Life
It all begins with prostitution: before she rose to significance, Ching Shih worked in a floating brothel in Canton. The pirate king of the time (Zhèng Yi, the commander of the "Red Fleet") noticed her beauty, and according to different accounts, either raided the brothel or simply asked to marry her. Either way, the first of many cool things happened: Ching Shih said yes, but demanded equality. Granted, it wasn't full equality, but she got an equal share of the plunder and some power within the fleet. She was granted it.
Under the joint command of Zhèng Yi and Ching Shih, the Fleet grows from 200 ships to over 600 ships, and eventually 1700-1800 ships. That's a lot of ships. Their fleet was even color-coded, and along with pirate Wu Shi'er the duo formed the Cantonese Pirate Coalition. The couple also adopted a son, Cheung Pao, who was Zèng Yi's second in command. 6 years after marrying Ching Shih, Zèng Yi died. At that time, the Fleet had about 50,000-70,000 pirates.
This is where the story really gets wild. After her husband's death, Ching Shih didn't want to go back to prostitution, so with the support of Cheung Pao, she took over the entire fleet. And she was proved to be a master at ruling.
Ching Shih was very, very organized, and very, very strict. She had a focus on business and military strategy, and under her hand her pirates obeyed a strict code. A few examples of fleet rules were as follows (mostly taken from Wikipedia here):
- Any plunder had to be registered with the fleet before distributed. The plunderers got 20% and the rest went to the fleet's collective fund.
- Deserters were hunted down and had their ears chopped off.
- "Anyone giving their own orders (ones that did not come down from Ching Shih) or disobeying those of a superior was beheaded on the spot".
- Anyone who resisted Ching Shih's rule had their feet nailed to the deck, and then Ching Shih would personally whip them.
Other punishments included capital punishment, being clapped in irons, flogging, etc. One extra-special rule that I personally love was in regards to female captives. A captive deemed "ugly" was to be released unharmed; a pirate who wanted to marry a "beautiful" captive was allowed to, butmust be faithful to her and take care of her, on pain of death. He could not rape her. Any beautiful captives that were not wed were ransomed. Of course, it's impossible to say how well these rules were really enforced, but it was a huge deviation from the norm.
Ching Shih soon had such a large empire that she was called 'The Terror of South China"— but her reign was not unopposed. The Chinese, Portugese, and British navies were out for the Red Fleet's blood, but they were no match for her. Unlike most pirate lords, who would just hide in a cave or something, Ching Shih often fought them head on. Conquered soldiers had the option to join her or die. At one point her enemies started using suicide ships (ships loaded with explosives, the idea being to blow up the Fleet when they engaged). Chin Shih actually sent people onto the suicide ships to smother the explosives, and then incorporated the boats int her fleet. No more than 50 people died, and none of her ships were destroyed.
Eventually, China was so desperate for her to just leave them alone that they offered amnesty to all pirates. Ching Shih and her entire fleet may have been dominating, but she knew it couldn't last. They'd lost a series of battles with the Portugeuse and were fighting rival pirates at the same time. So Ching Shih and most of her fleet took the government up on the offer; they were able to retire peacefully, and even kept their loot.
Cheung Pao became a lieutenant in the Chinese navy and used his position to destroy their old pirate rivals. He and Ching Shih got their mother-son bond officially dissolved by the government and married each other, having two kids. (Remember, Cheung Pao was adopted. Still, disconcerting.) Ching Shih died at the ripe old age of 69, in 1844, after spending the rest of her life running a brothel/casino.