| This thesis explores the 1670 to 1683 trading relationship between the English East India Company and the Zheng family, a Ming loyalist organisation that controlled Taiwan in the late seventeenth century. It draws on the available sources of data for the Zheng family's trading network to create an analysis of how the network functioned and developed, and then applies the available information from the East India Company's records to understand how the company's trade to Taiwan developed.;The Zheng family's trade was altered by their participation in the Sanfan Rebellion during the 1670s. The rebellion commercially isolated the Zheng family from mainland China, which in turn gave the East India Company an opportunity to supply substitute goods for the Zheng family's trade elsewhere. However, the rebellion also weakened the Zheng family and brought about their surrender of Taiwan to Qing China, which ended the company's trade there as well. |
