Ching Shih, also know as Zheng Yi Sao (lit. "wife of Zheng Yi"), was a prominent female pirate in late Qing China. As Ching Shih engaged in illicit activities throughout her life and prospered in this way, little is known about her early life, including her date of birth. In 1801, she was working as a prostitute on one of Canton's floating brothels, and later that year she married Zheng Yi, the notorious Chinese pirate. Zheng Yi belonged to a family of successful pirates who traced their criminal origins all the way back to the mid-seventeenth century. Following his marriage to Cheng Shih, Zheng Yi used military assertion and his family's reputation to gather a coalition of competing Cantonese pirate fleets into an alliance. By 1804, this coalition was a formidable force, and one of the most powerful pirate fleets in all of China.
In 1807, Zheng Yi died, and the "Widow Ching" (as she has been referred to by some) maneuvered her way into his leadership position. At that point, the fleet under her command had established hegemony over many coastal villages, in some cases even imposing levies and taxes on settlements. In the words of Robert Antony, Ching Shih "robbed towns, markets, and villages, from Macao to Canton."
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