An unusual story

True crime

We all love a good pirate story and here’s a story of one of the most famous and successful pirates of all time and I bet you a chest of gold, you’ve never heard of her…

You can of course refresh on the previous pirate story's; Stötebecker here and Modern Heist here.

But let’s jump into this week’s story. It’s such a bizarre and unusual saga. One could’t dream this kind of thing up…

Zheng Yi Sao is the name she is known as, but it actually means “wife of Zheng Yi” But scholars think her birth name was Shi Yang. She was born around 1775 in modest circumstances.

The 18th century had seen rapid population growth in China and the Empire was politically stable. Emperor Qianlong of the Qing dynasty was expanding borders and overseeing great economic growth. Trade with Britain and Europe was strong with China exporting silk, porcelain and tea.  Ships stocked to the gunnels with valuable cargo were sailing in and out of Canton.

Sadly, Emperor Qianlong had a habit of spending money from the royal coffers on himself and so other members of the government followed his example, leaving less communal resources for the common people. There was an unequal distribution of wealth and a sudden increase in the cost of living. As a result, local revolts and rebellions popped up in response.

This naturally led to piracy. During the high fishing season, good sailors would work legitimate fishing jobs but as the season changed, the fish migrated and the weather turned, those sailors turned to piracy to make ends meet. Zheng Yi and his crew became pirates. They started off small, stealing food but the pickings were relatively easy so they gradually became more brazen and started stealing silks, spices and gold. They became successful and their one ship soon became a small fleet.

Bustling trade in Canton lead to another Chinese phenomena - Flower Boats. Think of an old time karaoke type floating bar. Flower boats were places where women entertained men with music, dancing and drinking and of course, sex. (Opium hadn’t yet been introduced to China but it was on its way…)

Shi Yang worked on one of these Flower boats. Its unclear what her role was. People assume she was a prostitute but she could of also been a hostess, singer, dancer or bartender. Whatever she did, she certainly turned it to her advantage. Selling and trading secrets she would glean from her drunk wealthy clients to other merchants. This not only earned her extra money but increased her power on the boat and within the maritime culture.

She was now in her early twenties and ambitious. When a successful local pirate paid her boat a visit, the two saw something special in each other and teamed up. Zheng Yi Sao became a real partner for him and proved to be an invaluable addition to his crew.

Soon after they wed, they were approached by the one surviving leader of the Vietnamese Tay Son rebellion: Nguyen Hue.

Nguyen Huế hired the pirates to fight for them, providing them with money, weapons and most importantly - training. Through intense training, he transformed this ragtag group of thieves into an elite fighting force, capable of fighting together in orchestrated movements instead of just fighting.

The Tay Son rebellion was crushed though and the pirates returned to China. They kept on stealing but without a unified goal, infighting started and the large group split up into various bands.

Realising they were much weakened and vulnerable on their own, Zheng Yi and Zheng Yi Sao set about creating a confederation of pirates. Clearly the militaristic atmosphere had worked for them, so the Zheng couple emulated it. Zheng Yi was the figurehead while Zheng Yi Sao handled the logistics. They created six fleets, each with their own commander.

In addition to kidnapping merchants and stealing stores and ships, the pirates also began to attack actual military fortresses, overwhelming them through sheer numbers. By this point the Zheng couple had 300 ships under the combined command of all their fleets. Its estimated that up to seventy thousand men were under their command. You could see now why the fortresses would quickly capitulate and thus would obtain many of their cannons, ammunition and gunpowder for use in their naval conflicts.

With a long term view on succession, the couple adopted a son (already a boy child) called Chang Pao who was groomed to take over the violent family business.

Piracy being the high risk, high reward business it is, Zheng was killed in 1807. This was a potentially turbulent time for Zheng Yi Sao as the stakes were high with commanders jockeying for position to take over the empire. She secured the support of two of her late husbands commanders for her to replace her husband as the most powerful person on the ships. As she was already the logistical brain of the empire, the commanders agreed. She realised however that Zheng Yi had been a good figure head and that she needs another one so she promotes their adoptive son, Chang Pao as commander of the strongest squadron. As he’s loyal to her,  this secures her position as overall leader.

But, just to be on the safe side, she marries Chang Pao, her adoptive son. He gets to be Pirate King without having to handle the logistical side and she gets to keep the real power.

Merchants had to constantly pay the pirates protection money and now she went about creating a formal passport system so she could track who had paid, to avoid them paying again, and also to indicate when their dues were are up for renewal.

She then introduced a subscription service. Merchants could buy a safe passage at a time, or they could buy an annual passport which was more expensive up front, but cheaper in the long run.

So here she was giving bargains on her protection racket.

Even the mighty British East India Company bought annual subscriptions for all their ships sailing out of Canton.

This was so lucrative that she started selling these passports to local towns to exempt them from being pillaged. She also offered them protection by her pirates against other external threats.

So she set up passport offices in theses towns so people could get their papers without having to sail out to find her. Essentially setting up her own powerful separatist government.

Zheng Yi Sao then began to assert more control over the pirates’ finances by creating a centralised communal pot. She started dividing up the booty more fairly. 20% went to the ship involved in seizing it. The remainder went to a communal treasury which she then paid checks out of. This meant that if the weather turned bad or you were not successful that week, you still got paid.

Possibly the first social security system.

Never one to sit idle, Zheng Yi Sao then set her sights upon the lucrative salt trade. The southwest Guangdong province had around 20 salt farms and the government ran around 270 ships servicing this trade. If fact, some of the salt farms are still there today. Once Zheng Yi Sao went into the salt business, she had 266 of the salt ships under her control and the government a mere 4. The same people were still onboard the ships but doing things on Zheng Yi Sao’s terms instead of the governments. You could say it was a hostile corporate takeover, without losing any of the staff.

Buoyed by her success, she sets her sights further inland. The coastal cities had by this stage mostly paid her off, the Chinese navy was pretty much defeated and terrified of buccaneers so in 1809 she wanted the actual city of Canton.

The pirates took an unusual approach of posting notices around the city informing the population of the impending attack. This send the residents into a panic as their violent reputation preceded the pirates and it got the citizens either to run or to join them.

Her attack on Canton ended up being very successful as she got everything she wanted so a few weeks later, she did the same thing in Macau. Here she not only stole the ship belonging to the Portuguese governor of Timor but five American ships as well.

European powers up until this point had accepted paying her bribes but realised that now she had overstepped a line and had gone too far. They worked with the Chinese navy in trying to capture her and break the strangle hold the pirates had but without success. They sent their best sailors and commanders but ended up being defeated time after time. This was after all her home waters and she had the advantage. And remember how, earlier on in her career, she was so good at gathering intelligence.

So, the Chinese had to take an altogether different approach and contacted her squadrons independently, offering them lucrative military pensions if they retire. To sweeten the deal they also offered the pirates military titles upon retirement so they would be viewed as esteemed in their villages.

This seemed to work and a few opted in for a cushy retirement foregoing their risky occupation.

Zheng Yi Sao is now only in her 30’s and at the peak of her power and her career. Instead of fighting as she has always done - she marched into the governor general’s headquarters in Canton and announced she’s ready to strike a deal. She offered her resignation and entered negotiations and secured safe retirement for her crew. Many were offered military positions and were incorporated into the navy. This was the only time in history that pardons happened en masse on such a large scale through a single pirate ambassador.

As part of the deal, Zheng Yi Sao  negotiated to retain a number of her ships which she used as a merchant fleet and she walked away with most of her ill gained loot.

When the first Opium War started up in the late 1830’s Zheng Yi Sao was at hand advising the military on how to fight the British at sea. When that ended in the 1840’s she opened up a notoriously successful gambling house. She died in 1844, well into her 60’s.

I think you would agree that she was the greatest pirate of all time.

If, you like me, didn’t want this story to end, here’s a link to a fictional account based on her story which makes for interesting reading called Shi Yang - queen of the pirates. Click here.

It’s even free to download on kindle unlimited so give it a read.