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Lost Colony: The Untold Story of China's First Great Victory over the West. By tonio andrade. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011. 428 pp. $35.00 (cloth).
Lost Colony is a dramatic story of how Koxinga, or Zheng Chenggong, seized Taiwan from the Dutch in 1662. Andrade starts his account with the controversial trial in Batavia of Frederick Coyet, the last governor of the Dutch colony in Taiwan, after he lost the island. This is followed by a brief discussion of the debate between the supporters of the Military Revolution theory, who argue that the military system of preindustrial Europe was superior to that of China and other non-Western societies, and proponents of the Chinese Military Revolution theory, who contest that something similar to the European military revolution had already been going on in China when Western arms were first introduced to China in the modern era, and that the military history of non-Western societies needs to be carefully examined before any conclusion about Europe's advantage can be reached. Andrade believes that an analysis of the war between Koxinga and the Dutch over Taiwan can help resolve the disputes between these two groups of scholars because it was the first war between Europe and China, and therefore provides a rare opportunity for comparing and contrasting European and Chinese military technologies and organizations.
The rest of the book is divided into three parts and a closing section. Part 1 traces the complex relations between Koxinga's father, Zheng Zhilong, and the Dutch in Taiwan as well as the rise of Koxinga as the sea king. Zhilong made great profits from his dealings with the Dutch in his early years as a translator, merchant, and pirate, and then became a Ming official and an enemy of the Dutch. After defeating a Dutch fleet near Jinmen, he was able to consolidate his position in the Ming officialdom, particularly his control over Xiamen and Fujian, and he then resumed his trade with the Dutch. In many ways, Zhilong paved the way for Koxinga's emergence as a powerful general, although after 1644 the father and the son took opposing positions toward the Qing. As a Ming loyalist,...