1544

Portuguese sailors named the island "Ilha Formosa", meaning Beautiful Island.

1602

Foundation of Dutch East India Company

1623

Dutch traders arrived on the Penghu Islands and Taiwan.

1624

Dutch built fortresses on Taiwan in order to penetrate into the China market; this drew the attention and concern of the mainland authorities (a famous Chinese Trader was Zheng Zhilong 郑芝龙, father of Zheng Chenggong 郑成功).

1623-1638

Spanish arrived in Taiwan.

1629

Zheng Zhilong 郑芝龙 got the rank of a „Patrolling Admiral“ for the Ming dynasty.

1633/34

Zheng Zhilong 郑芝龙 rose to be the Guardian of the Southeast China Coast, he drove the Dutch back to Taiwan.

1642

After having driven out the Spanish forces the Dutch successfully placed the entire island of Taiwan under their control.

1644

Fall of the Ming dynasty, but still many Ming loyalists remain in the south of China: Zheng Chenggong 郑成功, also known as Koxinga, had the Fujian coast under his control and organized an anti–Manchu movement; in the beginning he was very successful, but after a big defeat in 1659 his power weakened.

1661

Zheng Chenggong 郑成功 had to find a safer place to survive, he wrested Taiwan from the Dutch and made it a political as well as a military bastion for the Ming restoration; an intensive program of sinization took place.

1662

A few months after he had received the Dutch surrender, Zheng Chenggong 郑成功 died at the age of thirty-nine.

1662-1683

Taiwan was under the control of the Zheng clan, led by Zheng Chenggong’s son Zheng Jing 郑经.

1663

Qing authorities formed a military alliance with the Dutch, who hoped to conquer Taiwan. Amoy and Quemoy (Jinmen), both still in the hands of the Zheng clan, fell on 20th November. By December, the Zheng forces were completely withdrawn from the mainland coast.

1664

In December, a united Dutch-Qing fleet sailed against Taiwan. However, Shi Lang 施琅, the commander of the Qing navy called off the planed expedition to Taiwan because of adverse currents and heavy winds; in fact, he probably did not agree with the imperial decision that Taiwan should be given back to the Dutch after the expedition. In the end, the Qing-Dutch allied forces broke up because of the differences in diplomatic traditions and conflicts of interests. The Zheng forces on Taiwan gained the precious time necessary to strengthen their island bastion; with the support of numerous Ming loyalists, Zheng Jing established an orderly administration to carry out sinicization programs on Taiwan.

1670/73

Zheng Jing 郑经 had enormous commercial success and tried to recapture the Chinese coastline. He made contact with the Lord of Yunnan Wu Sangui 吴三桂 and offered him 100,000 fighting men and several thousand warships for an anti-Qing campaign.

27.01.1674

The „Rebellion of the Three Feudatories“ (三藩之乱) against the Qing broke out. Geng Jingzhong 耿精忠, the feudal Lord of Fujian, joined Wu Sangui on 21st of April. Shang Zhixin 尚之信, the feudal Lord of Kanton, joined the rebellion on 3rd of April 1676.

1676

Zheng Jing 郑经 recaptured Amoy and reopened it for trade and once again the Qing administration was embarrassed by the fact that it could not cow its rebels into submission.

1678-1680

The rebel leaders had neither a common ideological commitment nor a common political purpose, this was the reason why they lost one major sea battle after the other.

1680

For Zheng Jing 郑经 the situation became uncontrollable, he had to abandon Amoy and the war on the mainland came to an end. The Zheng clan again fled to Taiwan.

1681

Zheng Jing 郑经 died on March 16th.

1682

The Zheng clan on Taiwan had become uneasy ever since their retreat from the mainland coast. Besides this more misfortunes deepened the crisis – an epidemic, which killed many garrison soldiers.

1683

After a seven-day sea battle for the Penghu Islands that had fallen into Admiral Shi Lang’s 施琅 hands the Zheng army was defeated both physically and psychologically. By October 5th, most of the civilian and military people on Taiwan, had shaved off their hair as a sign of submission. The Ming loyalist movement came to an end and Taiwan was reintegrated into Qing-China.