Corvee obligations, excessive taxation, landlord exploitation, and peasant oppression contributed to Joseon Korea's gradual economic decline. The relative decline of Qing China coupled with a modern and industrialized Japan gave the Japanese to flex its newly modernized political and military muscles to occupy and colonize the Korean peninsula, a quest Japan had been trying to do for centuries. By the late-19th Century, the Joseon Dynasty was unable to keep up with the rapid industrialization of the Western World and Japan as it was eventually absorbed into the Chinese Qing Dynasty's tributary system. In 1910, Japan annexed Korea due to the decline of the Qing Dynasty, and remained under Japanese control until its defeat by the Allied Powers during World War II. The recordkeeping and development of the economic history of Taiwan started during the Age of Discovery. In the 17th century, European colonialists realized that the island nation Taiwan was located on the strategic cusp between the East and Southeast Asia. Two main European colonial empires that competed to colonize it were the Dutch and Spanish. In addition, Taiwan also became an intermediate destination for as a trading post between the Chinese Ming and Qing dynasties, Tokugawa Japan, and the indigenous Taiwanese aborigines. Goods such as agate, sugar cane, raw spices, sulfur, dried fish, porcelain, herbal medicine, satin, rice paddies, cloth, salt, copper, venison and buckskin were traded between the Taiwanese aborigines and the European colonial empires and the East Asian states. The Dutch would later colonize Southern Taiwan in 1624 and later spread its influence to the North in Keelung and Tamsui in order to trade with the Ming dynasty. The Dutch would collect the commodities and monopolize the export trade. By 1658, the company exported sugar to Persia, Japan, and Jakarta and had about 35 trading posts in Asia. Tayoan gained 25.6% profit, ranked second out of all of the Dutch trading posts, after Nagasaki, Japan. However, the profit was distributed to shareholders of the company, and not the local Taiwanese. In 1662, the Ming general Cheng Cheng-Kung and his troops fled to Taiwan after being defeated by the Qing dynasty and drove away the Dutch. After his successful siege of Ft Zeelandia, he had accomplished this but his rule caused the Qing to revive the sea bans and cut off maritime trade in a bid to weaken him. His dynasty ruled Taiwan as the independent kingdom of Tungning, establishing land distribution systems in order to efficiently supply food for their army.