Koxinga is the customary Western spelling of the popular appellation of Zheng Chenggong, the famous military leader who was born Zheng Sen in 1624 in Hirado, Japan to Zheng Zhilong, a Chinese merchant/pirate, and his Japanese wife and died in 1662 on the island of Formosa.

A Ming loyalist and the arch commander of the Ming troops on the maritime front for the later monarchs of the withering dynasty, Koxinga devoted the last 16 years of his life to resisting the conquest of China by the nomadic Manchus.

Upon defeating the forces of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) on Formosa in last campaign in 1661-1662, Koxinga takes over the island in order to support his grand campaign against the Manchu-ruled Qing Dynasty.

After Koxinga's death, however, his son and successor, Zheng Jing, gradually turns into the ruler of an independent Kingdom of Tungning, the first ethnically Chinese state to rule the island.