The World’s Most Successful Pirate was a Woman!

Jun Ichikawa in the film Singing Behind Screens, 2003
which is based on the life of Ching Shih

Ching Shih, the world’s most successful pirate was born in 1775. Although not much is known about her birth, she was a known prostitute who worked in floating brothel in the city of Canton where she caught the eye of the renowned pirate Zheng Yi. Some stories say that she was taken by force, others that she struck a bargain with the man she would marry for control of half of his Pirate Empire before she agreed to the marriage. Whatever happened the two worked together to run the most successful pirate operation ever seen in the South China Sea.

In the six years they were married their fleet grew from about 200 ships to more than 400. They formed alliances with other pirate leaders creating the Cantonese Pirate Coalition giving them effective control over much of the merchant traffic in the area by 1807 who they forced to pay protection money for safe passage. Zheng Yi’s ship was caught in a storm in 1807 and he lost his life.

His ferocious widow took up the reins of their criminal enterprise and continued to run the empire they had created together. With her newly appointed military commander Chang Pao leading her loyal band of some 400 pirates in raids Ching Shih focused on the “business” side of things. With her pirate army and navy she had effective control of Guangdong province, a vast spy network within the Qing Dynasty; and domination of the South Chinese Sea. This was not a situation the authorities in China would tolerate for long and soon the Emperor raised a fleet against her.

Unfortunately for the Emperor, Ching Shih was a brilliant military strategist and rather than running from her assailants she met them head on taking 63 of the Emperor’s ships and terrifying their crews into joining her by threatening to have them nailed to the deck by their feet then beaten to death if they did not join her. The Admiral in command of the debacle, Kwo Lang committed suicide rather than suffer further humiliation of being beaten and captured by a woman.

The Qing Dynasty government then enlisted the aid of the super-power British and Portuguese navies, as well as many Dutch ships, paying them large sums for their assistance to drive her into submission but although this international task force waged war on Ching Shih’s organisation for two years it met with little success. She won battle after battle until finally the Emperor decided to take a different tack and instead of trying to defeat her, he offered her and most of her organisation an amnesty.

Ching Shih initially rejected it but she wisely changed her mind and signed in 1810. The deal she struck disbanded her fleet but granted amnesty to most of her followers and allowed her to keep her loot. She sacrificed 126 members of her 376 crew who were executed and the other 250 received some punishment for their crimes. Her commander and new husband #ChangPao was given command of 20 ships in the Qing Dynasty navy.

As for Ching Shih herself, not only did she negotiate the rights to keep the fortune she acquired she got a noble title, “Lady by Imperial Decree”, which entitled her to various legal protections as a member of the aristocracy. She then retired at the age of 35, opening a gambling house cum brothel in Guangzhou, Canton, which she managed until her death at the age of 69. She died an aristocrat, a successful business woman, a mother and a grandmother.

Since her death her infamy has led to the creation of several fictional and semi-fictionalised accounts of her pirate years. She first appeared in the 1932 book ‘The History of Piracy’, by Philip Gosse then in Jorge Luis Borges's short story ‘The Widow Ching, Lady Pirate’ in 1954.

In 2003, Ermanno Olmi made a film, 'Singing Behind Screens’, loosely based on Borges's retelling of her story. In 2006 she was re-created as a guardian who fights demons to protect the denizens of the underworld in the graphic novel Afterlife. She appears in book eight of L.A.Meyer's Bloody Jack series, ‘In The Wake of the Lorelei Lee’ and finally makes it mainstream cinema in 2007 in the third film in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, where a character called Ching, one of the nine Pirate Lords played by Keira Knightly is loosely based on her.

APirates of the Caribbean franchise, where a character called Ching, one of the nine Pirate Lords played by Keira Knightly is loosely based on her. 

Her most recent incarnation is in a Hong Kong television drama called Captain of Destiny starring Maggie Q.