Zheng Chenggong and Guoxingye (Kokusen’ya, Koxinga)

The facts described in both the Sei-Kan roku and the Seihan yashi concerning Shimabara Kiuemon’s repatriating Mao Guoke to China, traveling through Fujian province as far as Beijing, and then being received in an audience by Emperor Shenzong are certainly open to doubt; nothing of the sort is reported in Chinese documents. As noted above, he did travel as far as Meihuasuo in Fujian, as pointed out in the Liangchao pingrang lu , and the rest would appear to be an exaggeration developed as the story circulated. An investigation of the Ming shilu reveals no evidence of his traveling to Beijing and having an audience with Shenzong. All of which is to say that I have yet to hear any stories such as those reported in the Sei-Kan roku and the Seihan yashi. If we are to corroborate this material with Chinese documents, we need to examine such works as the Ming shi , the Ming shi jishi benmo (Records of the Ming in Full [80 juan ]) by Gu Yingtai (d. 1689), the Ming shi gao (Draft History of the Ming Dynasty [310 [ juan ] by Wang Hongxu (1645–1723), the Ming tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror of the Ming Dynasty) by Xia Xie, and the Ming ji (Records of the Ming Dynasty [60 juan ]) by Chen Hao and Chen Kejia. a I was, however, unable to locate any references to these events and finally I examined the Ming Shenzong shilu (Veritable Records of the Reign of Shenzong of the Ming Dynasty), published in Taiwan by the Institute of Historical Linguistics, Academia Sinica, but it, too, revealed nothing of this sort. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.