Episode 2 – Ching Shih: Pirate Leader

Episode Summary

This episode is about Ching Shih, a master strategist who took the business of piracy to a whole new level and brought three nations to their knees.

Original Air Date: October 6, 2021

Episode Notes

In the early 1800s Ching Shih goes from being a poor girl in the Guangdong province of China, to becoming a high class prostitute to the region’s elite  She then marries an already successful pirate and grows his business three-fold in three years. When he dies in 1807, Ching Shih establishes a strict set of rules and solidifies her power over the Red Flag Fleet. She triples the fleet once more to 1800 ships and 75,000 pirates, battles three countries, and ultimately comes out the biggest winner.

“If you rape anyone without permission from your squadron leader, you will be decapitated and disposed of in the ocean. If you loot a town or ship or otherwise harass those who have paid tribute to the fleet, you will be decapitated and disposed of in the ocean.”

Episode Transcript

Opening

Newly widowed Ching Shih insists her heartbroken ward Cheng Pao Tsai (literally Cheng Pao the kid) deliver the message to the pirate captains of her dead husband’s Red Flag Fleet. She spends the afternoon writing his speech and drawing up a list of new rules for the fleet. She even coaches Cheng Pao on how to assume control with confidence, but there he stands on not one but two wooden crates, trembling, his eyes weepy and bloodshot. After Cheng Pao speaks of the death of the commander Cheng Yi, he lays out the new rules, per Ching Shih’s instructions:

▪ If you disobey an order, you get your head chopped off and then you’re thrown into the ocean.

Well, sort of. He’s barely audible and on the verge of tears—in no shape to inspire the captains present.

If there’s anything Ching Shih has learned it’s that you have to be ready to change course in an instant if your plan’s not working. These thugs will be reluctant to take orders from a woman, but she has no choice. She quickly rushes to console Cheng Pao and relieves him of this chore. She climbs up onto the crates herself, straightens her back, and resumes where Cheng Pao left off.

▪ If you steal from the common loot before it has been properly divided, you will be decapitated and tossed into the ocean.

▪ If you rape anyone without permission from your squadron leader, you’ll be decapitated and tossed into the ocean.

▪ (Shift) Captured women deemed ugly will be set free unharmed. (The captains chuckle and Ching Shih smiles. She’s won them over) Captured pretty women can be divvied up  or purchased by members of the fleet. However, if a pirate is awarded or purchases a pretty woman, he is considered married to her and expected to treat her with respect, as a wife should be. If not, he’ll be decapitated and tossed into the ocean.

“One last thing, if you ever try to leave the organization— I will forgive you if you return to the fold promptly and only chop off your ears. If not, I will hunt you and well, I think you know the rest.

There are a few seconds of stunned silence until a lone pirate begins to clap. Others join in until all the captains applaud her wholeheartedly. As brutal and final as having your head chopped off might seem, for these early 19th century Chinese pirates who have endured torturous punishments including keelhauling, it actually sounds quite humane.

Ching Shih doesn’t linger. She steps down from the crates and returns to her suite immediately. As she reasseses her game plan, there’s a tentative knock on the door. She knows instinctively it’s Cheng  Pao, the man/boy adopted by her dead husband expressly to take over command of the fleet should anything happen to the pirate leader. She quickly calculates her next steps and opens the door.

Introduction

I’m Rahaleh. And This is Violent Femme.

History is filled with hellbent heroines whose stories have yet to be told. We’re going to resurrect them, one brutally brave woman, one episode at a time.

This episode is about Ching Shih, a master strategist who took the business of piracy to a whole new level and brought three countries to their knees.

Story

Ten year old Ching Shih is startled awake before dawn by the sound of her own stomach churning loudly with hunger. She’s alarmed to see her father hovering over her before the sun has come up. He’s intoxicated, and as usual, has brought no money or food to feed his six children. In fact, he’s desperately searching for money where there is none, in this flimsy hut where you couldn’t find a single crumb of food even if you turned the place upside down.

Her father’s pinprick pupils stare down Ching Shih with deranged dizziness. She can tell he’s under the influence of a heavy dose of opium. He grabs her hand, as much to steady himself as to pull her close, examing her features.

The last time someone looked at her face so intently was when Ching Shih was born—ripped out of her mother’s womb and thoroughly examined before finally being raised high in the air in triumph and declared “the alert one” by her grandmother. A locally feared matriarch who ran a gambling house and brothel in the village, her grandmother raised her and her siblings after their mother died when Ching Shih was barely a year old. Grandmother always protected them from their addict father. That is until two weeks ago when she died.

Since then the kids have only eaten small scraps a semi-concerned neighbor occasionally drops at their doorstep. The kids are grateful, because they know it’s more the anyone can manage in this densely populated neighborhood in Guandong Province in 1785.

Now at age 10, Ching Shih’s gift of perception is so acutely developed that she can intuit her father’s thoughts. Even in his swollen and blurry state she knows what he’s thinking before he finally says to her: “I have to sell you for food. ”

The announcement comes as a shock to her less alert younger siblings who begin wailing and tugging on Ching Shih’s dress in a futile attempt to keep her close. If she actually believed her father would use the money to feed her brothers and sisters, Ching Shih would gladly have him sell her. But she knows better. She knows the money will only go to feed her father’s opium and gambling addictions.

Ching Shih replies: “Yes, Baa (Papa)! Yes, Baa I beg you sell me for food to keep the little ones happy and fat.” She throws herself at his feet, imploring him to do so right away. He’s taken aback and gets quiet, exactly as she expected. “But Baa if I’m as pretty as you say, we should be able to make money, not just once but for years and years to come.” Ching Shih then throws her own father a seductive look. “You must know some of grandmother’s old clients, men who would pay well.”

When the sun rises two hours later, her father delivers his daughter to her first client. Once the man has finished with her, Ching Shih stumbles out half confused, half enraged. Her child’s idea of sex was fathoms away from the reality she’d just experienced. She has no time to stew about it though. She needs to move fast if she’s to enact the rest of her plan and escape a lifetime of this.

She spots a tea seller behind her father. “Baa, look. Let’s use some of the money to buy tea for the children.” In the two seconds her father turns to look, Ching Shih dashes away and rounds a corner so fast that by the time he turns back around, she’s gone. She never sets eyes on her father again, and although her intention was to go back one day to help her siblings, she never sees them again either.

Ching Shih barely survives by selling scraps of discarded silk, but alone on the streets it’s impossible to keep lecherous men from constantly grabbing her. By the time she’s 12, just as her own sexuality and desire begin to percolate, she comes to the conclusion that fighting men off is not only futile but unprofitable as well. She chooses to go into prostitution of her own volition and sets two rules for herself: 1) Never take a client who is truly disgusting and 2) Always close your eyes and find your own pleasure.

By 1801 at age 26 Ching Shih has her own private suite on a floating brothel in the Pearl River Delta off the South China Sea. Silk painted fabric hangs on her walls. Trinkets and calligraphy fill her sumptuous quarters, all gifts from lovers. She is the most sought after, most business savvy, and legend has it most beautiful prostitute in all of Canton. Her intelligence and knack for strategy make her a magnetic confidante and a favorite with the city’s elite.

One of her clients is the prosperous pirate Cheng Yi, who commands the Red Flag Fleet of pirate ships. Cheng Yi is a passionate man who comes from a long line of feared and revered pirates. He is by turns ruthless and courteous, and has never cared how other men judge him. In fact, everyone knows that he has abducted and adopted a would-be heir, Cheng Pao Tsai, who also happens to be a sometime lover.

Over the course of several visits, Ching Shih provides more than just a sexual escape to Cheng Yi, she provides him strategies to infiltrate the government, culled from her pillow talk with countless high officials. Ching Shih’s uncanny ability to synthesize information and form a cohesive strategy also provides Cheng Yi with an ingenious plan to bring under the umbrella of his Red Flag Fleet several other Chinese pirate organizations, convincing them to join rather than compete with each other. Ching Shih is basically an expert at Mergers and Acquisitions.

As his fleet grows, Ching Yi becomes convinced he has found the perfect life partner. She matches, even surpasses his intelligence, and makes him feel loved. Ching Shih, although smitten by the pirate commander’s exquisite body and soulful essence, is always four steps ahead. She knows she has the upper hand and agrees to marry only if Ching Yi will make her a true partner with equal control over his pirate organization. This is unheard of in a marriage at the time, much less in a marriage to a prostitute. But neither Ching Yi nor Ching Shih has ever given much credence to societal norms.

“Your audacity alone deserves half of all I own,” Ching Yi says.

“Bèn dàn, we both know that you are not rewarding my audacity. You know with certainty I can help you more than double your earnings.”

Cheng Yi bows his head, “Will you be my partner Shih Heang Koo?” That was her nickname. In fact, her real name does not become Ching Shih, as she’s known, until she marries Cheng Yi.

Together, they grow the Red Flag Fleet and groom Cheng Pao so that he too can command portions of the business.

Ching Shih makes good on her predictions by helping Cheng Yi not double, but triple his fleet from 200 to 600 ships. By 1804 the Red Flag Fleet is the largest pirate fleet ever in the history of China. She bears him two sons to boot and they are essentially the power couple of piracy in China.

Unfortunately for Cheng Yi, while off on a mission to Vietnam in 1807, he meets his death though no one’s sure how. Some believe it was an assassination plotted by his wife but most believe it was just a typhoon.

Ching Shih has no time to mourn, she has to solidify control of the organization quickly and prop their adopted son Cheng Pao as the leader. But Cheng Pao is crushed and in deep mourning. “I did not want this. I am better at taking orders than at giving them. Being number two, not number one. You must lead ma’am,” he says to Ching Shih. Of course, she agrees, but…

“Stop it. They will never accept a woman commander; I will lead them through you.”

Ching Shih also gains the loyalty of Cheng Yi’s closest friends, allies, and family members including his nephew and cousins. In order to reassure the pirates and avoid a splintering of the fleet, she gathers most of the captains for a major announcement.

She coaches Cheng Pao for hours on how to appear confident and menacing, but he’s unable to rise to the occasion.

One captain laughs and yells, “Sau Seng diu lei lo sohai!” Shut up. Go bleep your mother idiot!” Others chime in, making it hard for Cheng Pao to continue. It becomes clear to Ching Shih very quickly that Cheng Pao is in no shape to rally the captains. She relieves him of his duties and takes the helm. “Silence, if you possess an ounce of respect for the deceased who made you who you are today. Silence.”

She takes over where Cheng Pao left off, ennumerating the Red Flag Fleet’s new code.

▪ If you rape anyone without permission from your squadron leader, you will be decapitated and disposed of in the ocean.

▪ If you have sex with anyone while on duty, you will be decapitated and disposed of in the ocean.

▪ If you loot a town or ship or otherwise harass those who have paid tribute to the fleet, you will be decapitated and disposed of in the ocean.

▪ If you so much as take shore-leave without permission, you will be decapitated and disposed of in the ocean.

In the center of this group of captains, a short squat man with one arm glances compassionately at another, who is missing an eye. Both men were maimed as a result of the torture they experienced under Cheng Yi’s command. Both men notice something different today. Ching Shih does not mention any type of torture as punishment at all. No mention of keelhauling, which half the time leads to a slow and horrible death, and the other half of the time leaves pirates with missing limbs, no eyesight, or with a body covered in open wounds. Sometimes the pirates are unable to work at sea again and spend the rest of their days begging on the streets of Canton. No, what she’s proposing, swift death, is way better. Clear. Concise. And humane.

“If you try to leave the organization but return to the fold immediately, begging for forgiveness, I will take pity on you and only chop off your ears. Otherwise, I will hunt you and well, I think the rest does not bear repeating.” The men glance at each other again, thinking “ok well that might be a bit extreme.Nah. Really, ears are expendable, aren’t they?”

Ching Shih retires to her quarters to draft the rest of her business plan.

Cheng Pao knocks on her door and she lets him in. He is eight years her junior, and must be won over completely. Otherwise, she can’t predict what kind of man will emerge after he’s finished grieving, finished being confused, and thinks he’s ready to lead. She brings him into her suite and comforts him in all the ways she knows how.

Within three years Ching Shih grows the fleet by more than 10 fold. With her knack for strategy, and obsessive organization and administrative systems, by 1810 she has painstakingly developed a seamless operation to deploy her 1800 ships and 75,000 pirates. She doesn’t just run the business of piracy, that is looting, blackmailing, extortion, etc. She has subsidiary businesses and joint-ventures that include a network of farmers who supply food to the group. She has a vast spy network with tentacles that reach deep into the Qing Dynasty, and a pay for safe passage system with merchants who want security without risk of capture by her pirates. She has her hand in most of the elements of life, both criminal and non-criminal, in one of the most densely populated regions in the world.

Ching Shih’s talent is not relegated strictly to business, but extends to politics as well. China is dominated by the Mandarin Qing Dynasty and she is able to manipulate government officials by controlling much of China’s salt trade. When she gets pushback, she brings them to their knees by destroying government ships, disabling the Chinese navy and threatening the country’s ability to trade at all at a time when their coffers are empty and they desperately need it.

The Chinese government eventually reaches its limit and decides to end what is essentially occupation by Ching Shih’s organization. During the cold winter of 1808, China devises a plan to end her power over the China Seas. Aided by the Portuguese Navy, the Qing Dynasty engages in several battles with Ching Shih’s fleet, but is suppressed easily by the pirates. At one point China even resorts to sending small suicide boats packed with explosives, but it’s a puny effort compared to the behemoth Red Flag Fleet and Ching Shih’s enterprise does not suffer any notable setback. But the government is determined and enlists the help of Portuguese and British ships whose countries have interests in the region.

In late 1809, as Portuguese and Chinese ships fire on pirate junks with their artillery, the Red Flag Fleet suffers several consequetive setbacks and their adversaries draw them closer into the waters off Macau.

Then the Chinese government forbids all non military ships to enter Ching Shih’s waters in an attempt to close her off and starve the pirates. “We lived three weeks on caterpillars and boiled rice”. The kidnapped Richard Glasspoole, fourth officer of the British East India marquis of Ely was Onboard one of Ching Shih’s vessels during the blockade.Following that move by the Chinese government, Cheng Pao who is now married to Ching Shih, convinces his wife to abandon all policies of compassion toward the Cantonese villagers in favor of ruthless violence.

The pirates torch entire villages and kidnap survivors to ransom or murder. Even prisoners like Glasspoole and his men are obliged to participate or lose their lives. Glasspoole says pirates would return with two heads slung around their necks, the heads joined together by pigtails. But Ching Shih likes Glasspoole and releases him for ransom in December 1809, unharmed, just before the Battle of Tiger’s Mouth.

In the Humen Strait near Macau, known to the Portuguese as Boca de Tigre, the pirates are forced to flee a fierce round of fire, suffering the loss of several ships. They flee into the Hiang San River, which has extremely shallow waters. The Portuguese then blockade the River Mouth and trap the pirates. Cheng Pao pleads with his wife, “There is no escape. It’s time to fight to the death my love.”

Ching Shih responds, “There is always an escape. We have to find it. If not for ourselves, we have to find it for us then for our people? What about these men? What about their families? Who will take care of their children if they die?”

“I’d rather go down with the ships. I cannot not wither away on land, in a prison. I belong on the sea!”

It is not in my nature to die, I always survive. I always survive. I will fight for you; I will fight for all of us. I will find a way.”

Ching Shih surrenders in January 1810 and that February, Ching Shih negotiates an advantageous exit deal for herself, Cheng Pao, and her crew. Extraordinarily she is dealt with as a nation unto herself and is allowed to keep all her loot. Top ranking pirates in her fleet receive official government postings in the Qing Dynasty. And for Cheng Pao she secures the position of admiral in the Guandong Navy Fleet. She also gets the government to sanction her marriage to Cheng Pao, which was not allowed not only because she was a widow and widows were not allowed to remarry, but also because technically he was her son through the adoption. Eventually, the couple has two children before Ching Shih is widowed a second time in 1822 with the death of Cheng Pao, at age 36. 

Ching Shih retires in Macau and opens a casino, happy to live a peaceful life surrounded by her children and grandchildren. But in 1839 at the age of 65 she is called to serve as advisor to the Chinese head of state during the First Opium War. The Chinese are battling the British, who fight to keep the opium trade free and open despite global outrage and a Chinese ban. Ching Shih answers the call to help form mititary strategy to defeat the Brits, not because she is itching to be part of the action once more, but because she has never forgotten her father’s crazed eyes doped out on opium. She still hears her screaming siblings, still feels them tugging on her clothes, begging her to stay.

Commentary

By all standards, except fame, Ching Shih is the most successful pirate in history. But, the word pirate doesn’t do justice to her accomplishments. She was a CEO of the highest caliber and today she would be running a Fortune 500 company. Companies in existence today with about the same number of employees as her Red Flag Fleet: Delta, Google. Comparable companies in her time? None. She was a master strategist who should be studied and had she been a man, history would extoll the ways in which she went toe to toe with nations far more powerful than her. Because she was a woman, history thought it more important to expound and expand on her brutality and her start as a prostitute. The truth is she was mostly great and as brutal as necessary for her time and place. But mostly great doesn’t cut it for women. You have to be a saint.

Outro

Violent Femme is a production of HaiBrau Entertainment. It is written and hosted by Rahaleh Nassri.  Original Music by Ryan Rumery. Some characters depicted are fictional and some scenes and dialogue are invented for creative and storyline purposes. If you like this episode please leave us a review and rating.