With Senor Weaselo publishing a piece very shortly on his adventures through China, this felt like an appropriate week to write about this topic.

From Captain Hook to Blackbeard to Jack Sparrow, pirates have been romanticized in Western society for a long time. As many of us already know, there’s not a huge amount of truth to a lot of the ideas we have about pirates today, based on what we’ve seen in film & literature and more; the concept of the “Pirate Code” or the alternate means of achieving honourable status as a pirate are, for the most part, myths designed to help people in the modern avoid the fact that the majority of pirates from back in the day were either mediocre at their jobs, or incredibly shitty people. There are, however, a few pirates that proved to be absolutely incredible at what they did, and even some who did it with honour – but almost nobody can match the unstoppable force that was Ching Shih, legendary commander of the Red Flag Fleet.

At the dawn of the nineteenth century, China remained very much a feudal society, with the Qing Dynasty Emperors holding almost all of the power. With the Royal Court stationed in Peking (now Beijing), however, administrative control of China’s massive territory thus had to be delegated to a large network of other noble families, who served as regional governors. Thus, as one headed away from the capital, the sphere of influence began to gradually diminish; at the time of Ching Shih, however, the empire was strong, and it worked to exert control wherever and whenever it possibly could.

Enter the pirates.

Ching Shih

Born: 1774/5, Guangdong, China

Died: 1844, Guangdong, China

Occupation: Pirate, prostitute, pimp, gambling house owner-operator

Ching Shih’s early life is a bit murky, but we do know that she was born in Guangdong (Canton) province in either 1774 or 1775, and that her birth name was Shi Xianggu. The first historical records of her date from about 1801, when she married Cheng Yi, a notorious pirate of the era; her kidnapping by pirates and subsequent marriage allowed her to leave the city of Guangzhou, where she worked as a prostitute in a brothel. Her husband, continuing on his long family history of piracy, was an ambitious man, and with his wife by his side, strove to grow his fleet and command larger forces. Within three years of their marriage, the couple had grown the pirate fleet from 200 ships to more than 600, and soon afterwards from 1700-1800 in all.

However, in 1807, disaster struck their marriage; while off the coast of Vietnam, a typhoon came up, killing Cheng and leaving Ching a widow. Faced with the prospect of either returning to a life of prostitution or continuing to hold power independently, she opted for the latter, and manoeuvred fast to get it. At the height of her power, this is how much of a badass Ching Shih was:

• She personally commanded 300 ships, which had a total crew of between 20,000 to 40,000 pirates – these ships, home to the pirates of the highest calibre comprised the infamous Red Fleet.
• The rest of her pirate navy, which was also colour-coded, were commanded by her direct subordinates, and this was believed to be around 1500 ships with a crew of 180,000 in all – an absolutely gigantic number of people under her control in all.
• In order to control this gigantic navy, she created, with the help of her first mate (who was her dead husband’s adopted son whom he had initially kidnapped, then later became her husband, lover and father of her child, and… yeah this was a bit weird here, not gonna lie), an incredibly strict code of conduct for all pirates to follow. A sample is as follows:
  • Disobeying orders (or giving orders to others unauthorized by Ching Shih) = automatically beheaded on the spot and thrown in the ocean.
  • All treasure was to be turned over to the fleet as a whole. The looting ship got to keep 20% of the haul, while the other 80% was divided up elsewhere after being recorded by the official purser.
  • Actual money was turned over to the squadron leader to be used to for supplies for other ships who were unsuccessful in raiding.
  • Failure to turn over booty/stealing from the plunder = severe whipping of the back for a first-time offense, automatic death by beheading for the second, and you would be thrown in the ocean.
  • Deserters who were caught had their ears cut off and paraded around their squadron as an example to others.
  • There’s some disagreement on whether female prisoners from raiding were released or ransomed, or could be kept as captives if they were to later become the wives of the pirates, but this much is clear: if you took a wife, you had to be faithful to her, or you were automatically beheaded and thrown in the ocean. If you raped a woman, you were automatically beheaded and thrown in the ocean. If you had consensual sex with a woman while on duty, you would also be automatically beheaded and thrown in the ocean, and the woman would have cannonballs strapped to her legs and thrown in the ocean too. So all in all, she did not fuck around with any of the rules whatsoever.

• In 1808, the Qing Dynasty got fed up and sent out their own navy to put an end to her raiding in the South China Sea. This ended really badly, as the Red Fleet captured 63 of their largest ships sent out. The commanding admiral of the Royal Navy chose to commit suicide rather than give himself up to the Red Fleet. Finally, Ching Shih offered all captured Royal Navy crew a choice: they could either be nailed by their feet to the ship’s deck and beaten to death with clubs, or they could become pirates as well. Not surprisingly, Ching Shih had little trouble attracting new crew members to replace the ones who’d fallen in battle for her previously.
• The Red Fleet was so powerful that they didn’t operate strictly on the ocean; Ching Shih and her band of pirates created an ad-hoc government of sorts in towns and villages in Guangdong province, and her pirates were known to march overland in order to deal with village insurrections and wage war. They even had a spy network set up within the structure of the Qing Dynasty officials of the region.
• With their lack of success in controlling Guangzhou and the coastline, the Emperor had to turn to outside help. The British and Portuguese navies, the two most pre-eminent in the world during this era, were paid handsomely to rid the South China Sea of the Red Fleet. They lost every battle they fought against the pirates, over a two year span in 1809 and 1810. Dutch mercenary ships also proved no match for Ching Shih and her savage crew.
• Out of options, in 1810 the Emperor offered the Red Fleet amnesty if they stopped their raiding in the south, and Ching Shih decided to take it. By turning over her ships to the Qing Dynasty, she wasn’t prosecuted for a single thing during her extensive career as a pirate, and was allowed to keep all of her treasure. Wealthy beyond her wildest dreams and free from the hard life at sea, she also successfully parlayed her newfound stature into a noble title, and a very high-ranking position in the Royal Navy for her young husband. While her husband was off continuing his life at sea, she took her money and opened up a gambling house and brothel, living comfortably to the ripe old age of 69 (heh).

A pirate, prostitute, pimp, noblewoman, wife, mother, and grandmother. She must have had some of the craziest stories to tell her kids and grandkids. To this day, she remains one of the only pirates who ever lived to actually retire outright from the profession, and not be killed in battle, convicted of crimes or die flat broke. Ching Shih turned financial shrewdness and incredible military savvy into some of the most legendary sailing the South China Sea has ever seen; there’s little doubt in my mind that there’s probably never going to be another woman quite like her.