HISTORY 391 / ASIAN STUDIES 391. China in the World

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Reading Report of ‘The Lost Colony.’
Thomas Pedel, the Dutch General, was responsible for leading the military during the Dutch conquest. Thomas was “brimming with confidence as he led his troops out of Zeelandia Castle on Taiwan.” The battle was against Koxinga, a Chinese warlord in 1661. The Dutch often fought off attacks from Chinese settlers and Taiwanese natives since their colony was on Taiwan coastal region. The Dutch were superior to their Asian adversaries due to several reasons. Besides, they had muskets that were considered the best in the world. For that reason, these raids did not pose much of a severe threat to the Dutch in comparison to their military prowess. For instance, they owned large ships that carried more cannons as compared to the junks the Chinese owned. Their ships gave them an upper hand in bright conditions and open waters. Such conditions were sporadic for the Dutch, and Koxinga took advantage of that fact.
“The second, and most important, Dutch advantage lay in the design of their fortresses.” (Andrade, 76) Sketches of these fortresses indicated that they had angled bastions that protruded from the walls. Notably, these bastions were responsible for the elimination of spaces, and it allowed the Dutch to repel Chinese forces (Rhode and Andrade, 3). Additionally, “these bastions allowed defenders to keep the entirety of the fort’s walls in their line of fire, thus eliminating the dead spaces—areas along the fort’s walls that are difficult or impossible to cover—that besieging armies traditionally focused on climbing up or blowing apart” (Han, 213).
Koxinga managed to overrun most of these fortresses during his battles in mainland China. Koxinga had become overconfident in his ability to conquer...