The Terror of the South China Sea Was a Woman
Here’s the irresistible story of the most mysterious pirate to ever sail the seven seas, “The Terror of the South China Sea” — a female pirate named Chang Shih, plucked from a brothel…
The Incredible Story of the Baddest Female Pirate to Ever Sail the Seas
by Ben Roffee for RYOT
“When people talk about the most successful pirate that ever lived, it better be about one particular badass that commanded a fleet of as many as 80,000 sailors aboard 1,500 ships during the early 1800s.
This pirate’s name was Chang Shih, who didn’t exactly look the part by our Disneyfied standards for one fairly obvious reason: she was a lady.
Plucked from a brothel in Canton by invading pirates, she was married off to a notorious pirate named Zheng Yi in 1801. But she didn’t resign to the idle life of a house ship wife, opting instead to help her husband be even better at piracy than he already was.
Together, they patched together a coalition of competing pirates groups into the the Red Flag Fleet, which became an incontestable naval force in the South China Sea at its height. When Zheng Yi died in 1807, there was no other choice but for Chang Shih to take the reins…”
Click here for the rest from RYOT.
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