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Charmaine Yu

Pirates such as Blackbeard and Jack Sparrow are well known in Western pop culture. But Ching Shih, a woman seafarer from China’s Guangdong province, was just as mighty, if not as famous.
By the late 18th century, the South China Sea had become a haven for pirates. Colonial merchant vessels frequently traversed these waters carrying valuable cargo.
Ching Shih, also known as Zheng Yi Sao, roamed the waters around Tung Chung Bay off what is today Hong Kong’s Lantau Island. She was a pirate queen who fought against the British, the Portuguese and the Qing navy while ruling her own empire at sea.
She was born in 1775 near Xinhui in Guangdong province as Shi Yang. Little is known about her early years, but it is said she worked in the sex trade on a floating Tanka brothel.
According to American historian Dian Murray, author of the 1981 article “One Woman’s Rise to Power: Cheng I’s Wife and the Pirates”, Ching married Zheng Yi, from a well-known family of pirates, in 1801. She accordingly adopted the name “Zheng Yi Sao”, literally meaning “the wife of Zheng Yi”.
Guangdong pirates of the early 19th century were paralysed by infighting, but Zheng Yi consolidated them, offering a viable escape from poverty.
He was “the unifier and patriarch, his wife was consolidator and organizer”, according to Murray, but “together their major achievement was the unification of small gangs into a formidable confederation that by 1804 included 400 junks and 70,000 men”.

The pirate couple organised their confederation into six semi-autonomous squadrons – red, black, white, green, blue and yellow – each commanded by its own leader.
The number of junks increased to 2,000 after the squadrons each signed an official contract with the confederation in 1805.
The Zhengs were so successful that “within a year, they precipitated the downfall of the provincial commander-in-chief and the death of one of his leading generals,” wrote Murray.
Historical accounts describe Ching as a ferocious yet cautious leader who carefully balanced the factions around her and nurtured personal relationships to help legitimise her rule.
While she bore two sons with her husband, it was Zheng Yi’s adopted son, Zhang Bao, who was most heavily involved in their pirate empire. According to various sources, he was a fisherman’s son who was captured at sea by Zheng Yi and learned all the tricks of the pirate trade from his adopted father.
Taking charge of a pirate empire
In 1807, Zheng Yi died when his ship was caught in a typhoon. This left Ching, who was 32 at the time, to take over the confederation. Ching soon appointed the 21-year-old Zhang Bao as her lieutenant and even began a romantic relationship with him to strengthen their alliance. The couple became husband and wife in 1810 and eventually had two children together.
Some scholars suggest they were already intimate before Zheng Yi’s death.
Zhang Bao “remained subordinate to Zheng Yi’s wife, the Shi woman, seeking her approval before taking any action”, wrote Qing official Wen Chengzhi in 1807 in a record of activities at sea.
The costly upkeep of the several thousand vessels made capturing prizes at sea a necessity that could not be left to chance. Ching accordingly infiltrated the provincial salt trade for a steady stream of income.
Under the threat of capture, salt merchants negotiated with pirate leaders, typically surrendering large sums of money.
This “protection” system expanded to fishing junks and eventually to villages on land. Ching’s empire became almost indestructible as pirate agents infiltrated government offices and the terrorised Cantonese navy backed off.
“In effect, they set up a pirate state, mimicking some aspects of the structure and functioning of the increasingly ineffectual imperial Qing state,” wrote economic historian J.L. Anderson in his 1995 article “Piracy and World History: An Economic Perspective on Maritime Predation”.
In 1809, in one of her largest and most bloody campaigns, Ching ordered raids along the Pearl River, including areas in Dongguan, Humen and Shunde, ransacking villages they passed and murdering their inhabitants.

A fall from power and a prosperous aftermath
Like all empires in history, Ching’s did not last forever. By 1809, Chinese officials were so desperate for support against rampant piracy that they entered negotiations with the British and Portuguese.
In early November that year, Ching left the Pearl River with only a few ships and anchored for repairs at Tung Chung Bay, where she faced harassment and blockades from Portuguese ships.
Battles broke out around Lantau Island, and in the early months of 1810, the joint Sino-Portuguese fleet converted 43 vessels into fireships and deployed them against the pirates in Tung Chung Bay.
Ching and her fleet managed to divert and extinguish the fireships, with two even getting blown back to their opponents. She eventually broke out of the blockade and escaped into the South China Sea.
But by then, the pirates realised the tides were turning against them.
The way Ching negotiated her retirement is arguably her greatest triumph. While other legendary pirates in history met a violent end at the gallows or in battle, she used her immense leverage to force the Qing government to the table and, after weeks of back and forth, walked away rich, free and politically connected.
The final treaty, signed on April 20, 1810, was an unprecedented victory for an outlaw. More than 17,000 pirates surrendered their weapons and hundreds of junks, but they did so on highly favourable terms – including Ching’s pardon.
After abdicating her pirate throne, Ching retired to Canton – modern-day Guangzhou – as an incredibly wealthy woman. It is said she opened a highly successful, notorious gambling house. She eventually died in 1844, at the age of 69.


Ching’s story was used in a Malaysian-Singaporean AI-generated film. The 76-minute historical epic, called Pirate Queen: Zheng Yi Sao (2025), depicted her as a young woman fighting in battle sequences. It received negative reviews.
An imposing woman of her times who commanded ships at sea and terrorised villages on land, Ching would shape the nautical history of the South China Sea. Pirates would never organise on such a scale in the region again, but Ching’s story is forever written in the sand.


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Ching, aka Zheng Yi Sao, became China’s most successful pirate during the Qing period, building a fearful empire that terrorised the region


Ching, aka Zheng Yi Sao, became China’s most successful pirate during the Qing period, building a fearful empire that terrorised the region.


Chinese history

South China Sea

China

Hong Kong

How Chinese pirate queen Ching Shih ruled the South China Sea, then sailed into the sunset

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Ching, aka Zheng Yi Sao, became China’s most successful pirate during the Qing period, building a fearful empire that terrorised the region

Ching, aka Zheng Yi Sao, became China’s most successful pirate during the Qing period, building a fearful empire that terrorised the region