You’ve just read the story of a man who burned his scholar’s robes, built a maritime empire, and broke a European colonial power. But when a single historical figure is claimed as a national savior, a divine deity, and a demonic pirate all at once, the truth tends to get buried under centuries of propaganda. Because his legacy has been used as a political tool by four different governments, Koxinga is one of the most mythologized figures in East Asian history. Let’s separate the hype from the historical record, and look at the real Pirate King of the South China Sea.
The Myth: Koxinga "reclaimed" Taiwan for China. The popular version, often repeated in modern textbooks and nationalist narratives, paints Koxinga as a patriotic hero righting a historical wrong by driving European imperialists off Chinese soil. But the verdict on this is FALSE. During the early 17th century, the Ming Dynasty did not consider Taiwan to be part of its empire—it was viewed as a "barbaric" region entirely off the map. In fact, when the Dutch tried to build a base in the Chinese territory of Penghu in the 1620s, the Ming government fought them for eight months, signed a treaty in 1624, and explicitly encouraged the Europeans to relocate to Taiwan instead. When Koxinga invaded the island decades later, he was actively fighting the reigning Qing government of China. He wasn't taking Taiwan back for a motherland; he was conquering it to establish his own semi-independent military base—the Kingdom of Tungning—to fund his private war. The "reclamation" myth stuck because modern politicians have retrospectively projected today's borders onto the 1600s, finding the story of a patriot fighting Western colonizers simply too useful to abandon.
The Myth: Primitive "human waves" defeated modern European technology. For centuries, a Eurocentric myth has suggested that the Dutch East India Company lost Fort Zeelandia because their highly advanced Renaissance star-fort and broadside ships were tragically overwhelmed by an endless, primitive horde of swarming pirates. The verdict here is wildly OVERSIMPLIFIED, not to mention biased. Koxinga’s military was a highly sophisticated, globalized machine that achieved tactical parity with the Europeans. He deployed precise amphibious landings using tidal charts, heavy artillery, and his elite "Iron Men"—shock troops clad in flexible coats of iron scales that were entirely bulletproof to Dutch rifles. His archers were so devastatingly accurate that the Dutch governor admitted they darkened the sky and outclassed his own gunmen. So why did the "primitive horde" myth endure? Because that defeated Dutch governor, Frederick Coyett, was sent to prison for losing the colony. To save his own reputation, Coyett wrote a self-serving book characterizing Koxinga as a "barbaric pirate," a bruised-ego excuse that Western historians uncritically swallowed for centuries.
The Myth: The "Black Guard" of African musketeers is just a legend. In some pop-culture depictions, Koxinga is guarded by a terrifying, elite unit of heavily armed African soldiers. To many modern readers, this sounds like anachronistic Hollywood fiction injected to make the story feel more exotic. Yet the verdict is TRUE-BUT-DOUBTED. The "Black Guard" is an absolutely authentic historical reality. The unit was originated by Koxinga’s father, the pirate-merchant Zheng Zhilong, who purchased and freed enslaved Africans from the Portuguese enclave of Macau, padding their numbers with defectors from the Dutch. In a world of treacherous warlords and shifting family alliances, these men were fiercely loyal to the commander who freed and paid them. By the time Koxinga besieged Taiwan, Dutch records terrifiedly noted that Koxinga’s "Black-boys" marched in disciplined rows of twelve, firing devastating, synchronized musket volleys. The myth that they never existed persists only because it confounds our modern expectations of 17th-century Asian demographics.
The Myth: Koxinga mutilated his mother’s body to "cleanse" her. One of the most gruesome anecdotes of Koxinga's life claims that after the Qing army attacked his stronghold in 1646 and drove his Japanese mother to suicide, a horrified Koxinga personally cut open her belly and washed her intestines to purify her defiled body. The verdict is FALSE, the result of a massive cultural misunderstanding. His mother, Tagawa Matsu, did die in that assault, and because she was Japanese, it is virtually certain she committed seppuku—ritual suicide by self-disembowelment. A Chinese chronicler saw or heard about her recovered body, fundamentally misunderstood the Japanese martial tradition, and erroneously assumed Koxinga had inflicted the wounds "according to barbarian custom" to cleanse her. The myth stuck because it was a propagandist's dream: it perfectly highlighted Koxinga's intense, bicultural grief for his followers, while allowing his Qing enemies to paint him as a deranged heathen brute.
The Myth: Koxinga died in a fit of face-clawing madness over a family scandal. Just months after taking Taiwan, the 37-year-old warlord died suddenly. The cinematic, enduring story claims that upon discovering his eldest son had conceived a child in an incestuous affair with a wet nurse, Koxinga ordered his son's execution. When his generals mutinied and refused, Koxinga allegedly went insane, howling and literally tearing the flesh from his own face until he dropped dead. The verdict here is EXAGGERATED. The scandalous family drama and the subsequent mutiny are entirely true, and Koxinga was undoubtedly under crushing psychological stress. However, his death was almost certainly caused by tropical disease. Contemporary accounts describe a sudden onset of chills and fever, and a Dutch doctor named Christian Beyer had previously noted Koxinga suffered from underlying health issues. Modern historians agree he likely died of malaria. The "madness" narrative was weaponized by Qing chroniclers who wanted a satisfying Confucian morality tale about a rebel destroyed by his son's perversion, and by Europeans who framed the agonizing death as God's divine retribution.
The Myth: Koxinga possessed divine magic. In Taiwanese folklore, Koxinga is not just a general; he is a literal deity. Legends claim that when his thirsty army was trapped on Iron Anvil Mountain, Koxinga thrust his trusty sword into the earth and miraculously brought forth a geyser of sweet water that never runs dry. Another tale insists his starving troops ate local snails and threw the shells on the ground, only for the meat to magically regenerate. The verdict is definitively FALSE. There is zero historical or archaeological evidence that his army was ever trapped there, and the "Sword Well" is a near-universal mythological trope mirroring the biblical story of Moses. These myths stuck because Koxinga was officially deified in Taiwanese folk religion as a protective saint. Over centuries, his life naturally attracted classic hero-archetype legends to foster local tourism and a shared cultural heritage.
When you strip away the retroactive borders, the colonial excuses, and the magical snails, the real Zheng Chenggong emerges as something far more compelling than a flawless god or a raving villain. He was a brilliant, grieving, bicultural warlord who harnessed a globally diverse army, mastered 17th-century military technology, and changed the map of the world on his own terms. The history doesn't need the legend to be unforgettable.