KOXINGA, kb-shing't) or kok-sin'ga (Chin. CEng Ch'iny-Kung) (1623-63). A noted Chinese patriot and pirate, who drove the Dutch out of Formosa and became King of that island. He was born in 1623 in Hiraldo, Japan. His father. Ching Chih-lung, originally a poor tailor of Fu-kien• had married a Japanese wife, and. partly by trade and partly by freebooting, had amassed great wealth, and as the possessor of a fleet of 3000 junks became master of the seas. .About 1628 he apparently abandoned piracy, en tered the service of the Ming Emperor of China, then struggling against formidable rebellions within and the attacks of the Manchus without, and became admiral of the Imperial fleet. Some y ears later his wife joined him at Nanking with the young Ching-kung, who was sent to school, and who at twenty-two was presented to the Em peror, who gave bins a prominent command and conferred 'upon him his own surname, Chu, re marking that he was worthy to bear the Imperial surname. From this circumstance he became known as Ki•oh-hsing-yeh (in Japanese Koku sen-ya), `His Worship of the National Sur name,' which was corrupted by the Portuguese into Koxinga. Ere long the Ming, Emperor, find ing himself unable to hold Nanking, fled to Fu chow, which still held out against the Manchus, and Koxinga's father, yielding to the overtures of the Manchus who promised to make him a prince, was made a prisoner and carried to Peking, where he died. Koxinga, collecting his
father's fleet and raising a large army, pro ceeded to harry the Chinese coast, capturing cities, burning and pillaging, and defying every fleet sent against him. suffering but one severe defeat during his siege of Nanking in 1656, when he lost 500 of his ships, besides the camp equip ment of his land forces.
In 1661 he attacked the Dutch in Formosa, who surrendered after a four months' siege and retired to Batavia, and Koxinga proclaimed him self King. Whit this island as a base of opera tions, he renewed his attacks on China with such ferocity that, in 1662, the Manchu Government commanded the inhabitants of the two provinces of Fukien and Kwang-tung to remove, on pain of death, ten miles inland. Every town and vil lage within that belt was burned or leveled to the ground, the roads were broken up, and for six years all means of communication with the sea were cut off and all commerce ceased. In the fol lowing year Koxinga was killed in an engagement with the Dutch, and was succeeded by his son, who, as King of Formosa, continued the anti Manchu AN a rfa re.
In 1875, on the memorial of the Imperial com missioner then in Formosa, and the literati of T'ai-wan-fu, Koxinga, was canonized, and a temple erected in his honor.