The Koxinga Memorial Hall commemorates Zheng Chenggong, the Ming loyalist commander who used Gulangyu and the surrounding Xiamen waters as his base during the decades-long resistance to Qing conquest in the 17th century. The hall contains maps, weapons, and artifacts relating to his campaigns, including the 1661-62 expedition that expelled the Dutch East India Company from Taiwan — an event that changed the course of Taiwanese history.
The exhibit is presented with evident national pride, but the underlying history is genuinely fascinating: Zheng was the son of a Japanese mother and a Chinese father, commanded a multi-ethnic force including Japanese, Dutch converts, and Southeast Asian soldiers, and managed to sustain resistance against the most powerful military force in Asia for nearly two decades. The memorial hall gives a reasonable account of his campaigns and his strategic use of the island geography, making it a useful orientation before walking to Sunlight Rock, where his inscription survives.