Chapter 123 Chapter 17: The Last Loyal Minister of Ming Dynasty

Zheng Chenggong boarded the scarred southeast corner of Zeelandia Castle and looked towards the hinterland of Taiwan Island with a captured Dutch telescope.Towns, forests, fields, and hills are all in sight.This big island has "flat and fertile land". Except for a few small pieces of arable land opened up by Gaoshan people in twos and threes near Chixian City by slash-and-burn farming, most of the land is sleeping. "A thousand wastes are waiting to be done", these words popped out of Zheng Chenggong's mind. However, he did not feel much joy and excitement after victory.While Zheng Chenggong was commanding the army to fight bravely, all kinds of news from the mainland made him terrified again and again.

At the most critical moment in the offensive and defensive battle of Utrecht Fort, his family members who came back from the mainland rushed to his camp and told him an unfortunate rumor: "Master Taishi" was arrested by the Manchus again. It looks bad or bad. "Grand Master" refers to Zheng Zhilong. After Zheng Zhilong surrendered to the Qing Dynasty, he did not realize his wishful thinking.Because Zheng Zhilong's performance was too active and enthusiastic, the Manchurians were worried about this scheming old pirate, and took him back to Beijing, only awarding him the empty title of first-class Jingqi Nihafan (the title of Qing Dynasty nobleman).

After Zheng Chenggong rebelled against the Qing Dynasty, the Manchurians were more suspicious of Zheng Zhilong, thinking that their father and son were singing the double reed of threats of force. Therefore, Zheng Zhilong fell into unspeakable embarrassment.Not only was the wealth and wealth not available, but the Qing people also used him as a bait, put him on the chopping board as a gesture of intent to kill, "using his father to threaten his son", and threatened Zheng Chenggong to surrender. Of course Zheng Zhilong spared no effort.He wrote many times and sent relatives to Zheng Chenggong to persuade him to surrender.The "Records of the First Kings" written by Yang Ying of the Qing Dynasty recorded one of the situations: Zheng Chenggong's younger brother came to see Zheng Chenggong as a special envoy.

"Kneeling down with tears in my eyes, I said that my father has made many mediations in Beijing. If this time does not work out, the whole family will not be able to protect themselves. I beg to be forced to accept the imperial edict." Two days later, he came again. "Weeping and pleading: the second envoy returns after being frustrated this time, and the big thing is difficult! When I return to my life, I will have no physiology, and it will be difficult for the master too." For more than ten years since he started his army, Zheng Chenggong has been suffering in the gap between "loyalty" and "filial piety" every day.Although he resolutely broke with his father in righteousness, how can the nature of father and son be severed.Zheng Chenggong is Zheng Zhilong's favorite son, and he loves and cultivates Zheng Chenggong immeasurably, and the relationship between father and son is deeper than ordinary situations.

Zheng Chenggong knew that every bloody battle with the Qing people would risk angering the Qing people and killing his father. Therefore, although Zheng Chenggong had already decided to "transfer filial piety to loyalty", he had to make false claims with the Qing people on the surface, talking while fighting, and under the guise of peace talks with the Qing people, in order to save the lives of his father and his family. At the same time, under the guise of peace talks, he privately sent envoys to exchange letters with the old father, expressing his own thoughts in the letters: "But because one person is in the north, I have to be a dementia for a while." "I am not a human being and forget my father."

"It's the one who forbears so hard that he can't throw himself lightly for a moment. He looks at my lord in the south, the sky is thousands of miles away, and my father in the north, panting and regaining his breath. He is afraid that he will fall into a trap one day, full of tigers and wolves, be written by women and children, and bear the lord's father. Great kindness, extravagance has extreme ears." The misery and misery of his situation are vivid on the paper. Although in terms of performance, Zheng Chenggong is a righteous man who destroys relatives, but the love between father and son often makes him unable to control himself. He often stands up at midnight and faces north, crying in private. "Father and son's nature, how embarrassing is the love, and the former residence is always worrying."

Because Zheng Chenggong refused to surrender, the persecution of Zheng Zhilong by the Manchus intensified step by step.First he was under house arrest in Beijing, then he was arrested and imprisoned, and finally his family was exiled to Ninggu Pagoda.The reason why they never killed anyone was because the Qing people had always had a glimmer of hope for recruiting Zheng Chenggong. Zheng Zhilong's eventual death in the eastward expedition to Taiwan is possible, and Zheng Chenggong knows this better than anyone else.Because of the act of conquering Taiwan, it proved to the whole China that Zheng Chenggong could not turn back.Therefore, the old father has no use value.Therefore, from the day the troops were dispatched, Zheng Chenggong had been silently waiting for the unfortunate news in his heart.

However, when the news was finally implemented, Zheng Chenggong still failed to calm himself down as expected.In the process of negotiating with the Dutch, the accurate news finally came. On the third day of October 1661, the old father finally refused to surrender, and the eleven members of his family were killed by the Qing. However, in the middle of the night, weeping and howling, unable to control ourselves, we were in mourning, and the entire army was completely gone." "Loyal minister and filial son" was the highest self-expectation of every man in that era.Fate seems to be very stingy with Zheng Chenggong, only allowing him to choose one of them.Zheng Chenggong paid the price of sacrificing his "filial son" in order to become a "loyal minister". Who would have thought that filial piety would fail, and loyalty would come to naught in the end.

In April of the first year of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty (1662 A.D.), when Zheng Chenggong initially healed the pain of losing his father, organized immigration on a large scale, and prepared to build Taiwan into a base for the restoration of Ming Dynasty, another unfortunate news came: Emperor Yongli, the last emperor of Nanming , was captured and killed by Wu Sangui in Burma, and the imperial line of the Ming Dynasty was completely cut off. In other words, Zheng Chenggong, the last loyal minister, has no one to be loyal to.He tried his best to capture Taiwan in order to restore the Ming Dynasty, which had been completely destroyed.

It has to be said that fate and Zheng Chenggong made a complete joke. Recovering Taiwan, in Zheng Chenggong's view, is only meaningful because it supports the overall situation of anti-Qing and Ming Dynasty.Ming can't recover, so what's the benefit to Zheng Chenggong if he recovers the island?Looking back on his life, Zheng Chenggong saw that he had achieved nothing in his life.All his life as a soldier, he only protected the second island. He went south twice to serve as king, both of which were in vain.At the end of the struggle, parents, brothers, including nephews, could not keep it.

Before he had time to raise troops, the Emperor Longwu who gave Zheng Chenggong the surname had already overthrown. Later, although Zheng Chenggong enshrined Yongli Zhengshuo, Yongli was far away in Yunnan, with few soldiers and few generals, and it was difficult to communicate with Zheng Chenggong.And so far, even this symbolic monarch, this spiritual pillar, has been lost.Zheng Chenggong no longer knew what his persistence was for.