Part 2

Zheng Yi and Madame Shih ruled through a “Confederation” which meant that there was not one pirate captain that dominated the other pirates but one could “lead” them on the condition that other pirates agreed and collectively they were so fearsome that they were known as “The wasps of the Sea”

For their honeymoon, the couple sailed to Annam (present day Vietnam) to fight in the ongoing Tay Son rebellion which was led by three brothers to end the Le and Trinh dynasties (1771 to 1801). The call to arms of the Tay Son was “seize the property of the rich and distribute it to the poor.” An Eastern version of Robin Hood if you like. It is still debatable how much loot was redistributed to the poor

In each village the Tay Son seized, oppressive landlords and scholar-officials were punished and their property redistributed to…

Part 1

Female pirates were raiding and pillaging in huge numbers on the seven seas predominantly from the thirteen hundreds with memorable women such as Anne Bonny, Jeanne de Clisson and Jacquotte Delahaye leading the way but there was one woman who reigned above them all

Madame Shih, as she was originally known*, was born in 1775 ** and earned her living on floating brothels called Flower Boats in Canton, (Guangzhou) China

The Chinese officials tolerated this form of prostitution on the Huafang boats as long as it stayed on the Pearl River and off land and that they paid their prostitution taxes. This suited everybody as the river was 2,400 kilometers long and everybody could make money; from the water people known as the Tanka who earned their living fishing, to the Dan boat owners with their prostitutes all the way down to sailors and pirates making a call…