After rising against the Qing Dynasty at the Little Golden Gate in January 1647 (the fourth year of the Shunzhi reign of the Qing Dynasty, the first year of the Yongli reign), Zheng's army fought on the southeastern coasts of the provinces of Zheijiang, Min, and Guangdong, and he helped the clansmen of the Ming Dynasty and the people to cross the sea and settle down on Taiwan and in Southeast Asia on many occasions. In addition, Zheng Chenggong allowed Chinese merchants to receive Zhengfu tokens and "national title" flags to help protect the safety of Chinese doing business overseas;

A lot of overseas Chinese merchants did adopt this method and were able to do business safely at sea at that time. However, with an army of tens of thousands of men fighting against the Ching Dynasty, Zheng Chenggong was unable to gain a large base, and was forced to prepare his food and wages through overseas trade.

After the failure of the Northern Expedition to Nanking, Zheng Chenggong's army was greatly weakened and faced with the problem of insufficient food; in order to solve the problem of logistics, Zheng Chenggong decided to follow the advice of He Bin to recover the island of Taiwan, which had been invaded by the Dutch colonialists.

In April 1661 (the 18th year of the Shunzhi reign of the Qing Dynasty, the third lunar month of the 15th year of the Yongli calendar), Zheng Chenggong left his son, Zheng Jing, to defend Xiamen and Kinmen, and Zheng Chenggong personally led 25,000 generals and hundreds of warships to set out from the Bay of Guiluo in Kinmen, pass through Penghu, cross the Taiwan Strait, and march toward Taiwan.

The Netherlands in the southwest of Taiwan Island built two major defense fortresses, one is located in Dajian (now Tainan City, Anping District) of the hot Lanjia City, the second is located in the inland Chikan place of the Taijiang River (now Tainan City, Central and Western District) of the Prominence of the city.

The twenty-fourth, the army entered the Penghu sea, the stormy weather, suddenly attacked. In order to accomplish the great cause of restoration as soon as possible, under the extremely bad weather conditions, Success passed the order to the army to break the waves overnight.

Cheng Chenggong's army in a night of high tide of the sea, the first day of April of the same year, Zheng army through the Lulumen waterway into the inland sea of the Taijiang River and Hualiao port (now Tainan City North District near the Kaiyuan Temple) landing, intending to first seek to take the weakly defended city of Prominence.

Subsequently, Zheng's army started a naval battle with the Dutch warships in the waters of the Taijiang River and sank the Dutch warship Hector, gaining control of the inland sea of the Taijiang River, and at the same time defeating the Dutch army in the area of the tail of the northern line and surrounding the city of Praminjar with superior forces. Soon after, on the fifth day of April, the defenders of the city were forced to surrender. After acquiring the city as a stronghold, the Zheng army then besieged the city of Jelanchor by sea and by land.

Considering that it was not easy for the 20,000-strong army to dispatch food and wages, Zheng Chenggong did not plan for a prolonged war, and at the beginning, he pressurized the city of Jalanchaburi and tried to coerce the Dutch army to surrender. After being rejected by the Dutch officer Kui Yi, Zheng Chenggong ordered a strong attack on the city, but met with strong resistance from the Dutch army and suffered heavy losses.

Since the attack was unsuccessful and the army was short of food, Zheng Chenggong was forced to change his strategy and sent most of his army to the north and south to collect money and grain to relieve the army's lack of food, and switched to a long-term encirclement of the city of Jalanchau.

In 1661 (the 18th year of the Shunzhi reign of the Qing Dynasty, the 15th year of the Yongli reign), on the 5th day of the 5th month, Zheng Chenggong changed Chikan into the "East Capital Mingjing", and set up Chengtianfu and Tianxing and Wannian counties. The enemy's general, Trace Nanding, was defeated and surrendered. Zheng Chenggong left his general Yang Chao-dong to guard Chi-nai-lou, and personally led his troops to attack Chi-nai-cheng (the "King's Castle" built by the Dutch colonists in Tainan) in a victorious battle.

Cheng Chenggong wrote a letter to the Dutch colonial leader, Taiwan Governor Kui Yi, asking him to surrender. The letter contained these words: "Taiwan has long been run by the Chinese, and is the land of China. ...... Now that you have come to claim it, the land should be returned to me."

Clearly pointing out that the Chinese people to recover the lost land is an indelible truth. However, the aggressive Kuiyi, still trying to resist, successfully ordered the army to Chimei Castle tightly surrounded, firing artillery to attack the city. The Gaoshan people in the vicinity of the city came to welcome and assist Zheng Chenggong, and the Han Chinese in the city also sent messages to Zheng Chenggong, and the fate of the colonizers was now completely in Zheng Chenggong's hands.

The city of Chilai was besieged for more than seven months, with more than 1,600 enemy soldiers and officers killed or wounded, and finally the enemy's water supply was cut off by me, and Kuei Yi was at his wits' end, so he had to pull up the white flag and declare his surrender.

The Dutch colonists were still trying to make a desperate struggle before they died. In July 1661 (the 18th year of the Shunzhi reign of the Qing Dynasty and the 15th year of the Yongli reign of the Qing Dynasty), reinforcements from Batavia arrived at Dajian, and in addition to more than six hundred soldiers and eleven warships, the reinforcements brought a large amount of supplies and gunpowder to the city of Jelanjiao.

When Zheng Chenggong's army was still scattered all over Taiwan to carry out his mission, the estimated strength of the army stationed in Dabing and the town of Pulau Pinjau was less than 3,000, which renewed the hope of the Dutch army to counterattack. In mid-July, the Dutch reinforcements anchored offshore were hit by strong winds and forced to leave the coast of Dajian and head for Penghu to escape the storm;

One of the Dutch warships, the Urck, unfortunately ran aground, and all of the men on board were captured by the Zheng army. This change gave the Zheng army a chance to prepare, and when the Dutch warships returned to the waters of Dayuan in August, the Zheng army had already completed its preparations for the battle, even though it had not been able to mobilize most of its troops.

In mid-August, the Dutch and Zheng forces engaged in a fierce naval battle in the inland sea of the Taijiang River, in which the Zheng forces won a great victory, sinking a Dutch warship and capturing several ships, and since then the Dutch army has lost the ability to take the initiative to attack.

December, the Germanic Dutch sergeant Hans Jeuriaen Rade defected, Zheng Chenggong, with the help of the information provided by him, artillery bombardment destroyed the Utrecht fortress in the city of Jelanchu, so that the destruction of the city of Jelanchu was finalized. On the 8th day of December, Premier Kui Yi, a Dutch officer, sent a letter to Zheng Chenggong, expressing his agreement to "peace talks". The enemy signed the treaty of surrender.

On December 20, he yielded to Zheng Chenggong, and Kui Yi led the remaining 500 people to leave Taiwan in a mess. Taiwan, which had fallen for more than thirty years, has since returned to the embrace of the motherland.

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Effects of Zheng Chenggong's Recovery of Taiwan

After Zheng Chenggong took possession of Taiwan, he established the first Han Chinese regime in Taiwan, which also brought a wave of wave of Han Chinese immigration. Although Zheng Chenggong died in the same year he captured Taiwan, his successors, Zheng Jing and Zheng Keji, continued to rule Taiwan for 21 years and, under the planning of Chen Yonghua, introduced the Chinese Ming system of palaces, temples, and various rules and regulations,

establishing the fact that Taiwan was to become a predominantly Han Chinese culture rather than just another overseas Chinese port. This is why some scholars have described the battle as "deciding the fate of Taiwan for the next 400 years".

On the part of the Dutch East India Company, the loss of the stronghold of Dabu led to the interruption of the trade route "Southeast Asia - Dabu (re-export to China) - Nagasaki (Japan)", and the volume of trade with China was drastically reduced, resulting in great losses. The Dutch East India Company made several attempts to revive the route and thus joined hands with the Qing court to attack Zheng.

In 1663, the Qing and Dutch forces attacked Kinmen and Xiamen, where Zheng Chenggong was dead and Zheng Jing was the leader of Zheng's army. The two sides fought in the port of Wusha in Kinmen, Zheng's army was defeated, first withdrew to Tongshan, soon after the whole army transferred to Taiwan, completely lost in the mainland base. However, after this battle, the Qing court only gave silver and gifts to the East India Company, and did not send troops to assist in the attack on Taiwan.

In August 1664, the East India Company occupied Jikang. In November of the same year, the Dutch fleet formed a coalition with the navy led by Qing Admiral Shi Lang and prepared to attack Taiwan, but was forced to turn back after encountering big storms and waves out at sea. Since then, the Qing court became more passive about attacking Taiwan, and the East India Company also had financial difficulties due to years of military operations, so both sides stopped taking military action against Taiwan.

In addition, the East India Company abandoned its position in Keelung in July 1668 because it was almost unprofitable and costly to maintain due to the Qing court's prohibition on the use of the sea.

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