By the early 16th century, global trade networks across Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas were well-developed. Within the continent of Asia, China, Japan, and the islands of Southeast Asia traded robustly, despite Ming dynasty China's decision to turn inward–known as the "splendid isolation" or tsung chu chuan (Manthorpe, 2008)--after famed 15th century voyages of the Ming admiral, Zheng He, came to a close. As European appetites for Asian goods increased throughout the 16th century and onward, their empires sought greater access to trade with Asia. Although ultimately unsuccessful, China resisted Europe's desires for greater access to trade within its borders. The island of Taiwan, situated fewer than 100 miles from mainland China, would consequently become a nexus for Asian-European navigation, trade, and conquest over the next centuries.

One of the Wokou pirates (which translates as "Japanese pirates" although they were also Chinese and possibly Korean), Lin, who was Chinese, led a large fleet out of the Penghu Islands to disrupt and attack Ming shipping in the Taiwan Strait and in villages along China's coast. Fleeing a Chinese naval counter-attack in the 1560s, Lin landed near present-day Anping, Taiwan whose "treacherous and unfamiliar shoals and islets" (Manthorpe, 2008) discouraged Chinese pursuit. Lin and his men soon came into conflict with Indigenous Peoples on the island, eventually abandoning Taiwan and returning to China's Guangdong Province.

Referred to as "the greatest pirate prince of his place and age," (Manthorpe, 2008), Li Dan laid the foundation for the later maritime exploits of his protege, Zheng Zhilong, Zheng's son, Koxinga, and Zheng's grandson, Zheng Jing. Born in Fujian province, Li made his fortune by cornering the lucrative sea trade market with Southeast Asia and Taiwan from his base in Hirado, Japan and eventually Taiwan, where he sought to create a pirate confederacy--"not only the first Asian multinational trade conglomerate but also the first semblance of an island government for Taiwan." (Manthorpe, 2008). His junks were described in 1623 as "loaded with all sorts of merchandise to trade with the Formosans, as he was accustomed to do, both deerskins and venison, which he took to Japan.” (Andrade, 2008.)

Born in the impoverished Fujian province of China in about 1603, Zheng Zhilong eventually migrated to Hirado, Japan, where his skills caught the attention of Li Dan. In Japan, he married the daughter of a samurai who gave birth to his son, Zheng Chenggong, or Koxinga. As Li Dan's protege, Zheng Zhilong oversaw the steady growth of Li's dominance along the Chinese coast, where "no vessel can show itself...or Iquan [Zheng] has it in his power." (Manthorpe, 2008). He moved to Taiwan in 1623 with Li, playing a pivotal role as an interpreter in Dutch-Chinese political and trade negotiations, urging the Dutch to abandon the Chinese-controlled Penghu Islands and instead use Taiwan as a trading base. Zheng soon after turned on the Dutch, attacking their trade on the Taiwan Strait, and terrorizing Ming China, as well, by raiding the coastal city of Xiamen in Fujian province where he destroyed hundreds of Ming junks. The Ming decided to share power with him by making him admiral of the imperial fleet, ensuring that he could protect China's southern borders while they staved off the Manchurian tribes at the northern border. Ultimately unsuccessful in these efforts, the Ming Dynasty fell and Zheng defected to the Manchu side only to be captured and eventually executed by them.

Traders and merchants who migrated to Taiwan from mainland China in 1624 formed a settlement on Tawain's coast near present-day Tainan known as Saccam. The name Saccam likely derived from the Siraya, on whose land the Chinese had settled.

When the Dutch invaded southwestern Taiwan in 1624, near present-day Tainan, they built a fortress that also served as their trading hub in Taiwan called Fort Zeelandia. When Koxinga defeated the Dutch at Fort Zeelandia in 1661, he renamed the fort “Anping,” in tribute to his home town in China.

Raised by his mother in Japan until the age of seven, Zheng Chenggong (bestowed with the name Koxinga or "Lord of the Imperial Surname" by the Ming emperor) was brought to the family ancestral home in Anhai, in southern Fujian, by his father, whose stature in the the Ming dynasty ensured his son's scholarly Confucian education at the Imperial Academy in Nanjing. (Hang, 2015) After invading Manchu forces captured the Ming capital of Beijing and then defeated the last Ming strongholds of Nanjing in 1645 and Fuzhou in 1646, legend holds that Koxinga burned his scholar's robes (Manthorpe, 2008) and fled to Xiamen as well as his family's base in nearby Anhai to lead the Qing resistance with resources financed by his family's maritime trade networks. (Andrade, 2008). After several failed attempts to defeat Manchu forces and sensing that his days in China were numbered, Koxinga eyed the island of Taiwan, possibly as an ideal stronghold from which to relaunch an offensive. In 1661, leading some 400 Chinese junks and 25,000 soldiers, Koxinga defeated the Dutch at Fort Zeelandia on the western coast of Taiwan despite possessing inferior weapons and technology and renamed it Anping Fort in tribute to his hometown of Anhai (formerly called Anping). There are varying historical views as to Koxinga's intentions upon vanquishing the Dutch. Some historians have argued that Koxinga was a Ming loyalist whose ultimate goal was to defeat the Manchu Qing dynasty by unifying Chinese newcomers to Taiwan with the Chinese diaspora present throughout Southeast Asia at that time (Manthorpe, 2008). Other historians contend that Koxinga's foremost agenda was to achieve his independent commercial and political ambitions in Taiwan. (Hang, 2015). Koxinga's untimely death in 1662 at age 39 halted his personal agenda, but albeit short-lived, his leadership did usher in the era sometimes known as the House of Koxinga or Kingdom of Tungning in Taiwan.

Based in Xiamen, China, Zheng Jing declared himself the successor to his father Koxinga, despite a power struggle with his uncle, Zheng Shixi, who defended his stronghold in Anping, Taiwan. Rather than destroy the Ming dynastic seals and edicts, shave his head, and wear a queue (braid) to show submission to the Qing, Zheng Jing gathered a fleet and an army and invaded his uncle's stronghold. There, Zheng Jing defeated his uncle and began a 17-year reign, known as the Kingdom of Tungning, that would result in a "Golden Age" for Taiwan due to agricultural, commercial, educational, and administrative development on the island.

Spanning China's southern coast, Guangdong province has had a long history as a locus of trade and migration. During the 1st and 2nd millennia CE, its ports served as the entry and departure point for the Maritime Silk Road. Additionally, over these millennia, many people from Canton may have traded with Taiwan, and occasionally resided there. Migration from Guangdong to Taiwan began in earnest between the 16th and 18th centuries.

Stretching across both mountains and sea on China's southeast coast, Fujian province has served as one of China's agriculture and trading hubs throughout its history. Over the past two millennia, the Fujian people have comprised large numbers of outmigration from China to locations in Southeast Asia, and they began to migrate to Taiwan in significant numbers beginning in the 16th century.

Infamously known for much of its early history as a stronghold for illicit trade and piracy, Xiamen became the the base from which Koxinga launched his Manchu Qing resistance after the Ming dynasty fell to invading Manchu forces in 1646. While Fujian's mountains to the east protected Xiamen from land assaults, they also created obstacles for Koxinga to extend control beyond Xiamen itself. (Andrade, 2008). Despite efforts to launch an attack against Qing forces in Nanjing in 1659, Koxinga and his troops were forced to retreat back to Xiamen and ultimately departed mainland China in 1661 for Taiwan, where they would defeat the Dutch and take control of the island.

Koxinga spent part of his childhood and teenage years in Anhai, China, near the coast in Fujian province, and later fled here after the Ming dynasty fell in 1644 to consolidate and lead the resistance to Qing rule. (Hang, 2015). Anhai was known as “Anping” during the Song dynasty, and for this reason Koxinga renamed Fort Zeelandia in Taiwan “Anping Fort” when he defeated the Dutch there in 1661.

Situated on the southern end of the Taiwan Strait, the Penghu Islands ( also known as the Pescadores) are composed of more than 60 islands that stretch from mainland China to Taiwan. As a result, most of the conquests and waves of migration to Taiwan have at some point crossed this archipelago.

The small island port of Hirado sits off the northwestern coast of Nagasaki, Japan, and is one of the first ports in the Japanese archipelago with which Europeans made contact and traded in the early 17th century.