Ching Shih was a prominent pirate in Qing China who terrorised the South China Sea in the early 19th century by controlling the infamous Red Flag Fleet.
Ching Shih was working as a prostitute on a floating Canton brothel in 1801 when the Pirate Cheng I either proposed they marry, or he sent pirates to raid the ship and bring her to him. Cheng I and Ching Shih married and ran the Red Flag Fleet of ships together. They ransomed ships and captives and spread a terror across the sea. By 1807 they had assembled all of the pirates operating along the southern coast of China into a league of subordinate and allied fleets. Upon her husband’s death that same year the fleet of ships began to scatter but Ching Shih assumed control. It is rumoured that she said “Under the leadership of a man you have all chosen to flee. We shall see how you prove yourselves under the hand of a woman.”
Ching Shih united the fleet by issuing a code of laws, including a clause about how to treat women captives, any man caught assaulting one would be sentenced to death. If a man wanted to keep instead of sell a women captive he would be forced to marry her. Insubordination or theft from common fund was punished by death by beheading, deserters would lose their ears, stealing loot would lead to a pirate being flogged on the first instance and beheaded on the second.
Ching Shih captured Chinese, Portugese, and British naval ships without defeat. The Chinese government, desperate to end her reign of terror offered amnesty to all pirates and she retired rich.