Ching Shih

Ching Shih (1784 - 1844), also known under the name of Cheng I Sao, or 郑一嫂), Mrs Tsching is the most famous Pirate Asian.

Ching Shih appears initially in the accounts under the features of a Cantonese prostitute of the name of Shih Yang. It Marie in 1801 with Cheng I, which ordered a fleet of pirates and fought as regards rebel Tay-sound during the rebellion Vietnamese. They adopted a son, Chang Poa. Before dying of the scale in 1807, Cheng I will have joined together a coalition of 400 ships and 70.000 pirates.

Master in the art of handling, Ching Shih, then also named Cheng I Sao (literally, the woman of Cheng I), manages by political operations to take the head of the fleet. Some time later, it begins a connection with her adoptive son, whom it had already promoted with the rank of lieutenant, and Marie with him, reinforcing her capacity on the fleet.

It develops a whole of laws strictly applied. The orders were given exclusively by the leaders of the fleet. To disobey an order was regarded as a capital offense. If a village helped the pirates regularly, it was also a capital offense to plunder it. That which flew in the spoils was condemned to death. To also violate the captive ones. And even if it were supposed agreeing, to have sexual intercourse with captive condemned the pirate to be decapitated and its accomplice was thrown to the sea, of the weights fixed on the feet. If a pirate deserted and that it was taken again, one cut an ear to him and one showed it with the remainder of the crew, for the example.

The fleet of Ching Shih will make various acts of piracy, energy of the simple plundering of trading vessels to the bag of villages along the rivers. The government will try to put a term at these activities while launching a series of battles in January 1808 without success. The pirates will even benefit from it to capture their ships and to reinforce their fleet. The royal fleet will be cut down so much that the government will have to buy fishing vessels to fill the vacuums. The true threat comes in fact from the other pirates: O-Po-tae, a rival (sometimes regarded as the second larger Asian pirate), force the fleet to be beaten a retreat. O-Po-tae, worried by revenge that Ching Shih could want to take, request with the government an amnesty, and obtains it, for its men and itself. Now that the government can devote all its means to the destruction of the fleet of Ching Shih, this one requires and obtains an amnesty in 1810.

Chang Poa will pass the remainder of its life to a comfortable station in the government. Ching Shih will direct a brothel and a circle of plays in Guangzhou, before dying in 1844.

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