Koxinga Shrine
Guoxingye's Shrine (Yanping Junwang Temple), located by Kaishan Road surrounded by trees, is the only Fujianese style shrine in Taiwan. This is the shrine built in memory of the work and achievement of Cheng Cheng Kung, the pioneer of Taiwan. Cheng Cheng Kung was originally called Cheng Sun, a native in County Fujian. His father, Cheng Chi Lung, was a wanderer in his early days. He has been a merchant as well as a pirate. His mother was a Japanese lady called Tagawa. Cheng was born with great intelligence. Not only was he diligent in his studies, he also has a huge ambitious to achieve something big, i.e. to become someone who are good in both academic work and in the military field. By the time he was 21 years old, Wu San Kwei led the Qing army into China and the Ming dynasty thus came to an end. As a result of his father surrendered to the Qing Dynasty and his mother committed suicide, Cheng Cheng Kung suffered a lot of pain and decided that he should turn against the Qing Dynasty to rejuvenate the Ming Dynasty in order to get rid of the shame caused by his father's traitor behavior. In April, 15th year of Emperor Yung Li (1661 A.D.), he led his army crossing the Taiwan Strait and after 9 months' battle, had finally retrieved Taiwan from the hands of the Dutch. Taiwan thus was no more a colony of the Netherlands. After gaining access to Taiwan, Cheng quickly built up the whole place by setting up governing offices, regulations, education system as well as developing more farm lands to improve the living standards of the local people. He also actively trained people in military tactics, preparing them to fight the Qing army. However, just half year after he had retrieved Taiwan, Cheng died of illness on May 8, the 16th year of Emperor Yung Li of Ming Dynasty.
