various worthies in residence in Tayouan. The president of this council was the second-in-command to the governor, and would take over his duties if the governor died or was incapacitated. The governor's residence was in Fort Zeelandia on Tayouan (then an island, now the Anping District of Tainan City). There were a total of twelve governors during the Dutch colonial era. Economy The Tayouan factory (as VOC trading posts were called) was to become the second-most profitable factory in the whole of the Dutch East Indies (after the post at Hirado/Dejima), although it took 22 years for the colony to first return a profit. Benefitting from triangular trade between themselves, the Chinese and the Japanese, plus exploiting the natural resources of Formosa, the Dutch were able to turn the malarial sub-tropical bay into a lucrative asset. A cash economy was introduced (using the Spanish real, which was used by the VOC) and the period also saw the first serious attempts in the island's history to develop it economically. Trade The original intention of setting up Fort Zeelandia at Tayowan (Anping) in southern Formosa was to provide a base for trading with China and Japan, as well as interfering with Portuguese and Spanish trade in the region. Goods traded included silks from China and silver from Japan, among many other things. After establishing their fortress, the Dutch realised the potential of the vast herds of the native Formosan sika deer (Cervus nippon taioanus) roaming the western plains of the island. The tough deer skins were highly prized by the Japanese, who used them to make samurai armour. Other parts of the deer were sold to Chinese traders for meat and medical use. The Dutch paid aborigines for the deer brought to them and tried to manage the deer stocks to keep up with demand. Unfortunately the deer the aborigines had relied on for their livelihoods began to disappear, forcing the aborigines to adopt new means of survival. However, the subspecies was kept alive in captivity and subsequent reintroduction of the subspecies into the wild has been successful. In 1638, the Dutch exported 151,400 deer hides from Taiwan to Japan. Although the number of deer hides exported to Japan dropped due to the deer population decreased, the considerable number of deer hides ranged from 50,000 to 80,000 was still exported. Tea was also a major export item. After Chinese people settled in