1.
Kingdom of Tungning
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The Kingdom of Tungning or Kingdom of Formosa was a government that ruled part of southwestern Taiwan between 1661 and 1683. It was founded by Koxinga as part of the loyalist movement to restore the Ming government in China after it was overthrown by the Manchu Qing dynasty. Koxinga hoped to recapture the Chinese mainland from the Manchus by using the island as a base of operations to settle, the Kingdom of Tungning is sometimes known as the Zheng dynasty, Zheng Family Kingdom or Kingdom of Yanping. Taiwan was referred to by Koxinga as Tungtu, in the West, it was known as the Kingdom of Taiwan, and the period of rule is sometimes referred to as the Koxinga dynasty. Zheng Zhilong, a Ming admiral and father of Koxinga, accepted the Qing offer, after learning of this whilst pursuing studies overseas, Koxinga pledged to assume his father’s position and control of his remaining forces in order to re-establish Ming control of China. In 1661, Koxingas fleet forced an entry to Lakjemuyse, in return, most Dutch officials, soldiers and civilians were allowed to leave with their personal belongings and supplies and return to Batavia, ending the 38 years of Dutch colonial rule on Taiwan. Koxinga did, however, detain some Dutch women, children and he then proceeded on a tour of inspection with a contingent of nearly 100,000 soldiers to see with his own eyes the extent and condition of his new domain. Replacing the Dutch system of government previously used in Taiwan, Koxinga instituted a Ming-style administration and this system of government was divided into six departments, civil service, revenue, rites, war, punishment, and public works. Formosa was also renamed by Koxinga as Tungtu, though this name was changed by his son, Zheng Jing. The most immediate problem Koxinga faced after the invasion of Taiwan was a severe shortage of food. To address the shortage, Koxinga instituted a tuntian policy in which soldiers served the dual role of farmer when not assigned active duty in a guard battalion. Following the death of Koxinga in 1662 due to malaria, his son Zheng Jing took over the Zheng regime and this to a large extent backfired and from 1662-4 six major waves of immigration occurred from these areas to Taiwan due to the severe hardships incurred from this relocation policy. About 1,000 previous Ming government officials moved to Taiwan fleeing Qing persecution, Zheng Jing also recruited his early tutor, Chen Yong-hua, and passed to him most official government affairs. Throughout its existence, Tungning was subject to the Qing sea ban, aside from the British, Zheng major trade occurred with the Japanese and Dutch, though evidence of trade with many Asian countries exists. Following the death of Zheng Jing in 1681, the lack of an heir meant rule of Taiwan would pass to his illegitimate son. This caused great division in the government and military powers, resulting in a destructive struggle for the succession. Seizing the advantage presented by the infighting, the Qing dispatched their navy with Shi Lang at its head, several Ming dynasty Princes had accompanied Koxinga to Taiwan including the Prince of Ningjing Zhu Shugui and Prince Zhu Hónghuán, son of Zhu Yihai. The Qing sent the 17 Ming princes still living on Taiwan back to mainland China where they spent the rest of their lives, Zheng Keshuang was rewarded by the Qing Emperor with the title Duke of Haicheng and he and his soldiers were inducted into the Eight Banners
2.
Fujian
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Fujian, formerly romanised as Foken, Fouken, Fukien, and Hokkien, is a province on the southeast coast of mainland China. Fujian is bordered by Zhejiang to the north, Jiangxi to the west, the name Fujian came from the combination of Fuzhou and Jianzhou two cities in Fujian, during the Tang dynasty. While its population is chiefly of Han origin, it is one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse provinces in China, most of Fujian is administered by the Peoples Republic of China. However, the archipelagos of Kinmen and Matsu are under the control of the Republic of China, thus, there are two provinces, the Fujian Province administered by the PRC and the Fujian Province of the ROC. Recent archaeological discoveries demonstrate that Fujian had entered the Neolithic Age by the middle of the 6th millennium BC, the Tanshishan site in suburban Fuzhou spans the Neolithic and Chalcolithic Age where semi-underground circular buildings were found in the lower level. The Huangtulun site, also in suburban Fuzhou, was of the Bronze Age in character, Fujian was also the place for the kingdom of Minyue. This is because the family of Yuè fled to Fujian after their kingdom was annexed by the State of Chu in 306 BC. Mǐn is also the name of the river in this area. Minyue was a de facto kingdom until the emperor of Qin dynasty, liu Bang was victorious and founded the Han dynasty, in 202 BC, he restored Minyues status as a tributary independent kingdom. Thus, Wuzhu was allowed to construct his fortified city in Fuzhou as well as a few locations in the Wuyi Mountains and his kingdom extended beyond the borders of contemporary Fujian into eastern Guangdong, eastern Jiangxi, and southern Zhejiang. The Han emperor eventually decided to get rid of the threat by sending a military campaign against Minyue. Large forces approached Minyue simultaneously from four directions via land and sea in 111 BC, the rulers in Fuzhou surrendered to avoid a futile fight and destruction, thus the first kingdom in Fujian history came to an abrupt end. The Han dynasty collapsed at the end of the 2nd century AD, sun Quan, the founder of the Kingdom of Wu, spent nearly twenty years subduing the Shan Yue people, the branch of the Yue living in mountains. These immigrants were primarily from eight families in central China, Lin, Huang, Chen, Zheng, Zhan, Qiu, He, the first four remain as the major surnames of modern Fujian. Population density in Fujian remained low compared to the rest of China, only two commanderies and sixteen counties were established by the Western Jin dynasty. Like other southern provinces such as Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, during the Southern and Northern Dynasties era, the Southern Dynasties reigned south of the Yangtze River, including Fujian. During Sui and Tang eras a large influx of migrants came, the Tang dynasty oversaw the next golden age of China and culturally and economically benefited Fujian greatly, Fujians capital Fuzhous economic and cultural instions grew and developed. The later years of the Tang dynasty saw a number of upheavals in the Chinese heartland
3.
Ming dynasty
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The Ming dynasty was the ruling dynasty of China – then known as the Empire of the Great Ming – for 276 years following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming, described by some as one of the greatest eras of orderly government, although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng, regimes loyal to the Ming throne – collectively called the Southern Ming – survived until 1683. He rewarded his supporters and employed them as a counterweight against the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats. One, Zheng He, led seven enormous voyages of exploration into the Indian Ocean as far as Arabia, the rise of new emperors and new factions diminished such extravagances, the capture of the Zhengtong Emperor during the 1449 Tumu Crisis ended them completely. The imperial navy was allowed to fall into disrepair while forced labor constructed the Liaodong palisade, haijin laws intended to protect the coasts from Japanese pirates instead turned many into smugglers and pirates themselves. The growth of Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch trade created new demand for Chinese products and produced an influx of Japanese. This abundance of specie remonetized the Ming economy, whose money had suffered repeated hyperinflation and was no longer trusted. While traditional Confucians opposed such a prominent role for commerce and the newly rich it created, combined with crop failure, floods, and epidemic, the dynasty collapsed before the rebel leader Li Zicheng, who was defeated by the Manchu-led Eight Banner armies who founded the Qing dynasty. The Mongol-led Yuan dynasty ruled before the establishment of the Ming dynasty, consequently, agriculture and the economy were in shambles, and rebellion broke out among the hundreds of thousands of peasants called upon to work on repairing the dykes of the Yellow River. A number of Han Chinese groups revolted, including the Red Turbans in 1351, the Red Turbans were affiliated with the White Lotus, a Buddhist secret society. Zhu Yuanzhang was a peasant and Buddhist monk who joined the Red Turbans in 1352. In 1356, Zhus rebel force captured the city of Nanjing, with the Yuan dynasty crumbling, competing rebel groups began fighting for control of the country and thus the right to establish a new dynasty. In 1363, Zhu Yuanzhang eliminated his archrival and leader of the rebel Han faction, Chen Youliang, in the Battle of Lake Poyang, arguably the largest naval battle in history. Known for its ambitious use of ships, Zhus force of 200,000 Ming sailors were able to defeat a Han rebel force over triple their size, claimed to be 650. The victory destroyed the last opposing rebel faction, leaving Zhu Yuanzhang in uncontested control of the bountiful Yangtze River Valley, Zhu Yuanzhang took Hongwu, or Vastly Martial, as his era name. Hongwu made an effort to rebuild state infrastructure. He built a 48 km long wall around Nanjing, as well as new palaces, Hongwu organized a military system known as the weisuo, which was similar to the fubing system of the Tang dynasty. With a growing suspicion of his ministers and subjects, Hongwu established the Jinyiwei, some 100,000 people were executed in a series of purges during his rule
4.
Philippines
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The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is a sovereign island country in Southeast Asia situated in the western Pacific Ocean. It consists of about 7,641 islands that are categorized broadly under three main geographical divisions from north to south, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, the capital city of the Philippines is Manila and the most populous city is Quezon City, both part of Metro Manila. The Philippines has an area of 300,000 square kilometers, and it is the eighth-most populated country in Asia and the 12th most populated country in the world. As of 2013, approximately 10 million additional Filipinos lived overseas, multiple ethnicities and cultures are found throughout the islands. In prehistoric times, Negritos were some of the archipelagos earliest inhabitants and they were followed by successive waves of Austronesian peoples. Exchanges with Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Islamic nations occurred, then, various competing maritime states were established under the rule of Datus, Rajahs, Sultans or Lakans. The arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in Homonhon, Eastern Samar in 1521 marked the beginning of Hispanic colonization, in 1543, Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos named the archipelago Las Islas Filipinas in honor of Philip II of Spain. With the arrival of Miguel López de Legazpi from Mexico City, in 1565, the Philippines became part of the Spanish Empire for more than 300 years. This resulted in Roman Catholicism becoming the dominant religion, during this time, Manila became the western hub of the trans-Pacific trade connecting Asia with Acapulco in the Americas using Manila galleons. Aside from the period of Japanese occupation, the United States retained sovereignty over the islands until after World War II, since then, the Philippines has often had a tumultuous experience with democracy, which included the overthrow of a dictatorship by a non-violent revolution. It is a member of the United Nations, World Trade Organization, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. It also hosts the headquarters of the Asian Development Bank, the Philippines was named in honor of King Philip II of Spain. Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos, during his expedition in 1542, named the islands of Leyte, eventually the name Las Islas Filipinas would be used to cover all the islands of the archipelago. Before that became commonplace, other such as Islas del Poniente. The official name of the Philippines has changed several times in the course of its history, during the Philippine Revolution, the Malolos Congress proclaimed the establishment of the República Filipina or the Philippine Republic. From the 1898 Treaty of Paris, the name Philippines began to appear, since the end of World War II, the official name of the country has been the Republic of the Philippines. The metatarsal of the Callao Man, reliably dated by uranium-series dating to 67,000 years ago is the oldest human remnant found in the archipelago to date and this distinction previously belonged to the Tabon Man of Palawan, carbon-dated to around 26,500 years ago. Negritos were also among the archipelagos earliest inhabitants, but their first settlement in the Philippines has not been reliably dated, there are several opposing theories regarding the origins of ancient Filipinos
5.
Kangxi Emperor
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The Kangxi Emperors reign of 61 years makes him the longest-reigning emperor in Chinese history and one of the longest-reigning rulers in the world. However, since he ascended the throne at the age of seven, actual power was held for six years by four regents and his grandmother, the Kangxi Emperor is considered one of Chinas greatest emperors. The Kangxi Emperors reign brought about stability and relative wealth after years of war. He initiated the period known as the Prosperous Era of Kangxi and Qianlong or High Qing and his court also accomplished such literary feats as the compilation of the Kangxi Dictionary. Born on 4 May 1654 to the Shunzhi Emperor and Empress Xiaokangzhang in Jingren Palace, the Forbidden City, Beijing and he was enthroned at the age of seven, on 7 February 1661. His era name Kangxi, however, only started to be used on 18 February 1662, large bright eyes lighted up his face, which was pitted with smallpox. Before the Kangxi Emperor came to the throne, Grand Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang had appointed the powerful men Sonin, Suksaha, Ebilun, Sonin died after his granddaughter became Empress Xiaochengren, leaving Suksaha at odds with Oboi in politics. In a fierce struggle, Oboi had Suksaha put to death. The Kangxi Emperor and the rest of the imperial court acquiesced in this arrangement, in 1669, the Kangxi Emperor had Oboi arrested with the help of his grandmother Grand Dowager Empress Xiaozhuang, who had raised him. And began taking control of the empire. He listed three issues of concern, flood control of the Yellow River, repair of the Grand Canal, the Grand Empress Dowager influenced him greatly and he took care of her himself in the months leading up to her death in 1688. The main army of the Qing Empire, the Eight Banners Army, was in decline under the Kangxi Emperor. It was smaller than it had been at its peak under Hong Taiji and in the reign of the Shunzhi Emperor, however. In addition, the Green Standard Army was still powerful with generals such as Tuhai, Fei Yanggu, Zhang Yong, Zhou Peigong, Shi Lang, Mu Zhan, Shun Shike and Wang Jingbao. The main reason for decline was a change in system between the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors reigns. The Kangxi Emperor continued using the military system implemented by his predecessors. According to the system, a commander who returned from a battle alone would be put to death and this was meant to motivate both commanders and soldiers alike to fight valiantly in war because there was no benefit for the sole survivor in a battle. By the Qianlong Emperors reign, military commanders had become lax and this was because commanders statuses had become hereditary, a general gained his position based on the contributions of his forefathers
6.
Qing dynasty
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It was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The Qing multi-cultural empire lasted almost three centuries and formed the base for the modern Chinese state. The dynasty was founded by the Jurchen Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria, in the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci, originally a Ming vassal, began organizing Banners, military-social units that included Jurchen, Han Chinese, and Mongol elements. Nurhaci formed the Jurchen clans into an entity, which he renamed as the Manchus. By 1636, his son Hong Taiji began driving Ming forces out of Liaodong and declared a new dynasty, in 1644, peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng conquered the Ming capital, Beijing. The Ten Great Campaigns of the Qianlong Emperor from the 1750s to the 1790s extended Qing control into Central Asia, the early rulers maintained their Manchu ways, and while their title was Emperor, they used khan to the Mongols and they were patrons of Tibetan Buddhism. They governed using Confucian styles and institutions of government and retained the imperial examinations to recruit Han Chinese to work under or in parallel with Manchus. They also adapted the ideals of the system in dealing with neighboring territories. The Qianlong reign saw the apogee and initial decline in prosperity. The population rose to some 400 million, but taxes and government revenues were fixed at a low rate, corruption set in, rebels tested government legitimacy, and ruling elites did not change their mindsets in the face of changes in the world system. Following the Opium War, European powers imposed unequal treaties, free trade, the Taiping Rebellion and the Dungan Revolt in Central Asia led to the deaths of some 20 million people, most of them due to famines caused by war. In spite of disasters, in the Tongzhi Restoration of the 1860s, Han Chinese elites rallied to the defense of the Confucian order. The initial gains in the Self-Strengthening Movement were destroyed in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895, in which the Qing lost its influence over Korea, New Armies were organized, but the ambitious Hundred Days Reform of 1898 was turned back by Empress Dowager Cixi, a conservative leader. Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionaries competed with reformist monarchists such as Kang Youwei, after the deaths of Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor in 1908, the hardline Manchu court alienated reformers and local elites alike. The Wuchang Uprising on October 11,1911, led to the Xinhai Revolution, General Yuan Shikai negotiated the abdication of Puyi, the last emperor, on February 12,1912. Nurhaci declared himself the Bright Khan of the Later Jin state in both of the 12–13th century Jurchen Jin dynasty and of his Aisin Gioro clan. His son Hong Taiji renamed the dynasty Great Qing in 1636, there are competing explanations on the meaning of Qīng. The character Qīng is composed of water and azure, both associated with the water element and this association would justify the Qing conquest as defeat of fire by water
7.
History of Taiwan
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The history of Taiwan dates back tens of thousands of years to the earliest known evidence of human habitation. The sudden appearance of a culture based on agriculture around 3000 BC is believed to reflect the arrival of the ancestors of todays Taiwanese aborigines, the Spanish built a settlement in the north for a brief period but were driven out by the Dutch in 1642. In 1662, Koxinga, a loyalist of the Ming dynasty who had lost control of mainland China in 1644, defeated the Dutch and his forces were defeated by the Qing dynasty in 1683, and parts of Taiwan became increasingly integrated into the Qing empire. Following the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895, the Qing ceded the island, along with Penghu, to the Empire of Japan. Taiwan produced rice and sugar to be exported to the Empire of Japan, and also served as a base for the Japanese colonial expansion into Southeast Asia, Japanese imperial education was implemented in Taiwan and many Taiwanese also fought for Japan during the war. In 1945, following the end of World War II, the Republic of China, led by the Kuomintang, in 1949, after losing control of mainland China in the Chinese Civil War, the ROC government under the KMT withdrew to Taiwan and Chiang Kai-shek declared martial law. The KMT ruled Taiwan as a single-party state for forty years, until reforms in the 1980s. During the post-war period, Taiwan experienced rapid industrialization and economic growth, in the Late Pleistocene, sea levels were about 140 m lower than in the present day, exposing the floor of the shallow Taiwan Strait as a land bridge that was crossed by mainland fauna. The oldest evidence of presence on Taiwan consists of three cranial fragments and a molar tooth found at Chouqu and Gangzilin, in Zuozhen District. These are estimated to be between 20,000 and 30,000 years old. The oldest artifacts are chipped-pebble tools of a Paleolithic culture found in four caves in Changbin, Taitung, dated 15,000 to 5,000 years ago, and similar to contemporary sites in Fujian. The same culture is found at sites at Eluanbi on the tip of Taiwan. At the beginning of the Holocene 10,000 years ago, sea levels rose, forming the Taiwan Strait, around 3,000 BC, the Neolithic Dapenkeng culture abruptly appeared and quickly spread around the coast of the island. Their sites are characterized by pottery, polished stone adzes. The inhabitants cultivated rice and millet, but were heavily reliant on marine shells. Most scholars believe this culture is not derived from the Changbinian, some of these people later migrated from Taiwan to the islands of Southeast Asia and thence throughout the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The Dapenkeng culture was succeeded by a variety of cultures throughout the island, including the Tahu, iron appeared at the beginning of the current era in such cultures as the Niaosung Culture. The earliest metal artifacts were trade goods, but by around 400 AD wrought iron was being produced locally using bloomeries, early Chinese histories refer to visits to eastern islands that some historians identify with Taiwan
8.
Piracy
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Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship- or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable items or properties. Those who engage in acts of piracy are called pirates, the earliest documented instances of piracy were in the 14th century BC, when the Sea Peoples, a group of ocean raiders, attacked the ships of the Aegean and Mediterranean civilizations. Narrow channels which funnel shipping into predictable routes have long created opportunities for piracy, as well as for privateering and commerce raiding. Historic examples include the waters of Gibraltar, the Strait of Malacca, Madagascar, the Gulf of Aden, a land-based parallel is the ambushing of travelers by bandits and brigands in highways and mountain passes. While the term can include acts committed in the air, on land, or in major bodies of water or on a shore. It does not normally include crimes committed against people traveling on the vessel as the perpetrator. Piracy or pirating is the name of a crime under customary international law. They also use larger vessels, known as ships, to supply the smaller motorboats. The international community is facing challenges in bringing modern pirates to justice. In the 2000s, a number of nations have used their naval forces to protect ships from pirate attacks. The English pirate is derived from the Latin term pirata and that from Greek πειρατής, brigand, in turn from πειράομαι, I attempt, from πεῖρα, attempt, the meaning of the Greek word peiratēs literally is one who attacks. The word is cognate to peril. The term is first attested to c, spelling was not standardised until the eighteenth century, and spellings such as pirrot, pyrate and pyrat were used until this period. It may be reasonable to assume that piracy has existed for as long as the oceans were plied for commerce, the earliest documented instances of piracy are the exploits of the Sea Peoples who threatened the ships sailing in the Aegean and Mediterranean waters in the 14th century BC. In classical antiquity, the Phoenicians, Illyrians and Tyrrhenians were known as pirates, the ancient Greeks condoned piracy as a viable profession, it apparently was widespread and regarded as an entirely honourable way of making a living. References are made to its perfectly normal occurrence many texts including in Homers Iliad and Odyssey, by the era of Classical Greece, piracy was looked upon as a disgrace to have as a profession. In the 3rd century BC, pirate attacks on Olympos brought impoverishment, among some of the most famous ancient pirateering peoples were the Illyrians, a people populating the western Balkan peninsula. Constantly raiding the Adriatic Sea, the Illyrians caused many conflicts with the Roman Republic and it was not until 229 BC when the Romans finally decisively beat the Illyrian fleets that their threat was ended
9.
Golden Age of Piracy
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The Golden Age of Piracy is a common designation given to usually one or more outbursts of piracy in the maritime history of the early modern period. The modern conception of pirates as depicted in culture is derived largely, although not always accurately. The colonial powers at the time fought with pirates and engaged in several notable battles. Powell uses the only once. Its golden age may be said to have extended from about 1650 to about 1720, Pirate historians of the first half of the 20th century occasionally adopted Fiskes term Golden Age, without necessarily following his beginning and ending dates for it. This idea starkly contradicted Fiske, who had denied that such Elizabethan figures as Drake were pirates. Of recent definitions, Pringle appears to have the widest range, as early as 1924, Philip Gosse described piracy as being at its height from 1680 until 1730. Bottings definition was followed by Frank Sherry in 1986. In a 1989 academic article, Professor Marcus Rediker defined the Golden Age as lasting only from 1716 to 1726, angus Konstam in 1998, reckoned the era as lasting from 1700 until 1730. David Cordingly, in his influential 1994 work Under the Black Flag, defined the age of piracy as lasting from the 1650s to around 1725. Rediker, in 2004, described the most complex definition of the Golden Age to date, most of these pirates were of Welsh, English, Dutch and French origin. This involved considerable seaborne trade, and an economic improvement. The buccaneers migration from Hispaniolas mainland to the more defensible offshore island of Tortuga limited their resources, the growth of buccaneering on Tortuga was augmented by the English capture of Jamaica from Spain in 1655. In the 1660s, the new French governor of Tortuga, Bertrand dOgeron and these conditions brought Caribbean buccaneering to its zenith. A number of factors caused Anglo-American pirates, some of whom had cut their teeth during the buccaneering period, the fall of Britains Stuart period had restored the traditional enmity between Britain and France, thus ending the profitable collaboration between English Jamaica and French Tortuga. The devastation of Port Royal by an earthquake in 1692 further reduced the Caribbeans attractions by destroying the pirates chief market for fenced plunder. Furthermore, much of the Spanish Main had simply been exhausted, at the same time, Englands less-favored colonies, including Bermuda, New York, and Rhode Island, had become cash-starved by the Navigation Acts. This set the stage for the piracies of Thomas Tew, Henry Every, Robert Culliford
