Kinmen Highlights

In my last blog, I talked about our recent visit to Tainan 台南where modern history of Taiwan began when the Dutch set up its trading post there almost 400 years ago.  Dutch’s 38 years of occupation ended in 1662 when Zheng ChengGong 鄭成功 (aka Koxinga 國姓爺 and Prince of YanPing延平郡王) and his men laid a 9 month siege of Fort Zeelandia (aka AnPing Fort 安平古堡) and drove the Dutch out of Taiwan.  

Who was Zheng ChengGong?  Where did he and his men come from? To get some appreciation to the answers to these questions, one can backtrack the footsteps of Zheng ChengGong 鄭成功and pay a visit to Kinmen金門, a group of islands110 miles west of Taiwan and a little over 1 mile off Xiamen 廈門of Fujian Province of China.   Zheng and his navy force were based there between 1651 and 1661 prior to sailing to Tainan and forced Dutch out. 

Zheng ChengGong鄭成功 was born to Zheng Zhilong 鄭芝龍 and his Japanese wife Tagawa Matsu at Hirado, southern Japan in 1624, the year Dutch started building Fort Zeelandia in Tainan, Taiwan.  At age 7, he and his mother were brought back to Nan'an 南安, Quanzhou 泉州 (north of Xiamen) and reunited with his father. 

Zheng Zhilong is an important character in history.  For one, Zheng ChengGong’s career was made possible with his father resources and organization.   Zheng Zhilong appeared to be a smart and ambitious young man, judging from the stories of how he left home as a teen.  He earned his livings first on merchant ships and eventually made his way to Japan where he met his mentor Li Dan, a rich Chinese merchant.  At age 19, he took over the fleet of his mentor when Li passed away.  By age 23, he was already the most powerful pirate/merchant in the region with 400 junks and tens of thousands of men. 

In those days, with a weak Ming government in China and competing colonial forces and traders, one can imagine the lawlessness on the high sea from East Asia all the way south throughout Southeast Asia.   Zheng Zhilong and his men appeared to be engaged in activities from trading to looting and offering protection to others for fees.  He in fact organized and headed a major pirate organization called Shibazhi 十八芝, not unlike the Godfather of a mafia.   At age 24, after defeating Ming navy, Zheng Zhilong decided to go legit, accepted an official appointment and worked for Ming while continuing to operate his now a formidable 800+ ships fleet and organization.

Zheng Zhilong was probably serious about going legit (remember the all time classic 1972 movie The Godfather?).  He had his son Zheng ChengGong brought up with the traditional Confucian studies who in fact had passed the first level of imperial examination科舉.  When Beijing fell to Qing’s hands in 1644, Zheng ChengGong was in fact a serious student at the Nanking University.

Zheng Zhilong was initially supporting Ming Dynasty in resisting Qing’s conquer of China.  He helped enthroned Longwu Emperor of the Southern Ming in Fuzhou, Fujian under his protection.  However, he switched side and defected to Qing a little later.  Perhaps as a hedge of his bet, he left his men and resources with his son Zheng ChengGong who continued to be loyal to Ming and resisted Qing.  What he probably had not expected was his son’s royalty to Ming Dynasty never wavered that caused him his life as he was executed by Qing in 1661. 

In 1651, Zheng ChengGong moved his fleet and men to Kinmen and continued to look for opportunities to restore Ming and reclaim the mainland.  Ten years later in 1661, he took his men and fleet to Tainan, drove out the Dutch and set up Taiwan as his new base.   For those who are familiar with the history of modern China, the parallels are striking and eerie with Chiang Kai-Shek’s move to Taiwan with his Nationalist government almost 300 years later.    Zheng ChengGong died young however at age 37 in 1662 due to malaria.   He never set his foot on the mainland again after he left Kinmen.  Neither did Chiang Kai-Shek after he retreated to Taiwan in 1949.

Zheng ChengGong is a rare example in history where an individual is still revered as a hero long after his death by all interested political entities – Communist China, Nationalist China, Taiwan Independence Movement, and Japan.  Every one of these entities was able to find something in him that they can use to promote their agenda: Japan likes to play up its connection with Taiwan using the fact that Zheng’s mother is a Japanese.  Communist China likes to emphasize the nationalism using the fact that he drove out the Dutch colonial power and kept Taiwan in Chinese’s hands.  Nationalist China likes to talk about his dedication to and goal of reclaiming mainland with his unwavering loyalty to Ming Dynasty.  Last, but not the least, pro-Taiwan-independence movement likes to emphasize Zheng’s founding of Tungning Kingdom, resisting mainland China’s takeover of Taiwan.

Now back to Kinmen.   For visitors, the natural place to start is the Grand Kinmen (or Greater Kinmen)大金門, the main and largest island of Kinmen islands which is less than 1 hour away by plane from Taipei.  Grand Kinmen is a dumb bell or H-shaped island of over 50 square miles, more than twice the size of New York Manhattan!   After Nationalist government retreated to Taiwan in 1949, Chiang Kai-Shek had placed as many as 100 thousand troops in Kinmen islands.  Along with the Matsu Islands  馬祖, it served for four decades as the first line of defense for Taiwan and as a launching pad for military actions against Communist China.

To appreciate how close Grand Kinmen is to Communist China controlled territories, one needs to visit the MaShan Observation Post 馬山觀測站at the northeast corner of Grand Kinmen.  Looking out from the Observation Station in a heavily fortified bunker, one sees clearly the island of Jiao Yu island 角嶼of mainland China at 1 mile away in low tide.  It is totally believable that Dr. Justin Yifu Lin 林毅夫 , a top Chinese economist and former Senior Vice President of World Bank, did swim across on his own in 1979 and defected to Communist China when he served as the Company Commander at MaShan Observation Post.  Indeed, the distance between Kinmen and the mainland China is so small that for decades, nationalist and communist China had engaged in psychological warfare with loudspeaker walls (a group of 48 huge loudspeakers) and gigantic loudspeakers.  Each would blast announcements, speeches, and performances to the other side directly over the sea, 24 by 7.    The Taiwan TV news report below gives you an idea how the facilities looked like and how it worked.

At 253 meters, TaiWu Mountain 太武山 is the tallest and only mountain in Kinmen.  Zheng ChengGong used to come to the mountain top with his staffs to observe the training of his navel force.  Following the roadway, one can take a leisure hike from the parking lot at the base to the top to visit the observation point of Zheng’s to have a panoramic view of the islands and sea (see photo to the right).  A little further up, one will see the landmark 100 ft tall granite rock with Chiang Kai-Shek’s writing 勿忘在莒 as well as  the 800 years old HaiYin Temple 海印寺. 

Kinmen became known to the world during the Second Taiwan Strait Crises, aka the Quemoy Incident or the 823 Artillery Bombardment 八二三炮戰.  The intensive and nonstop shelling of the island was begun by the Communist China on August 23^rd 1958 that lasted for 45 days till Oct 6.  Almost half a million shells were fired that translates to approximately 15 shells per acre in average, and 2500 Nationalist troops were killed.   After the failed attempt to force the surrender of Kinmen, the bombardment evolved to a peculiar protocol where two sides would fire at each other (Matsu islands included) on alternate evenings with propaganda shells filled with pamphlets.  The practice continued till the normalization of U.S. China relationship in 1979.  What was unexpected was that the shells collected on the Kinmen islands had become a popular material for handmade cleavers, now a souvenir and gift item for tourists.

The less well-known but a more significant battle involving Kinmen between Communist and Nationalist China took place eight years earlier.  It was the Battle of Kuningtou古寧頭之役and lasted only three days in Oct, 1949.  Communist China’s plan was to dispatch 19,000 troops and launch an assault of Kinmen against 40,000 Nationalist garrisoned troops.  If successful, there was little doubt that Taiwan will be the next target and Chiang’s Nationalist government will fall.  However without a naval force and adequate training, only 9,000+ PLA troops were able to land on Kinmen after making several major tactical errors.  The assault ended up to be a disaster - almost 4,000 of PLA troops were killed and the remainders captured.  The battle marked the last hand-to-hand combat between Communist and Nationalist China.   Six months later, Korean War broke out in June 1950.  U.S. government expanded its containment policy to Asia against communism and signed the US-ROC Mutual Defense Treaty with the Nationalist government.  Note the Treaty excluded Kinmen and Matsu islands.  Indeed U.S. did not intervene during the 823 Artillery Bombardment 八二三炮戰 in 1958, other than providing some critical weapons and supplies.

Now it is all peaceful and quiet in Kuningtou which is at the northwestern corner of the Grand Kinmen.  A small gate greets the visitors to the park and museums.  The blood of soldiers on the beach had long dried out and washed away, only a lone fisherman was there (see photo to the right).  We stayed at a traditional guesthouse 古厝民宿for two nights at the local Lin village林厝聚落.  Combined with modern in-room facility, this restored 250+ years old house retained the magnificent Southern Min 閩南architecture and layout with added comfort and convenience (see photos below). An evening after-dinner tea at the courtyard and the front yard is a perfect way to end the day.  Light breeze over the lotus pond wipes away the heat of the day and rejuvenizes one’s body.

Of course, there are a number of well-maintained old traditional houses on the islands.   The popular and most photographed is a cluster of 18 houses, family shrine included.  It belongs to a Wang Family and is located at ShanHou village山后民俗文化村 (see photos below).  One can also find other interesting architectures on the island as well.  In particular, the island has several large two story western style houses that are often seen in Southeast Asia.  They were invariably built by those merchants who immigrated from Kinmen to Southeast Asia.  Sending home the needed fund and blueprint of the house for it to be constructed was a clear declaration and celebration of their successes. 

 

For skyscrapers, one needs to look westward across the sea however.  There stood Xiamen, one of the largest and most populated cities on the southeast coast of mainland China.  Standing at CiTi 慈堤 facing west, one can see the skyline of Xiamen behind the antique tanks used during the battles 60 years ago (photo to the right).  On the beach, defending the amphibian assault are arrays of poles made of rail woods that pointing at an degree towards to the sea and sky.  They still serve a vivid reminder of the war however primitive they may look.  The military conflict had been replaced with trades and tourism but political tensions of two vastly different systems continued.  Now Kinmen residents can take a convenient 20 minute ferry ride and spend weekends in Xiamen to enjoy city life with entertainments and shopping.   Not surprisingly, despite the deep cultural and economic ties with China, Kinmen residents reject overwhelmingly both Taiwan-independence and communist rule.

Kinmen had suffered much as the frontline during decades of military conflicts between Nationalist and Communist China.  A new direction for economic development began to take shape when martial law and military rule of Kinmen ended twenty years ago in 1992.  In 1995, a significant portion of Kinmen islands was designated as a part of the new Kinmen National Park that helped provide the focus and resources needed to transform Kinmen.  Thanks partially to the revenue generated by the highly profitable Kinmen Distiller for its Sorghum Liquor 金門高粱酒, Kinmen is now ranked the happiest place to live in Taiwan according to a recent survey by the Taiwan Competitiveness Forum. When you visit Kinmen, don’t forget to bring home and me some Kinmen specialties like its hand-made ultra-thin pasta麵線, Peanut GongTang 花生貢糖, and Sorghum liquor.  Cheers to Kinmen and its people!

Talk to you soon!