Koxinga had built a large number of ships on the island in the 17th century, and the best trees, such as camphor, had almost all been chipped down. Kinmen had become a place where "you couldn't open your eyes once the wind started to blow." "When I flew into Kinmen on a military plane in the sixties, all I saw was sand," the writer Chiu Hsiu-chih says.
由於明末清初鄭成功曾在金門大量造船，島上材質較佳的樹，如樟木，幾乎全被伐光，使金門「一刮起風，眼睛都睜不開」、「民國五十年代乘軍機到金門，見到的都是黃沙一片」，作家丘秀芷說。