I finished reading Tonio Andrade’s [Lost Colony: The Untold Story of China’s First Great Victory over the West]. The original was published in 2011, with the Chinese edition republished in 2017. Many Dutch names in it appear closer to colloquial pronunciations.
This book mainly tells the story of Koxinga’s 1661 attack on the Dutch at Fort Zeelandia. Why did the author want to research this war? It turns out there’s a major world history question to answer.
Why did relatively backward Western European countries come to dominate the globe in the 16th century? Traditional historians have proposed many different reasons: guns, property rights, economics, politics, social institutions, etc. But for every reason traditional historians propose, global historians counter with examples of others who had those factors but didn’t dominate the globe.
Global historians believe the Europe-Asia divergence wasn’t in 1492 when Columbus sailed, 1497 when da Gama rounded Africa, or 1600 when the English and Dutch East India Companies were established. They believe the so-called Great Divergence happened with industrialization in 1800, when Europe truly became decisively powerful.
One theory historians debate about Europe-Asia power is the “Military Revolution thesis.” Frequent European wars created innovation: powerful guns, ships, troops, fortresses—these military innovations then sparked social institutional innovation.
The global history school calls itself historical revisionism. Both they and their opponents accept the Military Revolution thesis but reach different conclusions. Revisionists believe Europe indeed had some advantages, but not many. Anti-revisionists believe Europe became strong precisely because of the military revolution.
The 1661 war is a battlefield for debating the Military Revolution thesis. Anti-revisionists believe the Dutch occupied Taiwan due to their powerful technological strength.
Revisionists believe the Dutch could occupy Taiwan because China, Japan, and Korea let them, as everyone was busy—the Dutch seized the opportunity in a naval power vacuum. When the Ming needed Taiwan, they took it right away.
Tonio Andrade is a revisionist. Before writing Lost Colony, his previous book argued how easily Koxinga defeated the Dutch. But after examining Chinese and Dutch historical sources, he found this war wasn’t as simple as he’d imagined.
Guns, the anti-revisionists’ favorite, weren’t simply a European advantage. The Ming had long mastered musket technology but found it impractical and chose not to use it.
The Ming, founded in 1368, was a gunpowder empire. They used cannons against neighbors, who then learned artillery. Those neighbors used artillery against other neighbors. Thus artillery spread westward.
Muskets fired slowly, so different peoples independently evolved volley fire tactics. The first rank fires then the second, while the first reloads behind, using multiple ranks to reduce reloading gaps. This volley fire demanded discipline to avoid breaking in chaotic battlefields.
After learning about muskets, the Ming found them impractical. Though accurate, efficiency dropped against human wave tactics. So Ming armies kept giant cannons but didn’t use guns.
Koxinga’s army bypassed Dutch defenses through a breach in the Luermen sandbar, camping in northern Tainan. They quickly besieged Fort Provintia (today’s Chihkan Tower), forcing Jacob Valentine to surrender. Frederick Coyett, the Dutch governor at Fort Zeelandia, sent Thomas Pedel with 240 musketeers against Koxinga’s thousands.
Koxinga deployed his elite Iron Men troops wearing iron armor and masks. Pedel had previously used hundreds of musketeers against six thousand in the Guo Huaiyi Rebellion without injury, so he underestimated this battle. When Koxinga’s Iron Men were shot, replacements immediately filled gaps, maintaining formation. Pedel fell into a rear ambush, was routed, and died on the spot.
Dutch muskets didn’t defeat Koxinga’s army. Musketeer discipline wasn’t superior to Koxinga’s troops’ discipline.
Andrade believes the Dutch indeed had special technology, and if Coyett hadn’t made a series of wrong decisions, they might have defeated Koxinga.
The Dutch’s main advantages were Renaissance star forts and ships.
The Koxinga facing Coyett was already a siege veteran of dozens of battles. Chinese cities are enormous, with walls wide enough for carriages. Fort Zeelandia was tiny compared to even rural Chinese fortresses. Yet it held Koxinga off for a year.
This was mainly because Renaissance star forts evolved for the artillery age. The fort could create crossfire, with artillery firing from different directions at any approach. Koxinga, raised on Sun Tzu’s Art of War, considered sieges the worst strategy, so he first wrote many letters urging Dutch surrender. When he actually needed to siege, he threw massive manpower at it. Chinese walls quickly fell once breaches were found and packed with gunpowder.
Against star forts, one must build siege works nearby. Finally, a German drunkard who defected from the Dutch army taught Koxinga’s forces this trick, prompting Coyett’s surrender.
For ships, Dutch advantages were sailing against the wind and broadside cannons. Sailing against the wind let Dutch ships sail to Batavia for help when monsoon winds were unfavorable. Broadside cannons increased ships’ firepower output. So in Zheng Zhilong’s era, defeating Dutch ships required luring them deep inland then attacking with fire ships.
Beyond world history’s big questions, this book’s narrative is brilliant, with vivid character portrayals.
Coyett was basically a corporate drone who held meetings and left paper trails before doing anything. He worked meticulously, giving detailed instructions and leaving contingency plans.
His problem was discord with colleagues. When he initially anticipated possible invasion by Koxinga’s forces, Batavia had actually reinforced defenses, but he drove away his colleague Van der Laan who led elite naval forces. When reinforcements under Jacob Caeuw finally arrived after holding out, he didn’t trust them, leading to a disastrous counterattack. The Batavia governor also didn’t trust him, leading to his eventual investigation, exile, and disgrace.
Koxinga had strategies trusting Dutch military defectors, but Coyett didn’t trust the Chinese farmer defector Su. The author believes following Su’s suggestion for naval blockade of Koxinga’s supplies could indeed have starved Koxinga’s forces.
Finally, He Bin. Why did Koxinga, while successfully fighting to restore the Ming and already at Nanjing’s gates, suddenly attack Taiwan? Because He Bin told Koxinga that Taiwan had abundant provisions. When Koxinga arrived in Taiwan and found nothing, he had to order soldiers to farm.
He Bin’s father served as Dutch interpreter and owned extensive lands.
At the time, businesspeople couldn’t trust merchants’ scales, fearing false weights, so many places established public scales. He Bin proposed building public scales to the Dutch.
The Dutch thought scale positions should be auctioned. Three Chinese bid, but He Bin somehow always got the position. The Dutch tax official was furious. Angry merchants sued He Bin, making his position untenable.
At the time, Koxinga implemented naval embargo to obtain food for counterattacking the Qing. Coyett, newly in position, wanted to restore trade and communicate with Koxinga. He Bin intermediated, telling the Dutch everything was arranged with Koxinga and the embargo would lift, while telling Koxinga the Dutch would pay tribute.
My impression reading this is that Taiwan keeps getting sold out by political-business brokers. And Koxinga’s invasion based on false provisions intelligence is an example of Chinese miscalculation in invading Taiwan.
Finally, I don’t know where to place this, but the book has a beautiful passage describing the Little Ice Age, here are excerpts: Spanish soldiers heard Philippine volcanoes erupting; astronomers in Korea, China, and Europe recorded sunspots; tree rings in northern Italy tightened from lowered temperatures, making seventeenth-century violins sound special. Mexico had no rain, the Nile dropped to its lowest level.
Image: Dutch using public scales and collecting goods tax from children at Fort Zeelandia, Tainan, Taiwan.