheng shih chia-miao yu Yen P'ing chun-wang szu” (The Cheng family temple and the temple to the prince of Yen-p’ing) Tainan wen-hua 3.2:18-23. See also Taiwan shen-hua (Taiwan myths; Taipei, 1969), pp. 57-58. Contained in Chang T*an, Cheng Ch’eng-kung chi-shih pien-nien (A chronological narrative of events in the life of Cheng Ch’eng-kung), Taiwan yen-chiu ts’ung-k’an, no. 79:155 (Taipei, 1965). Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Princeton University Press, 1949. Campbell, p. 326. See especially Taiwan wai-chi, pp. 39ff. Not that more ambitious efforts in that direction have fared particularly well with reviewers. But should we primafacie rule out any attempts to apply psychoanalytic insights to Chinese culture and history? Otto Rank, The Myth of the Birth of the Hero (New York, 1932). Koxinga’s reply to his father’s order to go over to the Ch’ing with him is, “I have heard of fathers who taught their sons loyalty; 1 have never heard of fathers who taught their sons treason.” The word he uses for “treason" literally means “two”, i.e. serving a second master and deserting the first. Is his repudiation of “two” a reflection of his inner tension at being torn between two fathers? His dilemma and decision to ignore parental authority was not entirely novel in the tumultuous era of the Ming-Ch’ing transition. After the fall of Peking to the “bandit” Li Tzu-ch’eng in 1644 the pivotal Ming general Wu San-kuei refused the plea of his father, captive in Peking, to side with Li. His words are remarkably close to those Cheng Ch'eng-kung would later use: “Since my father cannot be a loyal subject, how can his son be a filial son?” Quoted in Hsiao I-shan, Ch’ing tot t’ung-shih (General history of the Ch’ing period), 2nd ed. (Taipei, 1962), p. 267. Of course Wu’s subsequent collaboration with the Ch’ing meant that this abandonment of filial obligations could not be excused by loyalty to king and country. Subsequently Wu San-kuei has gone down in history as one of China’s great traitors; Cheng Ch’eng-kung has been upheld as one of China’s great loyalists.

93

52.

Both, however, made the same crucial decision to sacrifice their father’s life rather than join the enemy. Huang Tsung-hsi, Ssu hsmg shih-mo, p. 2. Keene reports that according to William Hung this incident was a familiar part of tales about Koxinga told along the Fukien coast in the early twendeth century. Keene, Battles of Koxinga, p. 169, fn. 26.

IV. The Nationalist Transfiguration

1. 2.

3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

Quoted in Taiwan shen-hua, p. 68. Harry J. Lamley, “A Short-lived Republic and War, 1895: Taiwan’s Resistance against Japan,” in Paul K. T. Sih, ed., Taiwan in Modem Times (New York, 1973), pp. 241-316, and “The 1895 Taiwan Republic,”Journal of Asian Studies 27.4:139-162 (August 1968). Lamley, “Short-lived republic,” p. 302. Hsieh Yun-yu, “I-wei k’ang-Jih tsa-chi” (Miscellaneous records of the 1895 resis­ tance against Japan), Taipei wen-wu 9.1:78 (March 1960). This too has been reprinted by the Bank of Taiwan along with several other biographies in Cheng Ch'eng-kung chuan, Taiwan Materials Series, no. 67:63-126 (Taipei, 1960). Fei Shih, Cheng Ch'eng-kung chuan, p. 99. Ibid., p. 102. Ibid., p. 102. Ibid., p. 105. Ya Lu, “Cheng Ch’eng-kung chuan," Kiangsu, no. 4:61-71 (n.d.). Ku Jih-sheng, “Hai kuo ying-hsiung chi,” Min pao, nos. 9,13:113-121,101-109 (1907,1908). Ku Jih-sheng, Min pao, no. 9:113-114. Ya Lu, Kiangsu, no. 4:62. Ya Lu, p. 71. Ya Lu, p. 71. Chin-tai shih hsuan (Peking, 1963) p. 431. Ya Lu, “Taiwan san-pai nien shih” (The three hundred year history of Taiwan), Kiangsu, no. 7:53-56 (n.d.). Afin pao, no. 25:26-32 (1909). Min pao, no. 25:26 (1909). Min pao, no. 26:6(1910). Chang Ping-lin preface to Lien Heng, Taiwan t’ung-shih (A comprehensive history of Taiwan; Taipei, 1955).

94 22. 23. 24. 25.

26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44.

Ya Lu, Kiangsu no. 7:55. Wu Yuan-tzu, Cheng Ch'eng-kung ch'uan-shuo, p. 46. Wu Yuan-tzu, p. 49. Hsueh Ch'eng-ch’ing, “Cheng Ch’eng-kung li-shih yen-chiu te fa-tuan” (A start on historical research on Cheng Ch'eng-kung) Chung-shan Ta-hsueh yii-yen li-shih yenchiu-so chou-k’an 1.1:23-26 (November 1, 1927). Wang Chih-hsin, “Ts'ung kuo-nan shuo tao Cheng Ch’eng-kung” (Talking about Cheng Ch’eng-kung in times of national difficulties), Fu-chien wen-hua 1.3:1-4 (1932). Yang Shu-fan, “Cheng Ch’eng-kung shih-chi k’ao” (An examination of surviving traces of Cheng Ch’eng-kung), Fu-chien wen-hua 3.17:32 (1935). Chang 1-ping, Cheng Cheng-hung (Shanghai, 1934), p. 38. Hsu Tsung-hsin, Ming Yen-p’ing-wang Taiwan hai-kuo chi (Shanghai, 1937). Li Hsun, Cheng Ch'eng-kung (Nanking, 1946). Ibid., pp. 18-21. Ibid., p. 125. Ibid., pp. 126-130. R. A. B. Ponsonby Fane, “Koxinga: Chronicles of the Tei Family, Loyal Servants of Ming,” Transactions and Proceedings of theJapan Society London, 34:67 (1936-1937). Lou Tzu-k'uang, Wen-shih hui-k’an 2:48. In Japanese this was “Kaisan Jinja.” Kashima Oto, Kokusenya gojitsu monogatari (The last days of Koxinga; Taipei, 1915), n.p. Yosaburo Takekoshi, Japanese Ride in Formosa (London, 1907), p. 86. Ishihara Michihiro, Tei Seiko (Cheng Ch’eng-kung; Tokyo, 1943), pp. 3 and 11. Ishihara, Tei Seiko, p. 87. Ishihara, Tei Seiko, passim and Ishihara Michihiro, Kokusenya (Tokyo, 1960), passim. Ishihara, Kokusenya, pp. 14-15. Quoted in Ishihara, Kokusenya, p. 93. Ishihara, Tei Seiko, pp. 243-244.

V. His Disputed Legacy in a Divided China

1. 2. 3.

Chung-yang jih-pao (Central daily news; April 30, 1964). A convenient way of finding these is in Ch’en Cheng-hsiang, ed., Taiwan ti-ming tz’u-tien (Dictionary of Taiwan place names; Taipei, 1960). “Cheng Ch’eng-kung su-hsiang-te ku-shih” (The story of the statue of Cheng Ch’eng-kung), Chung-hua jih-pao, February 8,1964.

95 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9. 10.

11.

12.

13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18.

19.

Tseng Hai-tun, Cheng Ch’eng-kung, Taipei, 1965. The text is in Tu Yun-chih, “Shou-fu Chih-kan-ch’eng” (Recovering Chih-kan fort), Chii hut (Drama scripts), no. 1:54*72 (n.d.). Min-tsu ying-hsiung Cheng Ch’eng-kung (National hero, Cheng Ch’eng-kung; Taichung, 1961), p. 177. Hsiao I-shan, preface to Huang Tien-chien, Hai t’ien hu fen (Solitary spirit of a maritime empire; Taipei, 1950). Hsiao I-shan, preface, and Mao I-p’o, “T ’ien-ti-hui chih ch’i-yuan ho fa-chan chi ch’i yu kuo-min ko-ming te kuan-hsi,” (The origins and development of the Heaven and Earth Society and its relationship to the national revolution) in Kuo-min ko-ming yun-tungyüTaixoan (National revolutionary movement and Taiwan; Taipei, n.d.), p. 83. Hsiao I-shan, Chin-tai pi-mi she-hui shih-liao (Historical materials on modern secret societies; Taipei, 1965 reprint), p. 6. Hirayama Shu, Chung-kuo pi-mi she-hui shih (A history of China’s secret societies; Shanghai, 1934 reprint, original edition 1911). T ’ao Ch’eng-chang, “Chiao-hui yuan-liu k’ao” (Investigation of the origins of soriedes) in Lo Erh-kang, ed., T’ienti-hui wen-hsien lu (Records of the Heaven and Earth Society; Hong Kong, 1942). Original published in 1910. Hsiao I-shan, “T’ien-ti-hui ch’uang-shih yu Cheng Ch’eng-kung” (The creation of the Heaven and Earth Society and Cheng Ch’eng-kung), Ch’ang-liu, 7.5:7-8(1953), and Mao I-p’o, “T ’ien-ti-hui chih ch’i-yuan. . . ,” pp. 63-98. A few examples are Shuai Hsueh-fu, Ch’ing Hung shu yuan (Origins of Ch’ing dynasty Hung society; Taipei, 1962); Lin Heng-tao, “T ’an T ’ien-ti-hui te hui-huang li-shih,” (On the glorious history of the Heaven and Earth Society), Min-chien chih-shih, no. 293:16-17 (Taipei, October 10, 1964); Wei Chao-wei, ed., Kuo-min ko-ming yü Taiwan shih-kua (Illustrated history of the national revolution and Taiwan; Taipei, 1961); Chin pu huan (Gold does not change) Series on Historical Sources for Societies (Hong Kong, 1947); Chung-kuo pang-kui shih (History of China’s societies; Hong Kong, 1969). Huang Tien-chien, Hai t’ien ku fen, p. 19; Min-tsu ying-hsiung Cheng Ch’eng-kung (Taichung, 1961), p. 194. Ch’en Chih-p’ing, Cheng Yen-p’ing-chun-wang shih-chi (Taichung, 1954), pp. 12-13. Min-tsu ying-hsiung Cheng Ch’eng-kung, p. 1. Kuo Chi, “Yii Yen-p’ing-chun-wang sheng-i t’an-ch’i fu-T’ai ch’ien-hou shih-shih” (On the Prince of Yen-p’ing’s birthday, talking about the historical reality before and after his recovery of Taiwan) Tzu-yu ch’ing-nien 36.4:7(August 16, 1966). Hou Cheng, “Min-tsu ying-hsiung Cheng Ch’eng-kung,” Ch’ing-nien chan-shih pao (Youth warrior newspaper; April 29, 1964). A short clear statement of this argument can be found in Fang Hao, “Cheng Ch’eng-kung fu-T’ai te tsui chung mu-ti” (Koxinga’s final motive in restoring Taiwan) Hsin shih-tai, 1.4:27-28 (April 15, 1961). Kuo Shao-ling, Cheng Ch’eng-kung yü Chin-men (Cheng Ch’eng-kung and Quemoy ; Quemoy, 1969), preface.

96 20. 21.

22. 23.

24. 25. 26.

27.

28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

41.

Tseng Nai-tun, Cheng Ch’eng-kung, p. 110. Chang Wen-ch’ing, Cheng Ch’eng-kung te k’ang-Ch'ing tou-eheng (Cheng Ch’engkung's anti-Ch’ing struggle; Shanghai. 1953), p. 10 or Fang Pai, Cheng Ch’eng-kung (Peking, 1955). Ch’en Hsu-lu, Lun li-shih jen-wu p’ing-chia wen-t’i (Shanghai, 1955), p. 26. Fang Pai, Cheng Ch’eng-kung, pp. 12-13, and for a less eulogistic appraisal Hsieh Kuo-chen, Nan Ming shih-lueh (General history of the southern Ming; Shanghai, 1957), p. 209. Chu Chieh-chin, Cheng Ch’eng-kung shou-fu Taiwan shih-chi (Account o f Cheng Ch’eng-kung recovering Taiwan; Shanghai, 1956), p. 45. Chu Chieh-chin, p. 46. For example see Li Chih-pu, Taiwan jen-min ko-mmg tou-cheng chien-shih (A simple history of the Taiwan people’s revolutionary struggle; Canton, 1955), p. 30. Also Wu Tzu-chin and Hung P’u-jen, “Cheng Ch'eng-kung shou-fu Taiwan te chingkuo” (The course of Cheng Ch’eng-kung’s recovery of Taiwan), Kuang-mingjih-pao (June 23, 1955). One of those rare exceptions that uses this vitriolic anti-Dutch rhetoric is Cheng Ch’eng-kung k’ang-Ch’mg (Tainan, 1969) which in reality is an abbreviated reprint of Chang Wen-ch’ing, Cheng Ch’eng-kung te k’ang-Ch'ing tou-cheng (Shanghai, 1953). For example, Fang Pai, Cheng Ch’eng-kung shou-fu Taiwan (Cheng Ch’eng-kung’s recovery of Taiwan; Peking, 1962). Wu Tzu-chin, Kuang-ming jih-pao (June 23, 1955). The celebrations were not quite simultaneous since the Communists chose to mark the date of the Dutch surrender, February 1, rather than hisJune arrival in Taiwan. These speeches are reported in Survey of the China Mainland Press, no. 2675:1-4 (February 1962). Survey j. 0 .Taiwan wai chi £ ?|(An unofficial record of Taiwan). Taiwan wen-hsien ts’ung k’an, no. 60. 3 vols. Taipei, 1960.

101

Chinpuhuan m k . (Gold does not change). Pang hui shih liao ts’ung-k’an . $ t < # t & H (Publications of historical materials on societies). Hong Kong (?), 1947. Chu Chieh-chin . Cheng Ch’eng-kungshou-fu Taiwan shih-chi ä. *m u i ê 7% -$ (History of Cheng Ch’eng-kung’s recovery of Taiwan). Shanghai, 1956. Chu Feng . “Cheng shih ching-shen yii Tainan min-su” M f K 4 f f f J fe ê kj ^ (The Cheng family’s spirit and Tainan folk customs), Tainan wen-hua (Tainan culture) vol. 1, no. 1. Chuang Chin-te )jjL . “Cheng-Ch’ing ho-i shih mo” t k * « % ■„ (A complete account of peace negotiations between the Chengs and the Ch’ing), Taiwan wen-hsien (Taiwan cultural materials, 12.4:140 (December 1961).

if

it

if

Davidson, James W. The Island of Formosa: Past and Present. New York, Macmillan and Co., 1903. Fang Hao ^ . Taiwan min-tsu yûn-tung hsiao shih o A * # • .i(A short history of Taiwan in the national revolution). Taipei, Chung-cheng Publishing Co., 1951. -------- , “Cheng Ch’eng-kung fu T ’ai te tsui chung mu-ti” i f (Record of Cheng Ch’eng-Kung’s recovery o f Taiwan). Foochow, 1955. . ‘Cheng Ch’eng-kung shou-fu Taiwan te ching-kuo” f t , *6 4|* é îS l (Cheng Ch’engkung’s recovery of Taiwan), Kuang-ming fih-pao (June 23, 1955). Wu Yuan . Taiwan te kuo-ch’ü ho hsien-tai id . (^(Taiwan past and present). Peking, 1954. Wu Yuan-tzu ^ . Cheng Ch’eng-kung ch’uan shuo & * / > 4 “fjjj (Legends about Cheng Ch’eng-kung). Amoy, 1933. . -------- , “Cheng Ch’eng-kung tsai Fu-chien te shih chi” M f ft) 6 (n.d.)., (n.d.). . Yang Shu-fang %ng "Os ' r Cllen8 Ch’eng-kung shih chi k’ao” f f fit* (An examinadon * >4 f *% examination of sources on Cheng Ch’eng-kung), Fukien wen-hua 3.17:27-32 (1935). ^ Yang Yün-p’ing * ?t • “Cheng Ching chin cheng ta-lute " h i h m o - 'i f l î ^ k ^ ^ é ^ I * . (Complete account of Cheng Ching’s campaign on the mainland^, Taiwan sheng Upo-wu-yuan Ke-hsüeh Kan ê $$ 4 i 4 to f t -H (Taiwan Provincial Museum Scien­ tific Bulledn; 4:1-6 December 1961). -------- , “Cheng Ch’eng-kung fen-ju fu-k’ao” I M Taiwan yen-chiu (Taiwan research), no. 1:3137 (n.d.). ^ . Yang Ying . Ts’ung cheng shih lu V L -ft - f (Veritable record since the punitive expedition), Taiwan wen-hsien ts’ung Kan, no. 32 (Taipei, 1958). Yen Hsing ffi. . “Cheng Ch’eng-kung i shih wu ts’e” (Five factors in Cheg Ch’engkung's death), Tainan wen-hua 4.3: 44-50 (July 1954). -------- , “Cheng shih chia miao yü Yen P’ing chün wang ssu” j n (The Cheng family temple and the temple to the Prince of Yen P’ing), Tainan wen-hua 3.2:18-23 (Sept. 1953). , “Ho Pin k’ao” % (An examination of Ho Pin), Tainan wen-hua 2.2:13-22 (April 1952). Yü Tsung-hsin . Ming Yen P ’ing Wang Taiwan hai kuo chi flj f i ë Ü) t t t (Record of the Ming Prince of Yen P’ing’s maritime country). Shanghai, Commercial Press, 1937

INDEX Aborigines, Taiwanese, Koxinga’s dealings with, 41, 72 Amoy, 13, 21; seizure of, 14; re­ named, 15; Koxinga’s son driven from, 16; account of Koxinga’s death in, 27; magic cannon at, 38; celebrations at, 73 Anti-Manchu resistance: Koxinga’s role in, 17-18, 34, 56, 71; Koxinga honored by present revolutionaries of, 79, 80 Anvil Mountain, statue of Koxinga at, 64-65 Apotheosis: Confucian, 33-35; popular, 36-43

Cheng Ch’eng-kung (Koxinga): as hero, 1; evolution of apotheosis, 4-5; primary sources for life of, 6-11; “bare bones” of life of, 11-17; problems in biograhy of, 17-27; loyalty to Ming, 19-21; negotiations with Ch’ing, 22; plans for Taiwan, 22-23; per­ sonal qualities of, 23-25; death of, 25-27; as model figure, 33-35; popular image of, 36-43; “hero with a thousand faces,” 43-46; Freudian undertones of, 46-49; and anti-Manchu nationalism, 50-56; Kuomintang use of, 63-70; Communists on, 70-74; and Taiwan Independence, 74-78; irony in portrayal of, 79-80; as political symbol, 80-84; changed qualities of, as hero, 86 Cheng Ch’eng-kung chuan (Cheng Chu-chung), 7; on Koxinga’s loyalty to the Ming, 20 Cheng Ch’eng-kung chuan (Huang Tsung-hsi?), 8 Cheng Chih-lung (Nicholas Iquan; father of Koxinga), 11; career of, 11-12; and the Ch’ing, 13; death of, 16, 47, 53; relationship with Koxinga, 22; as “false” father, 46-47; Communists on, 71 Cheng Ching (son of Koxinga), 16, 21, 27; Koxinga’s rage at, 47 Cheng Chu-chung, 7; biography of Koxinga by, 7-8 Cheng K’e-shuang (Koxinga’s grandson), 16-17

Battles of Koxinga (Chikamatsu Monzaemon), 32 Campbell, Joseph, 43-44 Campbell, Reverend William, 31 Careri, J. F. G., 30 Chan kuo ts'e (Intrigues of the War­ ring States), 7 Chang Hsun, 82 Chang Huan-yen, 15,22,86; a selfsacrificing martyr, 80; national hero, 82, 84 Chang I-p’ing, 58 Chang Ming-chen, 15 Chang Ping-lin, 56 Changchou, 24 Changhua, statue of Buddha in, 64-65 Ch’en Ch’u-ping, 55 Ch en Yi, 73 Ch’en Yung-hua, 59, 67

111

112 Cheng Lien (uncle of Koxinga): Amoy taken from 14; murder of, 25 Cheng Sen, infant name of Koxinga, 11 Ch’i Chi-kuang, 57; temple to, 81 Chiang Ching-kuo, 70 Chiang Jih-sheng, Taiwan wai chi, 7 Chiang Kai-shek, 64, 68; on Yueh Fei, 3, 81 Chiang Wei-kuo, 64 Chiang Yin, 86 Ch’ien Ch’ien-i, 12 Chikamatsu Monzaemon, 32, 60 Ch’in Shih Huang-ti, 3, 85 China Review, article on Koxinga in, 31 Ching hai chi shih (Shih Lang), 10 Ch’ing court: teaching of national history in, 3; information on Koxinga, 10; Ming resistance to, 13-14; defeat of Koxinga by, 16; centers of resistance to, 17-18; restoration of Koxinga by, 35,79 Chiukiang, Koxinga’s victory at, 15 Chu Chieh-chin, 71-72 Chu Hsi, 38 Chu I-kuei rebellion, 67 Chu-ko Liang, 23, 66 Chu Shun-shui, 32 Ch’u Yuan, 4 Chuanchou: siege of, 13-14, 24; “city of bricks,” 39 Class affiliation of national hero, 84-85; and Shih K’o-fa, 84-85 Communists, Chinese, 68; heroes of, 3-4,82-83; use of Koxinga by, 80. See also Cultural Revolution; People’s Republic Confucius: as “nationalized” hero,

3, 85; apotheosis of Koxinga in style of, 35, 79-80; lack of physi­ cal prowess in model of, 45 Conquistas de las Isias Filipinos (Diaz), 30 Coxinga. See Cheng Ch'eng-kung Coyett, Frederic, on Koxinga, 10,29 Cultural Revolution, 73; effect on historiography, 4, 85 Davidson, James W., 31 Deity: progression from folk hero to, 41; Koxinga as, 76 Diaz, on death of Koxinga, 30 d’Orleans, Henri, 30 Du Halde, P. F. B., 30 Dutch, the: as sources on Koxinga, 10, 26; defeated on Taiwan, 16, 19; attitude of toward Koxinga, 28; and Taiwanese aborigines, 72 Dutch East Indies Co., 10 Education, and nationalistic pride, 3 Europe: sources for history of Koxinga in, 10; attitude toward Koxinga in, 28-31 Fairbank, J. K., 31 Fan Wen-lan, 63, 73 Father of a hero, 46, 48-49 Fei Shih (pseudonym), biography by, 51-53 feng-shui, legends about Koxinga, 38-39, 44 Ferrando, 30 Feudalism: and national heroes, 71; of Shih K’o-fa, 85 Foochow, 24; temple to Ch’i Chikuang in, 81 Formosan Independence Move-

113 ment, Japanese, 74 Fort Zeelandia, 16, 24, 72 Fukien coast: Koxinga’s headquar­ ters on, 18; commerce on, 19; oral tradition on Koxinga, 36 Giles, Herbert, 31 Hai Jui, 85 Hai shang chien wen lu (Yuan Minhsi), 8-9 Hambroeck, Reverend Anthonius, 29,31 Han Kao-tsu, 3, 4, Hangchow, temple to Yueh Fei in, 81,85 Heaven and Earth Society (Tien ti hui), 34, 56, 59; Koxinga as founder of, 66 Helmers, 29 Helmus, 65 Hero: identity of, 1; Koxinga as, 37-41, 80; to deity from, 41-43; archetypal, 43-46; Freudian un­ dertones of, 46-49; in Republi­ can China, 56-59; people’s, 71-72; Chinese historical, 80-81; conflicting strains in, 82. See also National hero Hideyoshi, 62 Hirado, birthplace of Koxinga, 11, 38 Historia de los P P Dominicos (Ferrando), 30 History, teaching of, and national heroes, 3 Ho Hsiang-ning, 73 Hong Kong, popularity of Koxinga in, 77 Hsia Lin, 9

Hsia Wan-ch’un, 84 Hsiao I-shan, 66 Hsin Hunan (New Hunan), 51 Hua Mu-lan, 80 Huang Ch’ao, 3 Huang Tsung-hsi, 8, 34 Huang Wu, 25 Hupei Hsueh-sheng shih (Hupei Stu­ dent World), 51 Hyakusen, Yoda, 61-62 Imperialism, European, 52; Koxinga fighter against, 72-73 India, regional vs. national heroes in, 81 Inland migration, forced by Ch’ing, 19 Irony, in fame of Koxinga, 79 Ishihara Michihiro, 62 Japan: shrine to Koxinga by, 2; birth of Koxinga in, 11,44; records on Koxinga, 10-11; image of Koxinga in, 32, 59-62, 81; and Taiwan Republic, 50-51; student journals in, 51; Koxinga’s place in nationalism against, 57 K’ai Shan Wang Miao (Temple of the King Who Opened Our Mountains), 42, 43 Kedourie, Elie, quoted, 50 Keene, Donald, quoted, 6 Kerr, George, 74 Kiangsu, 54, 55 Kiangsu yueh k’an (Kiangsu Month­ ly), 51 Koxinga. See Cheng Ch’eng-kung Ku Ch’e (“the orphaned Qoyal] minister”; Koxinga), 33

114 Ku Jih-sheng, 54 Kuan Ti, 76 Kuan Yü, 23, 48; as martial hero, 80; limitations of, 82 Kuei Wang (the Yung Li Emperor), 14; Koxinga’s conection with, 14 Kuang-mingjih pao, 73 Kuo Hsing Yeh (Lord of the impe­ rial surname; Koxinga), 12 Kuo-min, 53 Kuomintang: cultural conservatism of, 3; interest in Koxinga, 57; use of Koxinga on Taiwan, 63-70,80 “Last Days of Kosinga, The,” 60-61 Legends: Koxinga in, 37; feng-shui, 38-39; of jade seal, 39-40; of sword and spring, 41; taming of the aborigines, 41 Li Han, 11 Li Hsun, biography of Koxinga, 58 Li Shih-chen, 3 Li Shih-ch’eng, 3-4 Li Ting-kuo, 18 Li Tzu-ch’eng, 71 Liao, Thomas, 74 Linguistics and History Research Btdletin of Sun Yat-sen University, 57 Liu Hui, 84-85 Liu Ming-ch’uan, 35, 36 Lu Wang, the, 15; Koxinga’s rela­ tions with, 21 Lung Wu, 20 Ma Tsu, 76 Magic, Koxinga’s use of, 37-38. See also Legends Manchuria, 57 Mao Tse-tung, 85 Maoism, and national heroes, 83

Maritime commerce of southeast­ ern coast, Koxinga’s role in, 17, 18 McNeil. William, 31 Mendel, Douglas, 74 Military leadership, of Koxinga, 23-24 Min hai chi yao, 25 Min pao, 55 Min-tsu ying-hsiung Cheng Ch’engkung, 66 Ming court: and Cheng family, 12; Koxinga’s relation to, 12-13, 53; lack of evidence on Koxinga and, 20-21, 23 Minogue, K.R., quoted, 1 Model figures, Chinese, 33-35 Mother of hero, idealization of, 48 Myth: vs. historical reality, 1; Koxinga in, 37. See also Legend Nagasaki, monument to Koxinga near, 60 Nan-an, 38 Nanking: Koxinga’s defeat at, 15, 23-24; campaign of, 18 National hero: Koxinga’s modern image as, 80; qualifications of, 80-82; against foreign enemy, 82; and the Cultural Revolution, 84-85 Nationalism: anti-Manchu and Koxinga, 50-56; of Kuomintang, 57; against Japanese aggression of 1930s, 57-58 Nationalists, Chinese, Koxinga seen by, 2. See also Kuomintang Nationalization of historical heroes, 2 Ng Yuzin (Huang Tu-jen), 75

115 Ong Yok-tek (Wang Yü-te), 75 Oral tradition, on Koxinga, 36 Oto, Kashima, 61 Pan Chao, 82 Peng Min-min, 74 People’s Republic: use of Koxinga by, 70-74; and Marxist historiog­ raphy, 83. See also Communists, Chinese Philippines, threatened by Koxinga, 16; Taiwan likened to, 19,23,26 Pirate, Koxinga as, 28, 30, 31 Popular image of Koxinga, 36-43 Primary sources of life of Koxinga, 6-11; legend in, 9; records of enemies, 10; European sources, 10-11; biography constructed from, 11-17; questions left by, 17-27 Prophecies about Koxinga, 38-39 Quemoy: base for Koxinga, 14; temple on, 70

San kuoyen i (Romance of the Three Kingdoms), 7 Screenplays of Koxinga, 65, 70 Secret societies, anti-Manchu, and Koxinga, 56, 66-68 Self-determination, national, repre­ sented by Koxinga, 52 Shen Pao-chen, 35, 42 Shih K’o-fa: as nationalized hero, 2, 82,84; as self-sacrificing martyr, 80; upper-class affiliation of, 84; attacked in Cultural Revolution, 84-85 Shih Lang, 42; account of Koxinga by, 10; invasion fleet led by, 16, 25 Shih lu, 25-26 Shun, 3 Singapore, popularity of Koxinga in, 77 Sivaji, 81 Spaniards: on Koxinga, 26, 28; on death of Koxinga, 30 Ssu hsingshih mo (Huang Tsung-hsi), 8

Rank, Otto, 46 “Record of a Maritime Hero” (play by Ku Jih-sheng), 54-55 Record of the Prince of Yen P’ing’s Taiwan Maritime Nation, 58 Regionalism, rejection of for na­ tional hero, 80-81 Reischauer, E. O., 31 Republican China, place of hero in, 56 “On Restoring Taiwan,” 23 Ricci, Vittorio, 26-27 Role-playing, Chinese, 33-35 Rougemont, Francois, 26, 30 Ruhlman, Robert, quoted, 28

Ssuming Chou, 22 Su Wu, 82 Sun Yat-sen, 66 Supernatural, Koxinga and, 37-38, 44. See also Magic Tagawa: mother of Koxinga, 11,38; death of, 17, 48; factor in Nipponization of Koxinga, 61 Tainan: Koxinga’s capital on Taiwan, 16; temple to Koxinga in, 35, 42; “city of bricks,” 39; official temple to Koxinga in, 50-51; Japanese gate to Koxinga temple in, 60; Kuomintang

116 monuments in, 64 Taiwan: Koxinga’s conquest of, 2, 16; relation of Dutch to, 19; Koxinga’s attitude toward, 22-23; temples to Koxinga in, 35, 50,76; oral tradition of Koxinga on, 36; Japanese incorporation of Koxinga on, 60-62; Chinese National Government use of Koxinga on, 63-70; present status of Koxinga on, 76-78 Taiwan Independence movement and Koxinga, 74-78 Taiwan Republic (1895), 50-51 Taiwan wai chi (Chiangjih-sheng), 7, 9; on death of Koxinga, 25 Takekoshi, Yosaburo, 60 Tang Tai-tsung, 3 T’ang Wang, the (Lung Wu Em­ peror), 12; Koxinga’s relation to, 20

Television program on Koxinga, 65 Temples to Koxinga: on Taiwan, 35, 42, 50; official survey of, 76 Tien ti hui. See Heaven and Earth Society Triad Society, 67 Ts’ung cheng shih lu (Yang Ying), 9-10, 20, 25, 37 United States of America, im­ perialism of, 73 Verwaerloosde Formosa (Coyett), 10, 29 Wakeman, Frederic, 86 Wang Ching-wei, 56 Wang Chung-ch’i, 58 Wen Tien-hsiang, 33; nationalized

hero, 2, 66, 69, 77, 82; a selfsacrificing martyr, 80 World United Formosans for Inde­ pendence, 75 Wu Han, editor of historical biog­ raphies, 4, 84-85 Wu Sung, 48 Wu Tse-t’ien, 4 Ya Lü (pseudonym), 53-54, 55 Yang Ying, 7; Ts’ung cheng shih lu, 9-10 Yang Yun-p’ing, 8 Yangtze River, Koxinga’s cam­ paigns on, 15 Yao, 3 Yen P’ing chün wang szu, 60 Yu, 3 Yu Shan (Mt. Morrison), 39 Yuan Ch’ung-huan, 84 Yuan Min-hsi, 9 Yuan Shih-k’ai, 84; on Yueh Fei, 3 Yueh Fei: nationalized hero, 2-3,33, 45, 53, 66, 77,82; father-son re­ lationship of, 48; as martial hero, 80; temple to, 81; upper-class af­ filiation of, 84, 85 Yung Li Emperor, the: Koxinga identified with court of, 14-15, 21;deathof, 16,47; driven out of Kunming, 18; as “true” father, 46-47

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Frank H.H. King (ed.) and Prescott Clarke, A Research Guide to ChinarCoast Newspapers, 1822-1911

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Toshio G. Tsukahira, Feudal Control in Tokugawa Japan: The Sankin Kotai System

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Kwang-Ching Liu, ed., American Missionaries in China: Papers from Harvard Seminars

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George Moseley, A SinoSoviet Cultural Frontier: The Ili Kazakh Autonomous Chou

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James Pusey, Wu Han: A tta ck in g th e Present through th e P ast

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