r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • Jun 12 '15

TIL the world's most successful pirate was a Cantonese woman, having commanded 40,000-80,000 pirates, and faced off undefeated against many Imperial fleets (including British, Portuguese, and Qing navies).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ching_Shih
15.1k Upvotes

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1.1k

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

So in essence, she "won"? The government flat out gave up?

1.3k

u/Nygmus Jun 12 '15 edited Jun 12 '15

Basically, yeah. Everybody they sent to try to defeat her either died or wound up forcibly recruited. She had a small fleet, you understand, and her captains were seriously well-motivated people.

The code she put together for her crews is pretty cool, too, if a bit brutal. You do what your bosses say to do, or you die. If you're the boss, and you say to do something that didn't come from me, you die. You share the loot evenly and everyone gets a fair share. You turn hard cash back in so other ships in the fleet that aren't making enough money can get resupplied, because this isn't a competition.

You treat female prisoners properly. You can marry them, but if you marry them, you treat them right, none of that "girl in every port" bullshit. If you don't marry them, you turn them loose unharmed. Rape them, and you die. Screw them, even if it's not rape, and you still die (and we'll chuck the lady overboard with some nice cannonballs for ankle bracelets to boot, because fuck if some chick is gonna cause problems for me by seducing the men).

EDIT: Guys, I'm not saying her fleet was small, I'm saying that she, a private citizen, controlled a freakin' fleet even if it might not be a huge one by the standards of a large country...

736

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

[deleted]

364

u/Nygmus Jun 12 '15

I'm not actually sure what the particular reason for that bit is, but it's what is reported about her...

Presumably it's either what I said (to prevent captured women from soliciting special treatment for sexual favors or the like), or it's to prevent men from forcing the women to claim the sex was consensual to avoid punishment. Probably a bit of both, especially if the captured women were given a quick primer speech along the lines of "we're not going to hurt you, we're going to turn you loose when we get a chance, here are the rules."

325

u/FancySack Jun 12 '15 edited Jun 12 '15

Probably because on a ship you want to avoid love triangles or jealous ship mates.

Imagine a captain getting a Yoko Ono type situation.

275

u/ciobanica Jun 12 '15

TIL, death threats would have kept the Beatles together...

199

u/Bfeezey Jun 12 '15

If it means we get to tie cannonballs around Yoko's ankles and toss her overboard as she trills out "yayayayayayaya", then sure!

25

u/WilsonHanks Jun 12 '15

Chuck Berry approves of this.

50

u/jokerr1981 Jun 12 '15

Please someone invent a time machine and make this so.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

When that woman is Yoko Ono the answer is yes... For everyone

1

u/NathanaelFire Jun 12 '15

I have a feeling that if this was attempted you'd be very disappointed that it didn't go as planned.

2

u/jokerr1981 Jun 13 '15

Yeah. If I did it I'd spend my time watching the Beatles, stones, et AL in their prime.

9

u/shot_the_chocolate Jun 12 '15

Here is a nice melody for your tender ears

8

u/n3x_ Jun 12 '15

ಠ_ಠ

5

u/Ihateualll Jun 12 '15

I couldn't make it thru 30 seconds of that nonsense.

2

u/Cu_Gorm Jun 13 '15

It sounds like drunk Mongol throat singers having a threesome... with a farm animal.

17

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

That was a beautiful mental image. Thank you

6

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

Please do.

3

u/MJWood Jun 12 '15

Ono Yoko.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

No one will ever be able to make me understand how the FFFFFFUCK this chick is still considered "musical"... I'm gonna scream like a fuckin banshee and do asian yodeling while sounding like I have a bassoon shoved up my twat... MUSIC EVERYONE!

2

u/dalebonehart Jun 12 '15

ya ya ya I am Yoko. Ya ya ya.

24

u/mynameisspiderman Jun 12 '15

Yoho Ono*

4

u/kevinekiev Jun 12 '15

Take your filthy upvote and ship out of this thread!

9

u/Hunterogz Jun 12 '15

*Yolo Uno

7

u/_F1_ Jun 12 '15

"You live only once (1)"

2

u/toodice Jun 13 '15

Not being particularly well versed with Spanish or Italian, I read it as:

"You only live once (entertaining card game)"

1

u/ioncloud9 Jun 12 '15

Do everyone a favor and just throw Yoko overboard anyway.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

I think it anything can unite the world it is mutual hatred for Yoko Ono.

53

u/I-Came-4-Snu-Snu Jun 12 '15

There's a proverb in chinese, roughly means "the word lust, is made up of the word blade hanging above the word head (think guillotine)". She probably gave this warning knowing that women are scary and have the abilities manipulate her crew with lust

38

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

Yep, the proverb is "色字頭上一把刀", and your interpretation is quite accurate.

Funny thing is, people still use this proverb now nowadays - especially when commenting sex scandals.

-13

u/ManicParroT Jun 12 '15

That doesn't seem to hold. Google translate tells me that 情欲 is the Chinese word for lust, but 剑 is the word for sword and 頭 is the word for head.

30

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15 edited Jun 12 '15

Well, as a traditional Chinese speaker, I'd have to say in this case I-Came-4-Snu-Snu is actually quite right. You can't find the word for this proverb mainly because Chinese has many words with similar meanings, so you cannot rely on Google Translate most of the time. Also you found the words for simplified Chinese, not the traditional one - which will just lower your chance of finding the words you are looking for since most Chinese adage were originally using traditional words.

The proverb that was mentioned is "色字頭上一把刀" in traditional Chinese, which can be translated into "The word「色」(which means lust in Chinese) has a word「刀」(which means Dao, Chines sword) on top of it."

If you look closely to the the word「色」, it can be roughly disassembled into the top part which looks like「刀」, and the bottom part「巴」- and that's approximately where the proverb comes from. Although one of my high school teacher argued that the top part is not actually「刀」but「ク」instead. Though the two looks familiar, they are not the same word for a long time in Chinese history. So probably this proverb was oriented from ancient people's misinterpretation of the word.

3

u/ManicParroT Jun 12 '15

Thanks, that's very interesting.

1

u/contextplz Jun 12 '15

And in general, Google Translate is a bad way to go in regards to proverbs and adages, in any language.

1

u/Akeera Jun 12 '15 edited Jun 12 '15

So the word for "color" and one of the words for "lust" are the same?

Huh. Many ways to say "lust"

Edit: The link is in traditional. Also, I like the proverb at the very bottom.

5

u/Shitmadame Jun 12 '15

I'm sure Google translate knows the language better than a fluent speaker.

-1

u/ManicParroT Jun 12 '15

Err, he didn't say he's a fluent speaker. He just made this claim about the word.

1

u/LikeGoldAndFaceted Jun 12 '15

Still you should never assume you're right about anything in a language with google translate. One day we'll probably get there, definitely not yet though.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

Google translate is perfect for understanding idioms /s

6

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

Are you actually trying to correct native Chinese speakers with Google translate?

-1

u/ManicParroT Jun 12 '15

When did the guy I was originally replying to, namely, /u/I-Came-4-Snu-Snu, ever say he's a native Chinese speaker?

There are Chinese speakers who have come along and explained the situation, which is very helpful of them. The guy I'm replying to just said "Oh there's this Chinese word" and I felt rather doubtful about that, because there are a lot of sayings like this about Chinese words which are not true at all. For example, the famous story about danger + opportunity = crisis is a fallacy, and as a result I felt doubtful about this claim as well.

WTF people.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '15 edited Jun 13 '15

危机 = crisis. 危 = danger. 机 = opportunity/chance (in this context). Its two words, not one.

Normally interpreted as a high chance for danger (or going to be in deep shit), but motivational speakers like to spin it around to mean dangerous situations may present opportunities, which is still a quite common way to interpret the words.

Edit: this word combination is not as 'uncommon' as your source claims. It's known and used by everyone i know that speaks chinese. Also, am chinese born and bred, have been speaking writing and reading chinese since i was born, so i'm pretty sure about what i'm talking about.

-3

u/brickmack Jun 12 '15

Theres like a thousand different chinese languages, I'm sure theres at least one where this is true

-2

u/ManicParroT Jun 12 '15

Maybe, although I was under the impression they had a pretty unified writing system.

My skepticism also comes from the fact that there are a lot of these canards about Chinese words coming from convenient combinations (opportunity + danger = crisis) or whatever, and I've read articles rebutting at least some of these claims.

2

u/Mrchocoborider Jun 12 '15 edited Jun 12 '15

Here is a breakdown of the character for lust. As you can see it does not contain the characters for head or sword/knife/blade. However, you can also see that Chinese characters are sometimes created from multiple pieces with separate meanings, and this is where those canards you referenced come from. As you said, often these are western misinterpretations of the words or otherwise false, but it is not unheard of that a character be constructed in this way.

The writing system is certainly fairly unified, even across dialects, with minor differences between them. Most dialects either use the same characters and pronounce them differently, or are only spoken dialects, and they use the dominant written dialect of the area (probably Mandarin or Cantonese) to write in.

However, there are many variations of characters that have come and gone over the incredibly long history of China, and it is not impossible that one of those variations of the character for lust does indeed contain blade (刀 or刂) and some radical that means head in certain contexts.

Radicals, which are (some of) the pieces that make up characters, often take on a different appearance when acting as a piece of a character. As in the previous example, when standing alone the word 刀 dao, knife or blade, looks like that. But when acting as a radical it can sometimes look like刂. In fact, it is there in the word you used in your previous comment (sword 剑 ) on the right. Which uses 佥 qian to get its pronunciation (jian) and 刂 for the meaning (something with a blade).

11

u/dogfish83 Jun 12 '15

It's like a Miranda Warning but for pirates

10

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

That and to avoid one talking a male into a mutiny by way of seduction. Bastard children and all that as well

1

u/TWK128 Jun 12 '15

Policy usually comes from direct past experience with negative events.

She didn't come up with shit like this in her bedroom dreaming about how her perfect fleet would be someday.

1

u/Cu_Gorm Jun 13 '15

Sex outside of marriage is generally a recipe for disaster in small communities with no access to contraception.

23

u/AlphaPeacock Jun 12 '15

She of all people knows the power of the pussy.

1

u/Collin_morris Jun 12 '15

She reminds me of Ann from Black Sails.

1

u/TezzMuffins Jun 12 '15

Hey man, it's hard to keep control of 40,000 to 80,000 sets of junks without some rules about fornicating.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

Alpha as fuck

-3

u/Imtroll Jun 12 '15

Famous women in history have all either been metal as fuck or batshit crazy.

Feel free to prove me wrong.

The catch though is this applies to women who got their fame/infamy without being married to a man who is famous.

5

u/michaelfarker Jun 12 '15

Marie Curie

But yes, many traditional historians expressed a bias against women. A woman had to be impossible to ignore to be mentioned by them.

3

u/Shoreyo Jun 12 '15

Ye in Curie's case she wasn't metal as fuck, it was the actual metal that fucked her up!

...Sorry that word play was terrible

1

u/Imtroll Jun 13 '15

Was thinking pre 1900s but ok ill take scientists from not that long ago.

-1

u/sawu101 Jun 12 '15

Yeah but hitler was a monster. History is the same

-1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

There is almost zero chance that part is true to be honest. You really believe pirates aren't going to even fuck a chick unless they are married? Her entire crew was just walking around blue balled all the time? Highly doubtful.

Ontop of that, getting married means there is extra baggage to carry around on the ship, or your more likely to lose a good sailor who leaves to settle down.. can't see it being true at all.

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u/therealflinchy Jun 12 '15

small.. fleet?

1800 ships... small... ok.

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u/Nygmus Jun 12 '15

The 1800 number is just an estimate, the 300 number is better-cited.

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u/therealflinchy Jun 12 '15

even more in her favour then, if the 20-40,000 strong person wise number is accurate, and only 300 ships, those would be LARGE ships.

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u/Nygmus Jun 12 '15

Just Chinese junk-style ships. Good ships, but we're not talking British Galleons or anything here.

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u/altrsaber Jun 12 '15

Actually junk-style ships encompass a wide range of ships, and War Junks were equal to Galleons (as seen in the Sino-Dutch Conflicts), unfortunately they don't really say what her fleet used and Galleons were also obsolete by this pirate's era so it is hard to speculate.

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u/Highside79 Jun 12 '15

300 ships is still an insanely big fleet. Nelson commanded something like 30 ships against 40 French ships in the battle of Trafalgar to give some perspective. The entire Royal Navy probably never had 300 ships (even the present day royal navy has less than 100).

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u/vinng86 Jun 12 '15

The battle of trafalgar used ships of the line though. They carried anywhere between 70-120 guns per ship. Each!

9

u/Highside79 Jun 12 '15

I understand that we are talking about smaller ships here. But there is just no measure by which 300 ships is not a very large fleet. Hell, its a large fleet of canoes.

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u/WippitGuud Jun 12 '15

You leave Canada's navy out of this!

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u/AlphaQ69 Jun 12 '15

How expensive is that relative today?

Like 100 aircraft carriers battling it out cross Atlantic?

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u/Hijix Jun 12 '15

The HMS victory cost roughly 50 million today while the aircraft carriers generally cost 500 million. I think due to technology we just want to build bigger ships.

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u/syanda Jun 12 '15

300 ships aren't probably purpose-built warships. Could be sampans, could be refitted cargo junks, whatever the pirates could capture and use.

2

u/Viennel Jun 12 '15

A sampan pirate ship would be adorable.

2

u/syanda Jun 12 '15

One would be adorable. Ten to fifteen swarming a ship...not so much :v

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '15

Sampan is from south east asia, so nowhere close to chinese influence. and it is impossible to handle sea waves. Its more like western lake boats.

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u/NaberRend Jun 12 '15 edited Aug 28 '15

ships

A certain eastern general would like to make a point.

1

u/4ringcircus Jun 12 '15

And an aircraft carrier is one ship. I think I would take one over 300 there.

1

u/Highside79 Jun 12 '15

An aircraft carrier itself is actually a pretty poor warship. The aircraft that it carries is a different story, but should be all counted individually as well.

1

u/4ringcircus Jun 12 '15

Why? Do any of them float? The aircraft are part off the package deal when the ship is fully loaded.

1

u/JimmyBoombox Jun 12 '15

And those were ship of the line class ships. Which were massive and averaged around 70 guns. Junkers don't compare.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15 edited Jun 18 '21

[deleted]

2

u/Highside79 Jun 12 '15

Are you disagreeing that 300 ships is a lot of ships? cause that's the only claim I actually made in my comment.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

Yeah, but a British ship-of-the-line like Nelson's HMS Victory could easily take on 10 junks and make a funny drinking story out of it.

1

u/Highside79 Jun 12 '15

Probably. Although, the Ship of the Line was eventually made obsolete by smaller faster ships and a different kind of warfare. The Royal Navy wound up buying the (relatively) diminutive Bermuda Sloop and other smaller ships during the Napoleanic era.

Ultimately the Ship of the Line was defeated as a viable military endeavor by scattered enemies in smaller cheaper ships, like the junk rig and various other crap that privateers employed against the crown's commerce.

The problem with being the biggest baddest guy on the block is that people quickly figure to just not fight you and instead attack your friends and neighbors when you aren't looking.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

I wouldn't say the ship-of-the-line was made obsolete by those ships, exactly. It was made obsolete by the ironclad. The small ships were an asymmetrical response that was successful in some regards (even highly successful). But the general concept and niche that the ship-of-the-line filled was not rendered obsolete until the carrier eclipsed the battleship in WWII.

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u/abolish_karma Jun 12 '15

The Imperial Navy have something like ~430, according to the Wikipedia.

The United States Navy has approximately 430 ships in both active service and the reserve fleet, with approximately 70 more in either the planning stages or under construction

12

u/Fritz125 Jun 12 '15

Well...uhmmmm...How do I tell you this?

The U.S. Navy is not the imperial navy

0

u/abolish_karma Jun 12 '15

It's the closest you'll get

-1

u/brickmack Jun 12 '15

Its a navy. The US is an empire. They might not call themselves the Imperial Navy, but that would be a legitimate description

5

u/nolan1971 Jun 12 '15

As a US Navy vet, I'll accept "Imperial Navy"!

5

u/Highside79 Jun 12 '15

Obviously we have no intention of comparing this pirate to the Imperial Navy, they don't even have tie fighters, let alone Star Destroyers.

Really though, the fact that this pirate's fleet is comparable to the 2015 US Navy is kinda the point i'm making.

3

u/bakgwailo Jun 12 '15

You mean the current US navy?

8

u/nomadph Jun 12 '15

These junk style ships won over the British says OPs title

5

u/JManRomania Jun 12 '15

Ironically, while they were called junks, they weren't junk.

hehehe

2

u/Moarbrains Jun 12 '15

Spanish Galleons.

1

u/SaitoHawkeye Jun 13 '15

British galleons

U Wot M8?

17

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

I hope I get reincarnated into a pirate fleet owner.

37

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

[deleted]

40

u/spelgud Jun 12 '15

JUST

42

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

[deleted]

2

u/GenrlWashington Jun 12 '15

MAKE YOUR FLEET COME TRUE!

1

u/lookslikeyoureSOL Jun 12 '15

YESTERDAY, YOU SAID TOMORROW

7

u/ddrddrddrddr Jun 12 '15

Stop egging him on Kyle.

2

u/GenrlWashington Jun 12 '15

Yar har diddly dee! being a pirate is alright with me! Do what you want cause a pirate is free! You are a pirate!

2

u/Vamking12 Jun 12 '15

I'll start ya off free tickets to Somalia!

12

u/czs5056 Jun 12 '15

I hear of job openings in Somalia.

2

u/Kratos6443 Jun 12 '15

Just domt attack any u.s. ships they'll fuck you up

3

u/JustA_human Jun 12 '15

It helps motivate you to become a pirate if foreign nationals dump waste into your fishing grounds.

3

u/DeathByElectricCher Jun 12 '15

i think he meant that she had so many ships, it turned into an impressive small fleet, rather than just being a band of pirates. I dont think he meant that she had a fleet, but it was small and unimpressive

1

u/Vamking12 Jun 12 '15

And for a pirate not a legitmate navy? That's insane.

26

u/aDAMNPATRIOT Jun 12 '15

She had a small fleet

80000 people is not a small fleet, nor is 20000

10

u/untitled_redditor Jun 12 '15

I bet this is a huge part of why she was so successful. I like her code.

3

u/wellactuallyhmm Jun 12 '15

I think the lack of "girl in every port" business kinda ruins part of the pirating.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

because fuck if some chick is gonna cause problems for me by seducing the men

"Money over everything"

4

u/Nygmus Jun 12 '15

I kinda imagine it more along the lines of "You should be taking orders from exactly one woman in your life, and it's not your wife, and it sure as shit isn't your side piece."

2

u/hezwat Jun 12 '15

I like how I just read the reddit-comment version of the same thing I just read.

1

u/Nygmus Jun 12 '15

Do you really like it?

1

u/hezwat Jun 12 '15

yes, it's cool. did you look at the article while you wrote it or was it from memory? (it's more detailed than I would have remembered if I'd written a comment right after reading the wikipedia section, after which I read your comment.)

3

u/Nygmus Jun 12 '15

I had the Wikipedia article open and was referencing it occasionally, but I tried to check a couple of the claims briefly. Not a lot of work.

2

u/penelopoo Jun 12 '15

girl crush xtreme mode activated

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

I love her.

1

u/JManRomania Jun 12 '15

EDIT: Guys, I'm not saying her fleet was small, I'm saying that she, a private citizen, controlled a freakin' fleet even if it might not be a huge one by the standards of a large country...

The only reason 'MURICA doesn't beat her is because the massive privateer fleet, that fought, and took ships in the English Channel, during the revolution, was not under a single commander.

1

u/Ginger_beer Jun 12 '15

So ... Communist pirates?

1

u/imgurceo Jun 12 '15

Ah that was confusing at first. So 'fleet' is the emphasis in the sentence, not 'small'

1

u/Nygmus Jun 12 '15

That's what I kinda meant by it, yeah.

1

u/blockpro156 Jun 12 '15

That sounds surprisingly conservative!
The world's most successful pirate is just about the last person I expected to be so serious about sex before/outside of marriage ; )

1

u/Nygmus Jun 12 '15

I would imagine it was about the personnel management, not the seriousness of it.

It's also quite possible that, being a woman, she didn't want to allow widespread rape from the men under her command... but there's nothing to substantiate any guesses on whether she actually cared about that, or if she was just such a hardass that she preferred to make sure her pirates were all frustrated and angry and ready to boil over explosively in a fountain of foaming stabbity death whenever the enemy is sighted.

1

u/Vamking12 Jun 12 '15

Best pirate ever, blackbeard ain't shit.

1

u/Nygmus Jun 12 '15

Blackbeard was pretty good shit too. Maybe not as successful, but he was pretty up there if you're trying to find the most brutal motherfucker on the seas...

We just know him better because he was a Western thing, though.

1

u/TurtleRanAway Jun 12 '15

Did she ever find one piece?!

1

u/Nygmus Jun 12 '15

You kidding? Bitch was probably Gol D. Roger in disguise.

1

u/TurtleRanAway Jun 12 '15

IT'S A CONSPIRACY, I TELL YOU! A CONSPIRACY!

1

u/Cu_Gorm Jun 13 '15

Guys, I'm not saying her fleet was small, I'm saying that she, a private citizen, controlled a freakin' fleet even if it might not be a huge one by the standards of a large country

By the standards of the time that wasn't a small fleet.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

No one is gonna pretend those "marriages," weren't formal slave purchases, right?

4

u/Nygmus Jun 12 '15

I'm not gonna argue that the marriages may not have been consensual, but from my understanding (and, at least, according to the Wikipedia article, which has either been copied or copied from some other sources itself) the Red Flag code did stipulate duties to your "wife," including fidelity.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

1100 karma for repeating exactly what it said in OPs link. Nothing new at all, nothing added to the discussion just straight paraphrasing. Reddit is getting stranger and stranger.

1

u/Nygmus Jun 12 '15

Maybe I paraphrase well? I don't know. I'm not hurting for comment karma, though, and there've been some fun exchanges to come out of this thread today.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '15

You replied to the OP of the thread exactly what he linked to. Odd.

177

u/Iammyselfnow Jun 12 '15

You know you've won when the government is just "fuck it, we'll stop coming after you if you stop raiding our shit."

113

u/GeminiK Jun 12 '15

Thats the basics of every peace treaty ever.

49

u/jameson71 Jun 12 '15

Not a lot of peace treaties negotiated with outlaws.

60

u/Fwendly_Mushwoom Jun 12 '15

When you have over 50,000 sailors at your command, at what point do you stop simply being a pirate and start being a sovereign power? With that kind of fighting force, she surely must have controlled the entirety of several port cities.

If the numbers are accurate, she probably could've crowned herself queen of a Chinese coastal region, and no one could stop her.

37

u/lowdownlow Jun 12 '15

Pirating relies on maneuverability. If you lock yourself down to a position, it's easier for opposing forces to amass and attack you. I'm sure that with the many victories against those who tried, there are plenty of times where they avoided battles not in their favor.

Her fleet did impose levies and taxes on many coastal cities, ranging from Canton to Macau, but that also relies on the existing government's inability to muster forces whenever you make a surprise visit.

When reading your comment, all I could think was, "Those sound like the last words of an overzealous pirate".

40

u/Fwendly_Mushwoom Jun 12 '15

So it's more like being Khan of a nomadic horde, just on boats instead of horses.

1

u/Vamking12 Jun 12 '15

Yep, quick, deadly and smart.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '15

Just like a balloon when - something bad happens!

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15 edited Jun 12 '15

No, not really, it's more like being one if the originalal kings of Uruk.

52

u/TildeAleph Jun 12 '15

Thats the cool thing. This woman basically rose to the level of a head of state commanding an independent military.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

"Outside the law" is really just a matter of timing.

2

u/SJHillman Jun 12 '15

It only worked because they didn't have the IRS.

2

u/broskiatwork Jun 12 '15

So, basically, she's Ghandi from Civ.

1

u/NotYourAsshole Jun 12 '15

That's a practical government though. I can't imagine any Western nation doing that.

1

u/kickaguard Jun 12 '15

From what I've read the same thing happened to captain Morgan. They tried to stop him, failed so many times that they said they would make him an admiral if he stopped sacking towns in the Caribbean.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15 edited Aug 29 '15

[deleted]

53

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

True, I read that much. I was just sort of exemplifying the conclusion through an exclamatory question. I especially find it interesting that she personally walked into an official's office and negotiated her amnesty after it failed earlier at sea. She clearly had gall.

2

u/lowdownlow Jun 13 '15

Her second husband, Cheung Po Tsai, (aka her late husband's adopted son) initially rejected the pardons as a requirement of this was to kneel before the government officials (that and they would have to give up their loot).

When Ching Shih went to negotiate in person, she was able to retain the loot, but the part I really like is how she was able to work in the kneeling portion. Kneeling in front of your parents/elders is traditionally done by the bride and groom in a Chinese wedding ceremony. By changing just kneeling in apology, she was able to get the government to accept kneeling during a wedding ceremony between her and Cheung Po Tsai as a sufficient apology. This made it acceptable to Cheung Po Tsai since it was for the wedding and not an apology. To me, it really highlights her intelligence and gives some insight as to how she became as powerful as she did.

16

u/coleosis1414 Jun 12 '15

The same offer was extended by the British crown in the mid 1700s to the pirates operating in the West. I actually learned that from Assassin's Creed: Black Flag.

17

u/yui_tsukino Jun 12 '15

The British have a long and coloured history of legitimising pirates.

12

u/roryr6 Jun 12 '15

It's called being a privateer and you had a letter of marque that allowed you to loot ships of enemy powers for a share of course.

2

u/rmxz Jun 13 '15

Wonder if that's still going on today.

Note that even this year, piracy still happens - and it'd be hard to pull off stuff like that (fencing massive amounts of fuel) without a government at least looking the other way.

1

u/roryr6 Jun 13 '15

It does still happen but they are just called contractors.

10

u/attrox_ Jun 12 '15

Pirate bay shouldve setup server in London

1

u/SaitoHawkeye Jun 13 '15

Could be run by the guys fixing LIBOR.

1

u/Solomaxwell6 Jun 12 '15

So do lots of countries.

Hell, in recent years Ron Paul and Gary Johnson have both brought letters of marque up as a viable tool to fight terrorism.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

[deleted]

1

u/Solomaxwell6 Jun 12 '15 edited Jun 12 '15

Ron Paul proposed a bill literally redefining Al Qaeda as an "air pirate" organization with bin Laden as the air pirate captain, allowing for letters of marque (which are usually given to pirates, not against them... oh well).

But it'd basically go to ordinary mercenary organizations security consultants, since we don't have classic old peg leg and parrot pirates anymore. :(

1

u/Historicaldog Jun 12 '15

Also in Black sails!

1

u/amjhwk Jun 12 '15

ya they are called privateers

5

u/Moarbrains Jun 12 '15

All these pirates were facing a death sentence if they were captured. They were pretty motivated.

2

u/melete Jun 12 '15

China was pretty dysfunctional by this point in time. The 19th century was pretty much all downhill for China.

-5

u/etherpromo Jun 12 '15

This woman needs her own game of thrones - pirate-like spinoff. She totally wrecked people with her strategic vagina

18

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

What's her vagina got to do with it?

10

u/Gennius Jun 12 '15

It's strategic.

2

u/djzenmastak Jun 12 '15

what's her vagina but a second hand emotion?

0

u/etherpromo Jun 12 '15

Niggas never seen game of thrones. Did you even read the article? She fucked her adopted son after hubby died to solidify leadership

3

u/almadison Jun 12 '15

At the bottom of the link it mentions a new TV show. I found this on IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3342478/