The Pirate King’s Last Redoubt: The Rise and Fall of Koxinga’s Iron Kingdom

History is rarely made by people who stay neatly in their lanes. Few figures embody this truth quite like the 17th-century maritime warlord known to the West as Koxinga (Zheng Chenggong). Born in Japan to a samurai’s daughter and a Chinese pirate king, raised as a classical Confucian scholar, and driven by a fierce, tragic loyalty to a dying dynasty, Koxinga became the ultimate geopolitical disruptor of East Asia.

When the Ming Dynasty fell to the invading Manchus, Koxinga retreated to the sea. He forged a private maritime empire that defied empires, deployed a legendary heavy infantry wrapped in iron armor, and crossed the strait to carve out the first Han-governed state in Taiwan’s history: The Kingdom of Tungning.

The Prince of the Strait

To understand Koxinga, one must understand his father, Zheng Zhilong. The elder Zheng was a financial genius who turned piracy into a global corporate monopoly, commanding a fleet of thousands that dictated terms to both the Ming Emperor and the Dutch East India Company (VOC).

Born in Hirado, Japan, in 1624, Koxinga inherited this sprawling maritime network. But while his father was driven by pragmatism, Koxinga was driven by principle. When the Manchu invaders overran Beijing to establish the Qing Dynasty in 1644, the old pirate king surrendered to the new regime for safety and status. Koxinga refused to follow. Devastated by his father’s betrayal and the subsequent death of his mother during a Qing raid, Koxinga burned his scholar’s robes, buckled on armor, and vowed to fight the Manchus to the bitter end.

Shielded in Steel: The Legendary “Iron Men”

Operating from the coastal islands of Xiamen and Kinmen, Koxinga raised a sophisticated, battle-hardened army that exceeded 100,000 men. To break the terrifying, fast-moving cavalry charges of the Manchu forces, Koxinga designed a highly specialized, elite heavy infantry unit that became the stuff of military legend: The Iron Men (Tie Ren Jun).

The Iron Men were a terrifying spectacle on the battlefield. Selected through brutal tests of strength—such as lifting a 300-pound stone block—these shock troops were encased from head to toe in heavy sheet iron and chainmail. Their helmets and torso armor were frequently painted with ferocious tiger faces or demonic imagery designed to terrify opposing horses and infantry.

[The Iron Men Tactical Formation]
   Front Line: Heavy Shields (Deflect Arrows/Cavalry)
   Second Line: "Great Swords" (Hack Legs of Horses)
   Rear Line: Matchlocks & Fire Arrows (Ranged Support)

On the battlefield, they were organized into disciplined units where coordination was absolute. The front-line Iron Men carried heavy wooden shields and massive, two-handed “Great Swords” (Zhanmadao, or horse-chopping sabers). When the Qing cavalry charged, the Iron Men stood like a wall of steel, deflecting arrows, ignoring musket fire, and using their heavy blades to hack off the legs of the horses. They were Koxinga’s ultimate weapon, proving crucial in his campaigns along the Yangtze River and, eventually, on the beaches of Formosa.

The Birth of Tungning: Conquering the Dutch

By 1660, Koxinga’s mainland campaigns had stalled. Running out of territory and supplies, he cast his eyes 100 miles across the treacherous waters of the strait toward Taiwan, where the Dutch East India Company ruled from the brick bastions of Fort Zeelandia.

In April 1661, Koxinga’s armada of several hundred warships and 25,000 soldiers caught the Dutch completely by surprise. Utilizing his Iron Men as beachhead shock troops, Koxinga quickly overran the countryside, rallying the local Han Chinese population who had grown weary of harsh Dutch taxes and corporate monopolies.

   [April 1661: Beach Landing] ➔ [9-Month Siege of Fort Zeelandia] 
                                    ➔ [Feb 1662: Dutch Expulsion]

What followed was an agonizing nine-month siege. The Dutch had superior firepower and a formidable star-fort, but Koxinga had absolute numbers and local supply lines. He systematically starved the garrison and cut off their fresh water. On February 1, 1662, the Dutch governor formally surrendered. For the first time in history, a European colonial power was decisively defeated and evicted from Asia by an Asian army.

Koxinga renamed the island Dongdu (Eastern Capital) and proclaimed the Kingdom of Tungning. He immediately began transforming Taiwan from a corporate plantation into a functional Confucian state, dividing the land into farming districts for his soldiers, setting up schools, and building temples.

A Sudden Eclipse

Koxinga would not live to rule his new kingdom. In June 1662, just four months after expelling the Dutch, he died suddenly at the age of 37—shattered by malaria, exhaustion, and the devastating news that the Qing had executed his father in Beijing.

The Twilight of the Kingdom (1662–1683)

Following Koxinga’s tragic death, leadership of the Kingdom of Tungning fell to his eldest son, Zheng Jing.

   [Koxinga: Founder (1661–1662)] ➔ [Zheng Jing: Consolidation (1662–1681)] 
                                   ➔ [Zheng Keshuang: Collapse (1681–1683)]

For nearly two decades, Zheng Jing managed to keep the kingdom thriving. He turned Tungning into a wealthy, independent maritime trade hub, bypassing the Qing dynasty’s coastal blockades by smuggling silks and porcelain out of the mainland and trading them to Japan, the English East India Company, and Southeast Asia. Under the guidance of his brilliant chief minister, Chen Yonghua, schools proliferated, the island’s first Confucius Temple was erected in Tainan, and sophisticated iron-smelting and salt-evaporation methods were introduced.

However, Zheng Jing remained consumed by his father’s dream of reclaiming mainland China. In the 1674 Rebellion of the Three Feudatories, he poured vast amounts of Tungning’s wealth, ships, and lives back into campaigns on the mainland. The war dragged on for years, bleeding the island’s resources dry. By 1680, the venture had utterly failed, and a broken Zheng Jing retreated to Taiwan, dying shortly after in 1681.

The Final Curtain: Battle of Penghu (1683)

Zheng Jing’s death triggered a violent palace coup, leaving his 12-year-old son, Zheng Keshuang, on the throne of a fractured, bankrupt kingdom.

The Qing Dynasty sensed the kill. To lead their invasion force, the Manchus hired Shi Lang, a brilliant admiral who had once been one of Koxinga’s top commanders before a bitter personal feud drove him to defect to the Qing. Shi Lang knew every tactic, ship capability, and current that the Zheng family relied upon.

In July 1683, Shi Lang led a massive Qing armada into the Penghu Islands, the strategic naval gateway to Taiwan.

Battle of Penghu (1683)
Qing Armada	~300 warships, 20,000+ troops (led by Shi Lang)
Tungning Fleet	~200 warships, desperate defensive lines
Outcome	Devastating Qing victory; Tungning’s navy shattered

Over several days of brutal naval combat, Shi Lang utilized the shifting tides and superior firepower to utterly annihilate the Tungning fleet. Realizing that further resistance was impossible and that the island’s defenses were shattered, the young King Zheng Keshuang surrendered to the Qing court on September 5, 1683.

The Kingdom of Tungning was no more. It had lasted just over twenty years, but its impact was permanent. By bringing tens of thousands of mainlanders across the strait, building lasting civil infrastructure, and driving out Western colonial rule, Koxinga and his short-lived kingdom had fundamentally recast Taiwan’s destiny, ensuring its culture and population would remain inextricably bound to the Han world.