April 30, 1661 · Taiwan (Dutch Formosa) Theater
April 30, 1661
Koxinga — Zheng Chenggong, the half-Japanese, half-Chinese pirate king and Ming loyalist — landed on Taiwan with 25,000 troops and besieged the Dutch colonial fortress of Fort Zeelandia. The Dutch garrison of barely 2,000 held out for nine months, hoping for reinforcements from Batavia that never came. When the fort finally surrendered in February 1662, Koxinga expelled the Dutch and established Taiwan as a base for the Ming loyalist cause. He died just months later, but his family would hold the island for two more decades.
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