From Koxinga's temple to Japan's first shrine

The story begins with the man himself. Zheng Chenggong, known to the world as Koxinga, was born near Nagasaki to a Chinese merchant father and a Japanese mother, and in 1661–62 he drove the Dutch out of southwestern Taiwan to found the Kingdom of Tungning. He died young the same year, and the local grief was so deep that by 1662 the community had raised a small Kaishan King Temple (開山王廟) in his honour — "Kaishan" evoking the "opening king" who cleared and governed the land.↗↗

Under the Qing, the temple's fortunes changed after the 1874 Mudan Incident, when a Japanese punitive expedition over slain Ryukyu sailors prompted the imperial commissioner Shen Baozhen to come to Taiwan. Shen petitioned the Guangxu Emperor to formalise the cult, and in 1875 the shrine was rebuilt and renamed the Yanping Prince Shrine (延平郡王祠), entering official state sacrifice — the only Koxinga temple ever built by government decree, of the many that exist.↗↗

After Japan took Taiwan in 1895, the colonial administration inverted the Qing gesture. Because Koxinga had a Japanese mother, officials recast him as a Shinto deity and renamed the compound the Kaishan Shinto Shrine, adding a stone torii gate and Shinto-style worship buildings around 1914–15. In doing so they created the first Japanese government shrine on the island — and the singular case of a temple converted into a shrine rather than newly built as one.↗↗↗↗

War damage and the 1945 handover to the Republic of China brought another transformation. In 1947 authorities reshaped a Japanese stone gateway into a Chinese-style arch, and a sweeping 1963 rebuild stripped the remaining Japanese features and gave the compound the red-walled, green-tiled northern-Chinese palace look seen today. Designated a Tainan historical landmark in 2010, the site has since been opened widely to visitors — a rare place where all four regimes, Ming loyalist, Qing, Japanese and ROC, left a visible hand.↗↗↗

Traces of the shrine you can still find

The most talked-about relic is the "Loyalty and Courage" arch (忠肝義膽) that greets you inside the grounds. It is the old Japanese stone gateway with its topmost beam removed, a Kuomintang emblem set into the lintel, and a pair of couplets calligraphed by General Bai Chongxi praising Koxinga's doomed but righteous cause. For decades visitors were told this arch was simply a converted torii of the Kaishan Shrine; more recent research, comparing stone sizes and surviving joint-cuts, argues the gateway's pillars may in fact have come from a different Tainan shrine's gate — so treat the arch as a layered object whose exact parentage is still a matter of debate.↗↗↗

Farther along, by the museum and now set near the arch itself, lie the genuine surviving pieces of the Kaishan torii: the carved kasagi and shimaki crossbeams attributed to the first (1915) Myojin-style stone gate, their finely worked surfaces preserved as architectural, material and artistic treasures. If you came hunting specifically for the "former shrine," these weathered stone members are its clearest signature.↗↗

Inside the adjacent Koxinga Museum, the shrine era reappears again in objects rather than walls — among its holdings is a Japanese-style palanquin dating to the Kaishan Shinto Shrine period, displayed alongside relics of Koxinga's campaign and the Kingdom of Tungning.↗↗

Exploring the walled grounds

Even setting the shrine history aside, the compound is a beautifully arranged shrine-park in the manner of a Confucian temple, laid out on a central axis with walled courtyards, side wings and vermilion gates. Enter through the standalone archway, then pass a screen wall that shields the inner court and a stone incense furnace before reaching the Sanchuan (Three-Hands) Gate, beneath a plaque reading "Unrivaled Among the Ancients." Set into the granite steps beside it is an 1875 stele proclaiming the shrine was "Built on Imperial Order" — the oldest official seal of the place.↗↗↗

The east and west wings hold spirit tablets and regalia honouring Koxinga's generals and advisers, while the rear hall splits into three shrines: a central hall to Koxinga himself, the Shrine of the Queen for his Japanese mother Tagawa, and side shrines for the martyr-prince Ningjing and his grandson and regent Zheng Kezang. Look for the eight door gods painted inside the gates — rendered with blue eyes and pale faces as "foreigners" in Ming robes, a playful nod to the Dutch he defeated.↗↗

In the main hall stands a lifelike 2.1-metre statue of Koxinga, sculpted by Yang Ying-feng in 1961 — seated in calm civil-official robes with a golden dragon at the chest rather than in the usual martial pose. Also here is the gilded "edict case" carved with nine dragons that once held the Guangxu Emperor's approval to build the shrine, plus Shen Baozhen's famous wood-carved couplets. Out in the garden sits a colossal 200-tonne granite figure of Koxinga gifted from Quanzhou in 2008, and a small pond shaped like Kinmen island, recalling where he mustered his fleet before sailing to Taiwan.↗↗

Visiting today

The grounds are free to enter and open all year, generally from about 8:00 or 8:30 in the morning until 17:30 (summer evenings extend toward 18:00), with the Koxinga Museum sharing the complex. The entrance sits on Kaishan Road near its junction with Fucheng Road, a short walk from Tainan's other heritage sights such as the Confucius Temple and Fort Provintia, making it an easy pairing on a day spent exploring the old streets. Allow 30 to 60 minutes; if you want to linger over the museum, the steles and the torii relics, budget closer to ninety.↗↗↗