Dutch general Thomas Pedel was brimming with confidence as he led his troops out of Zeelandia Castle on Taiwan to battle the Chinese warlord Koxinga in the spring of 1661. The Dutch had been fending off attacks by Taiwanese natives and Chinese settlers since they established a colony on the coast of Taiwan a few decades before. These raids posed no serious threat: Dutch muskets were the best in the world, while Chinese arrows and cannons seemed like a relic from Europe’s Middle Ages. Although Pedel’s son had been maimed by Koxinga’s troops earlier in the day, Pedel was certain his 250 crack sharpshooters would be more than enough to dispatch Koxinga’s force of a few thousand. He was wrong.
Just 80 Dutch musketeers limped back to their castle after the skirmish, a crushing defeat for the Europeans. Yet this loss was not decisive: it took another year before the Dutch colony surrendered to Koxinga’s fearsome army.
