Hey guys! so I have decided to start making posts about the things I’ve learned whilst writing my novel, I Could Never Rescue You. For those who aren’t aware, ICNRY is a high seas adventure tale. So you guys can look forward to posts about pirates, and ships and the like!
Our first guest is the pirate queen, Ching Shih, a personal hero of mine and a woman who got away with it all, by a loophole.
She was born around 1775ish in the Guangdong province of China. She was a prostitute in her home town and in 1801, she married her husband, a well-known pirate. After their marriage, it is said she participated in her husband’s piracy.
After his death, she inherited his fleet of pirate ships and ruled with an iron fist. She imposed taxes on her sailors (approximately 50-70 thousand pirates in her husband’s time). She also had a very strict set of laws (consequences for several being beheading). They weren’t allowed to harm or steal from those who helped them. For the most part, women were set free, unless taken as a bride by one of the pirates. If he took a bride, the pirate had to be faithful to his wife. Rape was punishable by death.
Near the end of her career, Ching Shih was offered amnesty by the Chinese government. Unfortunately, in order to get this amnesty, Shih would have had to bend a knee to the government, which was considered a shameful surrender. Instead, she brought her stepson to a governor and asked him to marry them. He did, and as thanks, they knelt to him. Since she had technically “bent the knee” to a government official, she and many of her pirates were given amnesty and her honor remained intact.
Years later, she brought her children back to her hometown and opened a gambling house and brothel. She died at the age of sixty-nine.
And that is the story of an amazing woman who commanded thousands of men, became a pirate lord, and got away with it by a technicality.