Ching Shih - Female Pirate

We've all seen numerous movies of males sporting incredibly long beards, eye patches, peg legs screaming "argggh matey!" That's cute. We're all guilty of conjuring this image when we think of pirates.

Let's twist things around a little here and talk about a pirate... who was a woman! There are quite a few out there but today we'll talk about Ching Shih.

Ching Shih's real name is Shil Xiang Gu. She was born in China in the year 1775. Like many women during the time, she became a prostitute and worked as one until 1801. A notorious pirate named Zheng Yi who ran a fleet of ships known as "Red Flag Fleet" had Ching Shih come along with him because she was his favorite prostitute. Eventually they married, Ching Shih took advantage of the marriage because she knew it'd afford her some power. She ran the fleet alongside her husband.

In 1807 (only 6 years after marriage), Zheng Yi died and left a power vacuum. Zheng Yi's adoptive son agreed to allow Ching Shih to remain in power over 50,000-70,000 pirates.

Ching Shih was shrewd as a leader, she developed "an ad hoc government under which her pirates were bound to and protected by laws and taxes." What was truly remarkable about this is that Ching Shih demanded better treatment of women who were captured to become wives. She enforced the rule that "Unfaithfulness and rape were offenses for which a pirate would be executed."

The Red Flag Fleet was responsible for numerous terrible acts such as raiding and capturing "many coastal villages, sometimes even imposing levies and taxes on the villages." This earned her the title, Terror of South China.

At the end of her piracy career, she settled with the Chinese government. The agreement was that she could keep her loot and receive amnesty while the Chinese government had the pirates recognize their authority. She died in 1844, about 69 years old.

Fierce!