More than one Chinese adventurer rose to a romantic position during this disturbed time. One of these adventurers, named It Coan, had been a poor fisherman of Chio. He had lived in Macao, where he had been converted to Christianity, and had been a cargador, or cargo-bearer, in Manila. He afterwards went to Japan, and engaged in trade. From these humble and laborious beginnings, like many another of his persistent countrymen, he gained great wealth, which on the conquest of the Manchus he devoted to piracy.
His son was the notorious Kue-Sing, or Koxinga, who for years resisted the armies of the Manchus, and maintained an independent power over the coasts of Fukien and Chekiang. About 1660 the forces of the Manchus became too formidable for him to longer resist them upon the mainland, and Koxinga determined upon the capture of Formosa and the transference of his kingdom to that island.
For thirty-eight years this island had been dominated by the Dutch, whose fortresses commanded the channel of the Pescadores. The colony was regarded as an important one by the Dutch colonial government at Batavia. The city of Tai-wan, on the west coast, was a considerable center of trade. It was strongly protected by the fortress of Zealand, and had a garrison of twenty-two hundred Dutch soldiers. After months of fighting, Koxinga, with an overpowering force of Chinese, compelled the surrender of the Hollanders and the beautiful island passed into his power.
A Threatened Invasion of the Philippines.--Exalted by his success against European arms, Koxinga resolved upon the conquest of the Philippines. He summoned to his service the Italian Dominican missionary, Ricci, who had been living in the province of Fukien, and in the spring of 1662 dispatched him as an ambassador to the governor of the Philippines to demand the submission of the archipelago.
Manila was thrown into a terrible panic by this demand, and indeed no such danger had threatened the Spanish in the Philippines since the invasion of Limahong. The Chinese conqueror had an innumerable army, and his armament, stores, and navy had been greatly augmented by the surrender of the Dutch. The Spaniards, however, were united on resistance. The governor, Don Sabiano Manrique de Lara, returned a defiant answer to Koxinga, and the most radical measures were adopted to place the colony in a state of defense.