Sino–Dutch conflicts

Sino-Dutch conflicts
Date 1620s-1662 Location Fujian, Amoy, Penghu, Liaoluo Bay, Kinmen, Tainan, Taiwan Result Decisive Ming Chinese victory
Belligerents
Ming Dynasty China Ming Loyalists	Dutch East India Company
Commanders and leaders
Shang Zhouzuo (Shang Chou-tso) Nan Juyi (Nan Chü-i) General Wang Mengxiong Zheng Zhilong Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga)	Captain Cornelis Reijersen (Reyerszoon) Christian Francs (POW) Marten Sonck Hans Putmans Frederick Coyett

The Sino–Dutch conflicts were a series of conflicts between Ming dynasty China and the Dutch East India Company over trade and land throughout the 1620s, 1630s and 1662 in which the Chinese defeated the Dutch forces.

Sino-Dutch conflicts

1620s

The Dutch East India Company tried to use military force to make China open up a port in Fujian to trade and demanded that China expel the Portuguese from Macau, whom the Dutch were fighting in the Dutch–Portuguese War. The Dutch raided Chinese shipping after 1618 and took junks hostage in an unsuccessful attempt to get China to meet their demands.^[1][2][3]

The Dutch were defeated by the Portuguese at the Battle of Macau in 1622. That same year, the Dutch seized Penghu (the Pescadores), built a fort there, and continued to demand that China open up ports in Fujian to Dutch trade. China refused, with the Chinese Governor of Fujian (Fukien) Shang Zhouzuo (Shang Chou-tso) demanding that the Dutch withdraw from the Pescadores to Formosa (Taiwan), where the Chinese would permit them to engage in trade. This led to a war between the Dutch and China between 1622-1624 which ended with the Chinese being successful in making the Dutch withdraw to Taiwan and abandoning the Pescadores.^[4][5] The Dutch threatened that China would face Dutch raids on Chinese ports and shipping unless the Chinese allowed trading on Penghu and that China not trade with Manila but only with the Dutch in Batavia and Siam and Cambodia. However, the Dutch found out that unlike smaller Southeast Asian Kingdoms, China could not be bullied or intimidated by them. After Shang ordered them to withdraw to Taiwan on September 19 of 1622, the Dutch raided Amoy on October and November.^[6] The Dutch intended to "induce the Chinese to trade by force or from fear" by raiding Fujian and Chinese shipping from the Pescadores.^[7] Long artillery batteries were erected at Amoy on March 1622 by Colonel Li Kung-hwa as a defence against the Dutch.^[8]

On the Dutch attempt in 1623 to force China to open up a port, five Dutch ships were sent to Liu-ao and the mission ended in failure for the Dutch, with a number of Dutch sailors taken prisoner and one of their ships lost. In response to the Dutch using captured Chinese for forced labor and strengthening their garrison in Penghu with five more ships in addition to the six already there, the new Governor of Fujian Nan Juyi (Nan Chü-yi) was permitted by China to begin preparations attack the Dutch forces on July 1623. A Dutch raid was defeated by the Chinese at Amoy on October 1623, with the Chinese taking the Dutch commander Christian Francs prisoner and burning one of the four Dutch ships. The Chinese began an offensive on February 1624 with warships and troops against the Dutch in Penghu with the intent of expelling them.^[9] The Chinese offensive reached the Dutch fort on July 30 1624, with 5,000 Chinese troops (or 10,000) and 40-50 warships under General Wang Mengxiong surrounding the fort commanded by Marten Sonck, and the Dutch were forced to sue for peace on August 3 and folded before the Chinese demands, withdrawing from Penghu to Taiwan. The Dutch admitted that their attempt at military force to coerce China into trading with them had failed with their defeat in Penghu. At the Chinese victory celebrations over the "red-haired barbarians" as the Dutch were called by the Chinese, Nan Juyi paraded twelve Dutch soldiers who were captured before the Emperor in Beijing.^{[10][11][12][13]} The Dutch were astonished that their violence did not intimidate the Chinese and at the subsequent Chinese attack on their fort in Penghu since they thought them as timid and from their experience in Southeast Asia as a "faint-hearted troupe".^[14]

1630s

After the Dutch defeat and expulsion from the Pescadores in the 1622-1624, they were totally driven off China's coast when they were decisively defeated by Chinese forces under Admiral Zheng Zhilong at the Battle of Liaoluo Bay in 1633 and then in 1662 they were defeated and driven off Taiwan at the Siege of Fort Zeelandia by Chinese forces under Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga).^{[15][16][17][18]}

1660s

See Also

• Cambodian–Dutch War
• Trịnh–Nguyễn War

References

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• Wright, Arnold (1908). Cartwright, H. A., ed. Twentieth century impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other treaty ports of China: their history, people, commerce, industries, and resources, Volume 1. Lloyds Greater Britain publishing company.