The most successful pirate in history...
Was a woman.
I've interviewed a lot of people who "basically ran the place." 🤔
This lady actually did...
The place was the South China Sea.
Visionary leader. Master negotiator. Wanted pirate.
1790s: first job was on a brothel boat.
1801: then married a powerful pirate.
1807: he died, she became the leader.
Within a few years she ran the largest pirate fleet in history.
1800 ships. 70,000 crew.
Her formidable fleet was over half the size of every navy on Earth combined today.
The Qing emperor sent a navy.
The Portuguese sent a navy.
The British sent a navy.
She defeated them all.
Then the masterstroke.
1810: she negotiated an amnesty.
Kept her fortune.
Kept her freedom.
Pardoned her crew.
Walked away and ran a gambling house into her seventies.
Most pirates ended on a rope. She ended on a winning streak.
What was her name?
Ching Shih. The Pirate Queen who commanded 1,800 ships and retired rich.
Fun Facts
💡 She ran a brutal but oddly principled code.
Disobey an order or steal from the common fund and you lost your head. But the code also protected female captives. Raping one was punishable by death, and a pirate who took a captive as a wife had to stay faithful to her or face execution. A pirate fleet with better conduct rules than most navies of the day.
💡 She married the help, sort of.
Her second husband was Cheung Po Tsai, her late husband's adopted son and protégé. She promoted him to command her Red Flag Fleet, then married him. Family business, taken literally.
💡 Hollywood knows her.
The elderly Chinese pirate "Mistress Ching," one of the nine Pirate Lords in Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End, is based on her. Most people have seen her on screen without ever knowing she was real.
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