Ching Shih, the Pirate Queen Essay Example

Pirates have stormed the seas for centuries, some small and insignificant, others have ravaged those on land causing chaos and destruction. The leader of one of the best coalitions of pirates in history was a fierce, dangerous, and powerful pirate. Her name was Ching Shih. Although history has many names for this pirate queen the one thing that they have in common is that she was the best pirate in recorded history. Ching lived in a time when the turmoil of world politics was high and the respect for women was extremely low. Learning more about Ching Shih can show how with the right balance of fear and power anyone can become a ruler, she can also show how anyone can prosper with less favorable conditions or how to manipulate those conditions, and in the end, she can show how to properly create a truce that is more like a victory than anything. 

In the early nineteenth century, a successful pirate named Cheng I came upon a woman named Shih Yang along the coast of Canton, China. Yang got married to Cheng I and would become known as Ching Shih and face odds that most people would crack under, but instead, she prospered. China was under extreme pressure from Britain, this was known as the Opium Wars, and if that wasn’t enough Shih had to accommodate for the lack of respect for women at this time. With all these “less favorable” conditions Shih was able to prosper and give a prime example of how to do it. Laura Duncombe in her article Pirate Women: The Princesses, Prostitute, and Privateers Who Rules the Seven Seas,” Cheng I Sao, also known as Ching Shih, is very much a product of China…. Whether women were wives, concubines, or unmarried daughters, bound feet or not-were seldom educated during Cheng I Sao’s lifetime” (pp.169-173). Women’s rights, or lack thereof, along with the weekend state of China, Ching Shih, with the help of her husband, was able to manipulate these circumstances and create an astounding pirate fleet that would be unrivaled throughout history.

Ching Shih lost her husband and gained full control of 400 ships and 70,000 crew members. With all this power she needed someone to help her control all 6 of her squadrons. She married her adopted son, one of the only people she trusted, and made him a general of one of the biggest fleets, the Red Flag Fleet. She then created a set of rules and punishments that struck fear into her crew creating an unadulterated trust in her crew to her. The passage from Oxford University describes her coalition as being,” No longer haphazard, the pirates followed a formal charter..this new form of cooperation succeeded. By the end of 1805, the pirate confederacy was a force to be reckoned with” (p.5). This charter, which included punishments, struck fear into her crew’s hearts that created absolute trust in her and subsequently unified Shih’s coalition. Shih ruled the sea and dictated the land, which left her in the ultimate power spot. China could not defeat her so China decided to “contract” other nations to get rid of her fleet. They all failed. As described by Logan Nye in the passage How A Prostitute Turned Pirate Queen Defeated 3 Navies at Once,” The emperor took his loss personally and ordered the Chinese navy to challenge her fleet. He enlisted the aid of the British and Portuguese navies in the effort and even hired Dutch mercenaries to assist” (p.6). By the example that Shih has given, one can see how to rule with fear in one hand and power in the other. The forces that the emperor recruited, battled with Chings Shih’s forces for over two years, where she continuously gained wealth and power. Ching Shih was a smart woman. She knew that her empire would fall someday, so she thought might as well be prepared for when that day comes. 

Ching Shih knew her day was coming that her coalition would break apart, so instead of waiting for that day to come, she decided to take action. Shih sent her husband to make negotiations with the government but he came back empty-handed. Ching Shih then realized that in order to get what she wanted, which was the biggest surrender and largest pardon bargain in history, was that Shih herself would need to lead the negotiations. In the passage A Pirates Life for She… the text states,” She walked away from the surrender with a small fleet for her own private use; a good government job for her husband, Chang Pao; her own treasure; and amnesty for all but a few hundred of her thousands of pirates…they also got a check from the government when they retired. By all measures, this surrender was a tremendous success” (Duncombe, Laura pp.194-195). “Tremendous success”, is exactly what Ching Shih accomplished, not just in the surrender, but in her life. When creating this truce the negotiations were almost entirely one-sided and this is largely due to the reputation that Ching Shih made for herself.

If anything can be taken away from the example the Ching Shih led in her life it is that anyone can become a ruler in their own right and end in a way just as spectacular as their journey. Knowing about Ching Shih and her story shows how anyone can rise to power and be prominent in anything that they wish to be. If Ching Shih did something different, bigger, better, or even more dangerous do you think that her name would be as well known as the infamous Blackbeard or Sir Francis Drake? Either way, her accomplishments can show anyone how to become a ruler.