The Sea Frontier's Dragon Cauldron: Zheng Jing's Strategy to Restore the Ming and Rule as Hegemon

In the early years of the Kangxi reign of the Qing dynasty, Zheng Chenggong died in Taiwan. The island’s politics were in turmoil, provisions were scarce, and Qing forces watched hungrily from across the water. The Prince of Yanping, Zheng Jing, took up the burden in this time of crisis, raising the banner of “restoring the Ming and expanding across the seas” as he assumed responsibility for the survival of the Han people. He first strengthened Taiwan’s foundations: he forged an alliance through marriage with the indigenous Dadu people and opened up ten thousand mu of fertile farmland, promoted the sugar trade to fill the treasury, oversaw the construction of twenty-zhang warships to strengthen the navy, and sent spies into Manila to identify the defenses’ weak points among the more than one thousand Spanish troops stationed there.

Zheng Jing then embarked on an epic campaign to dominate the seas. With a fleet of fifteen thousand, he launched a surprise attack on the Philippines during typhoon season. Three cannon shots breached Manila’s earthen walls. By winning hearts and minds and pledging not to kill civilians, he forced the Spanish forces to surrender. He incorporated fifty thousand Chinese into a self-defense force and turned Luzon into a dual hub linking Taiwan and the Philippines. He then led his forces against Satsuma in Japan, massacring a village to make an example and intimidate the domain’s soldiers. Using the strategy of “surrounding three sides and leaving one open,” he took the city in ten days and adopted Satsuma’s shipbuilding techniques to make his warships faster. Moving south into Southeast Asia, he joined forces with the Mataram Kingdom to wipe out the Dutch garrison, monopolized the Strait of Malacca and the spice trade, and opened up a granary in the Mekong Delta to amass resources for a counterattack.

When the Qing launched an all-out campaign against him, Zheng Jing used the Indochinese Peninsula as a springboard, forming an army of fifty thousand auxiliaries to raid the southwest and tie down three hundred thousand Qing troops. He secretly contacted the Heaven and Earth Society to act as an inside force and trained thirty thousand “Northern Adaptation Troops” for the coming war. At last, he personally led one hundred and fifty warships and an army of eighty thousand in a two-pronged counteroffensive. The southwestern force seized Guangxi and Yunnan, cutting off the Qing army’s retreat, while the southeastern force landed in Fujian and seized the Qing court’s financial lifeline. The two armies joined forces at Nanjing, then pushed north along the Yangtze, captured Beijing, and pursued Kangxi. At the Temple of Heaven, Zheng Jing offered sacrifices and declared the Central Plains reconquered. Between the seas and the mainland, he rebuilt the foundations of a great Ming dynasty for the Han people.