Koxinga (Lord of the Imperial Surname) is the customary Western spelling of the popular appellation of Zheng Chenggong; a Chinese military leader who was born in 1624 in Hirado; Japan to Chinese merchant/pirate Zheng Zhilong and his Japanese wife; and died in 1662 on the Island of Formosa (Taiwan).

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

The area where Xiamen now exists was known as Tong'an (Chinese: ??; Pe?h-oe-ji: T鈔g-Oan) in some Han Dynasty records; though the area was not significantly settled by Han Chinese until several centuries later.

In 1387; the Ming Dynasty built a fort in Xiamen; then part of Quanzhou; to guard against pirates. After the Manchu Qing Dynasty overthrew the Ming in 1644; Ming loyalist Koxinga; used Xiamen as a base to launch counterattacks against the invading Manchus from 1650 to 1660. In 1656; he named Xiamen Island; Siming (???); or 'Remembering the Ming'. In 1661; Koxinga drove the Dutch from Taiwan and moved his operations there. The Manchus renamed the island Xiamen.