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Kingdom of Tungning
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The Kingdom of Tungning (Chinese:東寧王國; pinyin: Dōngníng Wángguó ), also called the Kingdom of Zheng (Chinese:鄭氏王朝) was the first Han Chinese government to exist on Taiwan, between 1661 and 1683. It was a pro-Ming Dynasty kingdom, and was founded as Tungtu / Dongdu by Koxinga, after the destruction of the Ming Dynasty by the Manchu Qing Dynasty. Koxinga was a former pirate who styled himself as a Ming Dynasty loyalist; he hoped to marshal his troops on Taiwan and use it as a base to regain mainland China for the Ming Dynasty. The kingdom was renamed to Tungning / Dongning in 1664.
In 1661, Koxinga led his troops to a landing at Luerhmen (鹿耳門, p: Lu'ermen) to attack Taiwan. By the end of the year, he had expelled the Dutch, who had controlled Taiwan for the past 38 years. Koxinga proceeded to devote himself to building Taiwan into an effective base for anti-Qing sympathizers who wanted to restore the Ming Dynasty to power.
In 1662, at the age of 39, Koxinga died of malaria, although speculations said that he died in a sudden fit of madness upon hearing the death of his father under the Qing. His son, Zheng Jing, succeeded him as the ruler of Taiwan, with the inherited title of Prince of Yanping.
For the next nineteen years, Zheng Jing tried to provide sufficiently for the local inhabitants and reorganize their military forces in Taiwan. Contact with the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty from the mainland through ambassadors was frequent. Under Qing pressure, Zheng Jing struggled to defend Xiamen, Quemoy and the Pescadores islands, which he had eventually lost over the years, mainly due to his minuscule forces which were insufficient to defend from the Qing. Zheng Jing committed suicide in 1681 in a battle with the Qing empire.[citation needed] His son, Zheng Ke-Shuang, succeeded him.
In 1683,after Battle of Penghu Taiwan fell to Qing forces and was incorporated into the Qing Empire until 1895.
The Kingdom of Tungning existed for just over 20 years, but due to its parallels to the current political status of Taiwan, it continues to hold great symbolic value.
After its defeat in the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the Republic of China (ROC), led by the Kuomintang, retreated to Taiwan, leaving Mainland China to the newly established People's Republic of China (PRC). For the next several decades, the ROC was devoted to regaining the mainland, by maintaining island bases in proximity to the mainland (e.g. Quemoy), just as Koxinga and his descendents had done. Although the ROC has since democratized and is no longer singularly devoted to reconquering the mainland, the political and territorial arrangement has remained unchanged. In this respect, there is a striking parallel between the Qing/Koxinga situation and the current PRC/ROC situation.
The Kuomintang of the ROC have, unsurprisingly, focused on the goals of Koxinga, i.e. to use Taiwan as a base for restoring the rightful government to Mainland China, parallel to how they view themselves as the defenders of the ROC, and Taiwan as a base from which the ROC will regain the mainland. The PRC has generally focused on the fact that Koxinga liberated Taiwan from Dutch colonialism for the sake of the fatherland, while de-emphasizing the fact that Koxinga was in fact devoted to overthrowing the mainland government at the time to restore a previous dynasty.
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