Shih broke up the confederation in 1810 and negotiated a generous surrender deal with the Chinese government. Anyone caught giving commands on his own or disobeying those of a superior was immediately decapitated," Murray wrote.Īt the height of her power, Shih, also called the "Pirate Queen," controlled a fleet of 1,200 ships crewed by about 70,000 pirates. According to Murray, Shih secured control of the pirates through careful alliances and a strict code of laws. Ching died in 1807, and Shih seized sole control of the pirate confederation. The pair consolidated control of the region's rival pirate gangs into a confederation, Dian Murray, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, wrote in a 1981 article in the journal Historical Reflections. Born into poverty as Shih Yang in Guangzhou, China, in the late 18th century, Shih was a sex worker until she married a pirate named Ching I in 1801 and took the name Ching Shih, which meant "the wife of Ching," according to a case study by the University of Oxford's Global History of Capitalism project.
One of the most successful pirates in history was a woman named Ching Shih, sometimes called Cheng I Sao or Zheng Yi Sao. The pirate Ching Shih (Image credit: Future)
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