# A Chinese Biographical Dictionary/Chêng Ch'êng-kung

​264 Chêng Ch'êng-kung 鄭成功 (T. 錦). A.D. 1623–1662. Son of Chêng Chih-lung, under whom he served with great distinction for many years. In 1649, he attacked Ch'ao-chou, and in 1657 he took both T'ai-chou and Wênchow. In 1659, he made an attack upon Nanking, but was beaten off with great loss, five hundred and more of his ships being burnt. In 1660, a few months before the death of the Emperor Shun Chih, the populations of no less than eighty-eight townships on the coast of Fuhkien and Kuangtung were removed inland, in consequence of the piratical attacks organised by Ch'êng Ch'êng-kung. This was done under the advice of La Shuai-t'ai, Governor of Fuhkien. In 1661, he attacked the Dutch in Formosa, whence their expulsion was effected in the following year; and a valuable possession came through his instrumentality to be added to the Chinese empire. Succeeding in 1662 to his father's command, he determined to avenge the latter's treacherous death, and declared an implacable warfare against the new Manchu dynasty. About this time the last scion of the Mings honoured him by bestowing upon him the surname 朱 Chu, which was that of the Imperial House. Hence he came to be commonly spoken of as 國姓爺 Kuo hsing yeh, which title was corrupted by the Portuguese into the well known Koxinga or Koshinga. Meanwhile, several of his late father's chief adherents tendered their submission to the Manchu cause, his own brother, 鄭成賜 Chêng Ch'êng-tz'ŭ, falling into the hands of the enemy at Amoy. In the sixth moon it was reported to the Throne that Chêng Ch'êng-kung had gone ​mad after an outburst of wrath in consequence of his eldest son Chêng Chin having been installed in his stead, and that he had caused his own death by biting off his fingers. On the 15th February 1875, the Peking Gazette contained a memorial from the Imperial Commissioner appointed to reside in Formosa during the Japanese invasion of 1874, requesting that the spirit of 朱成功 Chu Ch'êng-kung, known as Prince of 延平 Yen-p'ing — a title conferred upon him in 1657 by Prince 桂 Kuei of the Ming dynasty, who was then in Yünnan — should be fittingly canonised, and a temple erected in his honour in T'ai-wan (now T'ai-nan) Fu. It was pointed out that the Emperor K'ang Hsi had declared this man to be merely one of the supporters of the Ming dynasty, and not a revolting rebel against the Manchus. Also that the literati of T'ai-wan Fu had put the following facts on record about him: "Devoted to scholarship in his youth, he became involved, on reaching the age of manhood, in the troubles which befell the State; and imbued with the prevailing sentiments of heroic devotion, he postponed the obligations of filial mourning to the duties of patriotism. He founded in the midst of the waste of waters a dominion which he transmitted to his descendants, and which was by them surrendered to the Imperial sway. His former opposition being condoned, his name was admitted to a place in the record of the loyal servants of the dynasty; and in the ensuing ages his supernatural intervention has been granted when cries of distress have arisen in times of national calamity." The memorial was granted.