The news was not well received in Beijing. On hearing that Coxinga was only days from Nanjing, the 21-year-old Emperor of Unbroken Rule flew into a fit of insane rage. He yelled that he would personally lead a relief army to Nanjing – a rash promise that was sternly and swiftly quelled by his mother Borjigid. The irate Emperor snatched up a sword and attacked his own throne, hacking chunks off it until the intervention of Adam Schall finally calmed him down.1
The Emperor demanded revenge, and ordered his generals to do everything in their power to stop Coxinga. Post-riders rushed to carry the news to other parts of the Celestial Empire, and troops in the distant hinterland were ordered to mobilise and converge on the Yangtze region. It was inevitable that the news would get out among the general populace, and the Manchus prayed that they would not have to deal with any civil unrest. All over China, Manchus eyed the conquered Chinese with suspicion, wondering if they secretly plotted to join Coxinga’s loyalist stand.
A Korean messenger arriving in Beijing noticed that the entire city was in a state of fear. Misinformed talk on the streets was that Coxinga had an army of three hundred thousand men, and that now Guazhou was in his hands, he intended to march north along the Grand Canal, on Beijing itself.2
Meanwhile, jubilation reigned among Coxinga’s fleet. Those who had formerly been scared by the experience of Sheep Mountain were now convinced that it had been a divine test of their mettle, ensuring that those who advanced on Nanjing were pure in heart. News came from upstream and inland of the continued successes enjoyed by Zhang Huang-yan’s advance party. All the indications were that Coxinga’s arrival was inspiring the local populace to come out in support of him.
With Guazhou Castle captured, the north bank was secure. Opposite on the south bank stood Zhenjiang, the city that had once been abandoned by Feng the Phoenix. In 1645, Feng’s departure had left Nanjing open to Manchu attack. Now, over a decade later, Zhenjiang was the next objective for the loyalist counter-offensive.
Zhenjiang was now held by Guan Xiaozhong, a turncoat general who had fought and won seventeen battles all over China. Although Zhenjiang was a good defensive position, Coxinga chose to land his forces on the western side, at the nearby slopes of Silver Hill, where the Manchu forces would have trouble deploying their cavalry.
Zhou Quanbin, the hero of the assault on Guazhou Castle, was on hand to spur on the troops. When a Manchu counter-assault arrived at midnight on the second day, it was Quanbin who roped off the escape route from his redoubt, in order to ‘encourage’ his men to hold their positions. However, although Zhou’s presence was probably enough to strike fear into his own men, let alone the Manchus, it was not he who won the day. That honour went to Coxinga’s elite division of specialist troops, the Iron Men.
The common soldiers called them Shenbing: ‘the warriors of the gods’.3 Five thousand in number, the Iron Men were specially selected for their incredible strength. They needed it, because each was clad in plate armour, dotted with distinctive metallic decorations that resembled a leopard’s spots. Only a tiny slit in the helmet allowed them to see. Unlike the scales or links of traditional Chinese battledress, the Iron Men’s armour was all but impervious to lances and swords. Reports from both sides certified it as bulletproof. Their job was to stand at the very front of the troops like a metal wall, armed with long pikes designed for taking down horses – ‘many wielded a formidable battle-sword fitted to a stick half the length of a man’.4
Considering the weight of their armour, the heavy horse-killing weapons, and the fact that it was the height of summer, the Iron Men must have been truly superhuman.5
The presence of the Iron Men was the undoing of the Manchus. As they marched ever forwards, Coxinga’s other troops kept up a constant barrage of missiles. Yang Ying, who seems to have been present at the battle, wrote that ‘gunfire, cannonfire, arrows and rocks, all rained down upon them’.6
The Manchu cavalry flung themselves in vain against the unstoppable wall of advancing armour. When the Manchu line broke and fled, the battle turned into a massacre. Coxinga’s own cavalry charged past the Iron Men in pursuit of their enemies, chasing them for several miles along the banks of the Yangtze. Several thousand soldiers fled along narrow coastal roads surrounded by drainage ditches. Fleeing enemy soldiers pushed each other into the ditches and trampled on their fallen comrades. Footsoldiers were seen dragging cavalry from their mounts, and then fighting among themselves over who got to ride the captured horses to safety.
In the aftermath of the battle, the ditches near Zhenjiang were piled high with the bodies of Manchus and Chinese collaborators. The grisly remains of men and dismembered horses were strewn across the entire area, presumably owing to the activities of the Iron Men. The garrison commander, Guan Xiaozhong, was heard to say that it was the worst battle of his long career. He lost all but 140 of his 4,000 men, and other Manchu companies suffered similarly.
From the walls of Zhenjiang itself, the city defenders witnessed the carnage and decided to spare themselves a similar fate. Zhenjiang surrendered as Coxinga’s victorious troops approached it, and the town became the latest loyalist prize.
Eager to continue the march upriver, Coxinga called his generals for a conference. Gan Hui advised caution, and a war of attrition. He pointed out that Coxinga’s forces already held crucial points at the southern end of the Grand Canal, cutting off Manchu reinforcements from the north. Instead of advancing directly on Nanjing, Gan Hui advised going around it, seizing other towns inland, upriver and also to the south-west. Thereby, Gan Hui thought, Coxinga’s forces would not only cut off reinforcements, but also the routes that kept Nanjing supplied with food. After that, it would be a mere matter of time before the city was forced to capitulate to its besiegers, without undue loss of life.
Many of the other generals agreed, pleased with Zhang Huangyan’s reports of popular support. Nanjing contained a million Chinese citizens, and only a small cadre of Manchu overseers. If the people of the surrounding countryside made their loyalty to the Ming clear, Coxinga might even be able to count on an anti-Manchu uprising within the town while he besieged it.
Another point in favour of a siege was the sheer size of the region. Communications back to the coast were getting increasingly longer. Those generals with operational responsibilities were keen to establish local bases and supply lines. Although they had enjoyed early success, they were wary of advancing too far inland without strong defences and allies at their rear. All were only too aware that their nominal ruler, the Emperor of Eternal Experiences, was cut off from them far to the south-west. Coxinga had never even seen the Ming claimant he supposedly served, and nobody wanted to find themselves in a similar position, isolated from their coastal power base.
Coxinga, however, was keen to reach Nanjing. He fervently believed that the local people would waste no time in rededicating themselves to the Ming cause. But, he argued, that was part of the problem. Coxinga’s men were bearing down on the notorious south capital, which had originally surrendered to the Manchus without much of a struggle. This was the place where Coxinga’s own mentor, Qian Qianyi, had preferred surrender to armed struggle. Coxinga’s chief concern was that the people of the region were only fair-weather friends and needed to see more loyalist victories. He believed that the support they currently enjoyed would only remain for as long as the army continued to advance. If they dallied too long outside Nanjing, the malleable minds of the local populace might swing back towards supporting the Manchus.
‘We must conquer Nanjing,’ Coxinga said. ‘If we do not, our army will only grow older. Those soldiers who blew with the wind to join with us, will become disappointed and abandon us.’7
Coxinga’s charisma had kept his people together for ten years. His passion and devotion to the Ming cause was one of the driving forces of the loyalist movement on the coast, and his power to inspire his followers is unquestionable. His generals were right to advise caution, but as the experience of the original Manchu invasion had shown, Coxinga was not wrong in his appraisal of the capricious nature of Chinese support. His words, however, were music to the ears of Zhou Quanbin, who still nursed his five arrow wounds from the assault on Guazhou Castle, and a few more scratches picked up during the landing at Silver Hill. The living embodiment of gung-ho, Quanbin agreed with Coxinga that their best hope was to run with the momentum they already had.
‘We should capitalise on the current spirit,’ he said. ‘Swift attack is the key. This is no time for delay.’ Once he had given Coxinga his vote of confidence, the other generals reluctantly came around. Coxinga spoke of their duty, and their ‘mission’ to restore the Ming. Among the generals, only Gan Hui continued to express his opposition to the plan, but he was outvoted. The decision was made to advance directly on Nanjing. The ever-eager Zhou Quanbin, however, was left in charge of the garrison at Zhenjiang while his many wounds healed.8
Events beyond Coxinga’s control turned the upstream advance into an uneasy compromise. The wind changed on 10 August, making it impossible to sail upriver. Instead, the fleet had to be hauled against the current by teams of men on the river bank, a process which resulted in a two-week journey. Had Coxinga sent the bulk of his forces ahead of the fleet on land, he would have temporarily lost naval support, but would have reached the gates of Nanjing much earlier. The delay allowed a number of Manchu reinforcements to reach Nanjing from further upstream. Coxinga, however, was unperturbed by the news. Even with vast numbers of his soldiers holding key points downriver, he was still advancing on Nanjing with a force of 85,000 men.
Among the defenders was Yizuo, the cunning general who had managed to talk his way out of execution after the fall of Guazhou. Instead of lying low, he had run straight for Nanjing, where he offered its garrison the benefit of his experience. Yizuo reported that during his meeting with Coxinga, he determined the famous loyalist’s one true Achilles heel. Not without justification, Yizuo claimed that Coxinga’s fatal flaw was pride.
On Yizuo’s advice, Viceroy Lang Tingzuo sent a message to Coxinga, heavy with flattery, announcing their intention to surrender. Lang advised Coxinga that he was only putting up a nominal resistance for the sake of appearances. The Manchu minority in the town, he said, were out of his control, but the Chinese were all ready to repledge their loyalty to the Ming dynasty. Their only concern was for their own family members, who were being held hostage in Beijing.
Under a pretence of utmost secrecy, Lang begged Coxinga to hold his troops from attacking for a limited period. Previous experience, he claimed, had taught Chinese collaborators that thirty days was the Manchu statute of limitations on loyalty. If Nanjing was seen to hold out for a month against Coxinga, the Manchus would regard its inhabitants as loyal servants overwhelmed by insurmountable odds, and not feel obliged to kill their hostages.9
Coxinga told his generals that he had Lang’s word that Nanjing would fall after a month of inactivity. One of his advisers saw through the ruse immediately and berated Coxinga for his gullibility. It was, quite literally, a textbook case of deceit. Coxinga was reminded of Sun Zi’s military classic, The Art of War, and its warning that ‘The humble supplicant is false. One who asks for peace without guarantee is plotting.’ Coxinga’s staff pleaded with him to order an immediate attack, rightly suspecting that Nanjing was awaiting reinforcements, and that there would be no better time to seize it.
Whether he believed the garrison commander or not is debatable, but Coxinga seemed determined to take Nanjing without a fight, even if it meant a prolonged siege. The decision appeared to contradict all his earlier talk of rushing upstream, but made more sense when taken in the context of Coxinga’s own life. He once lived in Nanjing, he had studied there, and he had fled the city as the Manchus invaded. The Nanjing that Coxinga knew was a Ming city, but one that had surrendered to the Manchus without a fight. Coxinga simply could not bring himself to attack Nanjing. If he had to do so, it would be a tacit admission that the city’s populace were more loyal to the invaders than they had ever been to the Ming. The idea of fighting over Nanjing challenged the very foundations of Coxinga’s devotion to the Dynasty of Brightness. And so he decided to wait thirty days, hoping that the city would capitulate.
The days stretched into two weeks, and Coxinga’s army began to slacken in their discipline. With no resistance of any kind from Nanjing, they grew bored watching the walls for trouble that never came. Besiegers charged with guard duty would wander off and fish in a large pond that sat in front of the city walls. Others were found on guard duty with flasks of wine.
Some even deserted to the Manchus. As ever, Coxinga fought a constant battle to keep his men acting like soldiers, and not like unreformed criminals and armed peasants. As an example to his men, he paraded the supremely disciplined Tianbing, or ‘Heaven’s Soldiers’: nine companies of fighting men with a spotless record for following orders.10
Not all of Coxinga’s men were impressed by the display. Lin Mou was a long-term member of the Zheng family forces and a native of Fujian. Though he had fought long and hard in the loyalist resistance, he almost lost his life in the aftermath of Guazhou Castle, when he was caught raping a local girl. Coxinga’s attitude towards the treatment of women was notoriously strict, and other men in his organisation had been executed for similar crimes. Perhaps because of his long service, Lin Mou was allowed to keep his life but forced to take a heavy pay cut. After two weeks at the gates of Nanjing, the brooding Lin Mou had had enough, and defected to the Manchus. In an audience with Viceroy Lang, he informed him of the growing unrest within Coxinga’s army, of the weak points in army discipline, and of the coming preparations for Coxinga’s birthday celebrations.11 If the viceroy thought that the besiegers were lax in discipline now, said Lin Mou, the approaching night of Coxinga’s birthday party would find them even more vulnerable.
It would appear that the ‘siege’ situation at Nanjing was quite easy-going. Lin Mou was able to walk into the town. Manchu reinforcements arrived by a rear gate, but this did not seem to trouble Coxinga. Officially, he announced that he hoped the Manchus brought as many reinforcements as they could, all the better to obtain their death or surrender in a single day, and save himself further battles elsewhere. His generals, however, began to wonder if Coxinga genuinely believed Viceroy Lang’s unlikely promise to surrender in another fortnight.
Eventually Coxinga’s old friend Gan Hui lost his patience. A division of Manchu soldiers had rushed out of the Gate of the Aspect of the Phoenix, which faced to the west, where the river curved around Nanjing. Had they run out of a northern exit, such as the Gate of Peace, they would have faced loyalist troops camped on the ground all around them for 180 degrees, but the west side of the city sat close to the river, and there was little room. It allowed the Manchus and their allies to keep the skirmish small, while the rest of Coxinga’s army could do little more than crane their necks and watch from their tents. The attackers soon retreated back inside Nanjing, with little loss of life on either side, but Gan Hui could see that the Manchus were testing Coxinga’s defences. This, he argued, was not the behaviour of people preparing to surrender.
Coxinga, however, was adamant that Nanjing should surrender to him without a fight. He told Gan Hui to calm down, reminding him the Manchus were not the only ones getting reinforcements, and that the size of the loyalist army still greatly outnumbered the troops in Nanjing. If they ever found themselves having to fight, he was confident they could still win. But it hurt his pride that Nanjing would resist him when it had been so swift to roll over for his enemies. ‘We might attack them physically,’ he said to Gan Hui, ‘but that will not win us their minds.’12
Gan Hui stormed out of Coxinga’s presence, saying: ‘I will never speak of this again.’
Gan Hui was right – enemy agents were already among Coxinga’s men. Viceroy Lang had sent spies disguised as local farmers into the besiegers’ camp, offering food and wine for sale. Initially they were turned away, but as the siege wore on, the merchants came to be welcomed in the camp. While selling their wares, they also kept careful notes on the condition of Coxinga’s army, and the location of key stores.13
On 8 September,14 Coxinga’s forces were reminded how vulnerable they really were. It seemed that the earlier confrontation outside the Gate of the Aspect of the Phoenix may have been a smokescreen to cover the completion of a secret operation. A large patch of bush clover (lespedeza) concealed a hole that had been tunnelled in the wall behind it. While Coxinga’s men kept a watchful eye on the gate itself, they were unaware of the hidden exit from the town – presumably, the earlier attack had used the chaos to make a survey of the ground directly in front of it.
At midday, 500 Manchu soldiers came through the hole and hacked their way out of the lespedeza bushes, much to the surprise of the soldiers cooking their lunch in the camp. The attacking force was so small, and the loyalist camp so large, that it took some time before the outlying tents even knew they were under attack. The Manchus wiped out an entire division before retreating again. The commander of the division had not even had time to put on his armour. Naked flames were in plentiful supply from the numerous cooking fires, and helped magnify the damage caused by the 500 surprise attackers.
Safety had been compromised outside Nanjing, and Coxinga ordered a hasty withdrawal. The camp clustered at the north of Nanjing was too broad to defend, and lacked internal security measures. Coxinga’s hasty night-time withdrawal placed a no-man’s-land between his forces and the city, just in case there were any other hidden exits from the town that could surprise him.
However, although the withdrawal only moved Coxinga’s camp a little way back, it put a large part of his soldiers on a north-facing slope that dropped into the Yangtze where the river curved back towards the east. Soldiers at the riverbank, or on the middle of the slope, could not see the city any more. Only Coxinga’s vanguard, at the top, had a view of the walls.
The following day was Coxinga’s official birthday. The Manchus chose that moment to strike in force, and charged out of the city gates. This time, they were not a mere company of a few hundred, but Banner-men numbering in the thousands. Down the slope, the men heard the sounds of fighting, and then the discharge of cannons. As they rose to their feet, Manchu artillery and fire-arrows began raining down from the other side of the slope.
The Manchu agents in Coxinga’s camp also made their move. It is said that one of them had a bomb hidden in an empty wine pot, which he set off close to the camp’s largest gunpowder store. The resulting explosion was powerful enough to take out not just the surrounding area, but also a nearby ship. At that moment, Coxinga’s army thought themselves under attack from the city before them and the river behind them, and they panicked.
The Manchu soldiers reached the top of the ridge. They now held the high ground, while Coxinga’s forces were trapped with their backs to the river. Seeing that they had the upper hand, the Manchus sent several thousand further reinforcements from Nanjing. Coxinga tried to arrange an orderly retreat, but it soon turned into a rout. His men began fleeing for their lives along the river to the east.
Several of his most skilful generals died in the fighting, including Gan Hui, who tried to cover the others’ escape by leading a rearguard action. He was overwhelmed by charging enemies when his horse fell.
The retreating army limped back into Zhenjiang that evening, where they were met by Zhou Quanbin and the other soldiers left on guard. It took several days to take stock of exactly who had been killed, but it was clear that the battle had been a disaster. Back at the Nanjing river’s edge, the Manchus pulled 4,500 bodies from the river alone – soldiers in heavy armour who had sunk to their deaths when trapped at the shore. Coxinga’s ships sailed back upriver and managed to pick up a few stragglers who had been cut off by the retreat.
Coxinga searched for Gan Hui among the wounded, but eventually heard the story of his friend’s last moments.
‘This would not have happened,’ he lamented, ‘if I had listened to him.’15
Coxinga was not merely referring to Gan Hui’s warnings before the attack. It was only now that he saw Gan Hui had been right all along. He should have consolidated his position in the previously conquered towns. That way, a defeat would only be a temporary setback – he might have been able to get reinforcements and support from the local people. Instead, he had marched on Nanjing, and now fell back on territory that was only being held by military personnel. In his desire to reach Nanjing and see it capitulate, he had not reached out to the local people.
Ten years of preparation had been ruined. The advance on Nanjing threatened to bankrupt the loyalists’ funds, and Coxinga knew he would not be able to hold Zhenjiang for long. The Manchus were going to come after him, and he would have to run. After a heated debate with his generals, he ordered the fleet to head back for the coast, where he knew they would be safe.
His new-found associates in the Yangtze region were devastated. There are stories of allies falling weeping at his feet, begging him to stay. The partisan Zhang Huang-yan simply could not believe his ears. When he heard the news, he was miles upriver with a powerful fleet, and many messages of support from the surrounding countryside. He honestly believed that there was a chance to regroup at Zhenjiang and try again, and he urged Coxinga to reconsider. But Coxinga was already reassigning his men to new generals and preparing to abandon Zhenjiang.16
Coxinga informed his men that they were going to seize Chongming, a large island at the mouth of the Yangtze, and that Chongming would form the base for a new attack at an unspecified future date. As the defeated soldiers began the journey downriver, the insanely heroic Zhou Quanbin remained true to form, and volunteered to bring up the rear with his company – no doubt spoiling for one last fight on the way home, and hoping the Manchus would try something.
The army reached Chongming without incident, but failed to take it after two days of fighting. There was no time for a siege, and Coxinga saw that his surviving troops were tired and unwilling to put their all into what counted for little more than a holding action. When two generals were mortally wounded in the fighting, even Zhou Quanbin advised abandoning the campaign and returning another time.17 Coxinga agreed that enough was enough. The fleet packed up and sailed for Amoy, and the Yangtze campaign was over.
Back in Amoy, the deflated Coxinga drafted a letter to the distant Ming Emperor of Eternal Experiences, resigning his princely status. He announced his hope that one day he would deserve to regain it, but until then, he desired to be known merely as the leader of the armies. He wrote a second letter, to the Manchu Emperor of Unbroken Rule in Beijing, in which he offered to begin negotiations for a truce.
In Beijing, the court’s relief was palpable, but the time had passed for negotiation. Rumours spread in the city that Coxinga had been killed at the battle of Nanjing, and although they already had Coxinga’s letter as proof of his survival, the Manchus did nothing to refute the stories. Liang Huafeng, the general who had led the devastating assault out of the gates of Nanjing, was rewarded with promotion to the rank of military administrator of the entire region immediately south of the lower Yangtze. Guan Xiaozhong, the general who had lost Zhenjiang so spectacularly, did not fare so well. He had all his property confiscated, was demoted and sold into slavery.18
The Emperor of Unbroken Rule appointed an imperial prince called Dasu to lead a counter-attack. As Coxinga struggled to prevent many of his own followers from deserting, Dasu gathered every ship he could find on the coast, and assembled that strangest of concepts: a Manchu fleet. Crewed chiefly by Chinese turncoats, the fleet sailed on Amoy, determined to oust the loyalists from their island stronghold. Enemy squadrons converged on the loyalists from three different directions, but Coxinga was still strongest on the sea. The Manchu fleet was almost totally destroyed, and Dasu was forced to retreat in shame.19 Coxinga wrote of the incident:
The Tartars came down to these southern regions with a great army, to finish up the war in one battle; but as it happens, we on the tenth day of our fifth moon attacked them so furiously that over a hundred of their officers, besides numerous soldiers, were killed, and many taken prisoner, while the remainder had to fly precipitately for safer quarters, without daring to show themselves again.20
As he limped home, Dasu received a message from Coxinga, scrawled contemptuously on a woman’s handkerchief. It said: ‘If you do not wish to fight another battle, you may need this.’21 But Coxinga’s bravado hid his anxiety about the embarrassing retreat from Nanjing, and the fact that the Manchus had been able to take their counter-offensive all the way to the coast off Amoy itself. Coxinga knew he would see other Manchu fleets, and that next time he might not be so lucky.
Although Coxinga had been rattled by the experience, the court in Beijing saw only another loyalist victory. The Manchus were determined to crush Coxinga once and for all, and consequently were prepared to listen to any plan that might work. The Emperor of Unbroken Rule was reminded of a series of suggestions that had been made to him by a new recruit some years earlier.
Huang Wu had defected from Coxinga’s side some years before. In gratitude, the Manchus had made him the Duke of Haicheng, the same noble title that Coxinga himself had once spurned. As a long-serving confidant of Coxinga, Huang Wu knew exactly how to hit him where it hurt. He wasted no time in writing a series of memorials to the Manchus, outlining how the loyalists might be defeated.22 However, these reports had lain unheeded for several years. Now the time was right.
Huang Wu told the Manchus that they needed to cut off family support for Coxinga. Imprisoning Nicholas Iquan in Beijing was not enough – Huang Wu called for the Master of the Seas to be executed, so that he had no chance of collaborating with Coxinga or other Zheng family members. The Emperor of Unbroken Rule decided to give the idea some serious thought. For now, he simply ordered that Iquan be kept in chains, just in case Zheng agents attempted a rescue operation. He knew they wouldn’t, but he also knew the shameful news would get back to Coxinga.
On the subject of the Zheng family ancestors, Huang Wu advised cutting off any support being provided to Coxinga from the afterlife, by ordering the complete destruction of the Zheng family tombs in occupied Fujian. The Emperor of Unbroken Rule thought it was a low blow, but it was one he was prepared to authorise.
That was only the first phase. Huang Wu had been richly rewarded for switching sides, and he advised that the Manchus should set up a fund to ensure that the incentive was there for others. Using cash confiscated from occupied Zheng holdings, the Manchus should offer high rewards to any Zheng defectors.
Of course, the Manchus had been doing this all along, but Huang Wu’s suggestion was to institutionalise and streamline the process. He also strongly suggested that the Manchus make better use of the defectors they had already acquired. Most were posted far away from their home areas, in order to keep them from switching sides a second time. In the case of former loyalists from Coxinga’s forces, this often meant that they were sent far inland as colonists, never to see the sea again. Huang Wu pointed out to them that many of these defectors could be better employed in a maritime capacity. Shi Lang, the greatest admiral of his age, had switched sides years earlier, but the Manchus had made no use of his naval knowledge. If anyone was going to defeat Coxinga at sea, it would be Shi Lang. The Emperor of Unbroken Rule found the idea intriguing, and decided to give it further thought.
That was not all. Huang Wu had other ideas that would have far-reaching consequences. The Manchus knew already that Coxinga’s true power lay in the sea, but Huang Wu had details of its weak point. In his years in the Zheng organisation, he knew that the clan had always relied on supplies from secret allies on land. To really hurt the Zheng family, it would be necessary to make trading of any kind impossible.
There was no point in half-measures like edicts and proclamations – Huang Wu knew from personal experience that there would always be smugglers prepared to run the gauntlet and trade with the Zheng ships. Instead, the Manchus would have to fight fire with fire. Trade of any kind should be made completely illegal on the coast, and any offenders caught engaging in it would be summarily executed. Anyone reporting illegal traders would be entitled to all their confiscated property.23 All ships found on the coast were to be burned. Huang Wu envisaged a situation where life on the coast entered such a parlous state that Coxinga’s ships would have no resources for repairs, and his men would run so short of provisions that they would melt away in search of food.
In order to enforce such draconian measures, Huang Wu suggested setting up military camps all along the coastline, in order to stop the rebels landing. No ship of Coxinga’s should be able to put ashore without facing a waiting company of Manchu soldiers ready to repel it. The Emperor liked the plan, but failed to see how such an arrangement would differ all that much from what the Manchus had been doing for years. They occupied parts of Fujian, and if they saw the Zhengs, they would fight them. So what was new?
Huang Wu’s final suggestion was the clincher. It was an all-encompassing, grand scheme that would turn all his other suggestions from idle brainstorming into enforceable plans. It was an idea of such stunning magnitude that the Emperor of Unbroken Rule took a while to get used to it.
Huang Wu proposed a wall around the sea.
From Canton in the south to the northern coastal region near Beijing itself, the Emperor of Unbroken Rule ordered the evacuation of the shoreline. For a distance of thirty miles from the sea, no habitation was permitted, on pain of death. The farmers and fishermen, along with their families, were given mere days to evacuate. Manchu soldiers then arrived and destroyed everything within the designated no-man’s-land. Houses and barns were burned, crops were razed and boats were sunk at their moorings.
People in some areas refused to take the edict seriously, convinced that it had somehow been garbled in its transmission. They stayed put, only to be surprised by the arrival of torch-bearing soldiers, who threw them out of their homes and burned down their villages. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese people became refugees, in a land stripped of food. Many died of starvation, or were hunted down by unsympathetic soldiers when the evacuation period expired.
The Manchus encouraged the conquered Chinese to share in their fear and ignorance of the sea. The former nomads preferred grassy steppes, mountains and lush forests – they had no wish to see a vast expanse of ocean, particularly when it harboured Coxinga and his followers. With their coastal prohibitions, they hoped not only to cut off Coxinga from his secret suppliers, but also to remove the sea from China’s field of interest.
Nobody was safe, or immune from the lure of the rewards offered for turning in transgressors. One source reported a family who cooked dinner for a Buddhist nun, who looked into her soup bowl and discovered it contained seaweed. She sneaked some of the proscribed food away with her, and used it to blackmail her host. If he did not give her twenty gold pieces, she said, she would report him to the local magistrate as someone suspected of entering the zone of desolation.24
The depopulation was complete. One writer reported that ‘the area is a wilderness, inhabited by foxes and badgers, tigers and wolves’. Supposedly, even the swallows’ nests were empty.25 The only humans left in the blackened no-man’s-land were Manchu patrols, who remained ever watchful for Ming loyalist vessels.
Back in Beijing, the Emperor of Unbroken Rule had cause to celebrate. The implementation of Huang Wu’s schemes had not defeated Coxinga, but it had effectively forced the Ming loyalists away from south China. There was still a climate of fear and violence in Fujian, but starving peasants and homeless refugees presented far weaker opponents than fanatical Zheng troops. With any luck, the Manchus hoped to starve the loyalists into submission, and thereby deal with one of the last obstacles to their conquest of China.
Celebration, however, was not on the agenda in Beijing. The Emperor of Unbroken Rule had other things on his mind. He had spent four years in a passionate relationship with his lover Xiao Xian. The attractive Manchu princess had become available to the Emperor after the sudden, unexpected and rather suspicious death of her husband, the Emperor’s brother. She became an imperial concubine of the first rank less than a month after Bombogor died of ‘grief’, or possibly suicide.
As he reached his twenties, the young Emperor’s health and behaviour grew increasingly erratic. He coughed blood, and was subject to extreme mood-swings and fits of rage, from which only his ‘grandfather’ Adam Schall seemed immune. There are reports of Schall arguing with the Emperor until his young ward was red-faced with embarrassment, but Schall remained untouchable at court.
The unstable Emperor of Unbroken Rule also developed a passionate interest in religion, not only the exotic Christianity of Schall, but also the philosophies of Chan Buddhism (better known in the West by its Japanese pronunciation, Zen). For some years, he was locked in a power struggle with his mother Borjigid, who disapproved intensely of Xiao Xian. Borjigid was no stranger to gossip herself, having been accused in her youth of an affair with Dorgon, which only made her son’s open disloyalty to Bombogor all the more painful. Though his reputation for sexual excess was legendary, the Emperor of Unbroken Rule had the gall to accuse his own principal wife of licentious and extravagant behaviour, using it as an excuse to exile her to a subordinate palace. If he had his way, Xiao Xian would have been made Empress in her stead, but Borjigid would not hear of it.
Inevitably, Xiao Xian became pregnant, but her young son died after three months. Breaking with tradition, the heartbroken Emperor ordered that the dead heir be known as the Beloved Prince of Glory – few deceased infants were given noble titles.26 As befitting the customs of court lore and feng shui, the Manchu minister of rites sought a report from the Institute of Astronomy on the most auspicious time for the young child to be buried. Adam Schall’s office duly informed him of the optimum moment, but for some reason, the minister ignored their advice.
To the superstitious Chinese, such incidents can have effects of their own. As time went on, Xiao Xian herself became ill, possibly with smallpox. When she died, the 22-year-old Emperor of Unbroken Rule was inconsolable. He reinstituted an unpopular Manchu custom, ordering that thirty of Xiao Xian’s handmaidens should follow her into the afterlife. The nobles of the Empire were to mourn her for a month, while the common people should fast for three days. The funeral preparations were extravagant, but concealed high drama behind the scenes.
The Emperor of Unbroken Rule had tired of the world. In a series of heated debates with Adam Schall, he tried to find ways of leaving it. Schall was able to talk him out of suicide, but had greater trouble persuading him not to simply abdicate and become a Buddhist monk.
Within a few months, the fates supposedly granted the Emperor’s fatalist wish, and struck him down with smallpox. The frail youth succumbed fast to the disease, and was soon beyond help. On his deathbed, he promised Adam Schall that he would become a Christian if he survived, but not even the skills of the Master Who Comprehends the Celestial Mysteries were enough to save him.
The dying Emperor reputedly asked Adam Schall who should succeed him as the ruler of the world. The Emperor thought a cousin of his would be a good choice, but his mother Borjigid thought that one of the Emperor’s sons by his other wives would be a better choice. Adam Schall sided with Borjigid, and persuaded the Emperor to name his six-year-old son Xuanye as his successor. Xuanye had already survived smallpox, and would guarantee the Celestial Empire the long reign it really required. Behind the scenes, older princes were also pleased that the Heir Apparent would be young and malleable for at least a decade. Lamenting that his sins made him unworthy to face God, the Emperor then passed away.
After the death of the Emperor of Unbroken Rule, four Manchu prince regents joined forces with Borjigid. Tearing up their late ruler’s actual will, they issued a final proclamation in his name, in which the Emperor supposedly apologised for some of his bad decisions in government, wished that he had listened more to his mother, and lamented that he had been so extravagant in the arrangement of Xiao Xian’s funeral.
Preparations were then made for the enthronement of Xuanye, who was to be given the reign title of Kangxi – Emperor of Hearty Prosperity.27 The new child-Emperor was led through the streets in a ceremonial procession, before crowds of thousands bowing in respect. And, according to several contemporary sources, the former Emperor of Unbroken Rule was among them.
Before his ‘death’, he had made a cryptic comment to one of his ministers that he intended to join the crowds and kneel before his successor at his coronation. There are some stories that maintain he did just that, and that the story of his sudden affliction with smallpox was a fabrication designed to conceal the fact that he had merely gone into retirement. The Emperor, wrote one commentator, had ‘thrown away the Empire as one who casts away a worn-out shoe . . . and, following the example of the Lord Buddha, preferred to seek the mystic solitudes’.28
Though there is no proof that his death was faked, there are certainly many bizarre stories about an abbot of the Tiandai Buddhist temple, some fourteen miles outside Beijing, whose gilt statue bears an uncanny resemblance to portraits of the deceased Emperor. On three occasions in the decade that followed, the Emperor of Hearty Prosperity would visit the temple, where for some reason the abbot did not kneel before him in the manner of other commoners. When the abbot eventually died, at the strangely young age of thirty-five in 1670, the Emperor of Hearty Prosperity would donate a life-sized statue of him to the temple, and sent jewels to be buried in his tomb.29
Whether or not his father was really dead, the Emperor of Hearty Prosperity inherited a China that was growing increasingly peaceful. A generation had passed since the Manchus seized Beijing, and now there were only small pockets of resistance. From somewhere in the far south-west, reports reached him that the Ming claimant, the Emperor of Eternal Experiences, was actually no longer in China at all, but had crossed over the border into Burma. Meanwhile, on the coast, a zone of desolation cut China off from the sea, and forced the Ming loyalists to look elsewhere for their supplies.
The Manchu coastal prohibitions certainly made Coxinga take notice, but in the short term, they may even have helped him. His raiders raced to pick through whatever was left behind, and carried off what food and supplies they could from the abandoned villages before the Manchu demolition teams arrived.
The Manchus did not particularly care where the local population went; they merely wanted them to leave the coast. Leave they did, but many sought refuge with the Ming loyalists, who arrived to ship them across the straits to Taiwan.
Although the defeat in Nanjing might have finished Coxinga’s reputation as an adversary of the Manchus, the ranks of his followers were swelled by thousands of disaffected coastal dwellers, who preferred to head east and out to sea, instead of west to an unknown fate on land. Zheng family ships took refugees in their thousands to colonies on Taiwan, swelling the Chinese population there.
As time passed, the effect of the coastal prohibitions began to make itself felt. Huang Wu had been right – the removal of any coastal dwellers seriously damaged Coxinga’s ability to obtain supplies from allies inland. Communication with the distant Emperor of Eternal Experiences became more difficult, and the Zheng family clung only to a few coastal islands such as Amoy and Quemoy. However, Coxinga’s fleet and followers remained supplied from a new source. Chinese refugees established in military colonies on Taiwan were able to clear land and farm new crops for the Zheng organisation. Mainland China might have been all but lost to Coxinga, but the Taiwan Strait continued to keep a Manchu counter-offensive at bay.
Protected from his enemies by the sea itself, Taiwan could be the perfect place from which Coxinga could plan his next move. It might take years to rebuild his forces to a level suitable for a repeat performance of the march on Nanjing, but Taiwan had the resources to make such a project possible. There was only one small problem.
The Dutch would have to go.