The Lady that became a Pirate Lord #history #animation

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Date: December 15, 2023
History

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44 thoughts on “The Lady that became a Pirate Lord #history #animation”

  7. Many people don't know but her late husband Zheng Yi (I will be calling her Zheng Yi Sao, but that just means Zheng Yi's wife. She's also known as Ching Shih among other names, her birth name was something else and isn't used often) literally fell overboard and died… that's an extremely anticlimactic death to become a pirate admiral which she did great. Zhang Bao is also pretty underrated. He was her late husband's adopted son, and as one of the admirals who was part of the confederation, her right hand man and her lover/boyfriend. Zheng Yi Sao was by all accounts the leader, but Zhang Bao comes up in a LOT of the battles her confederation fights.

    Buying off your enemies is WAY easier than fighting them. Her negotiations were a smart move, the Qing were DESPERATE to end the scourge of piracy and the British and Portuguese didn't waste any rescources. Though it's a stretch to say the Portuguese and British navies ever considered her a grave threat. Her fleet was scattered and made of many smaller chinese vessels (Chinese shipbuilding peaked around the 15th century) European shipbuilding peaked in the age of sail, Zheng Yi Sao's life takes place in the later half of the age of sail.
    To give a historical example, she got alarmed by the sighting of 3 Portuguese ships and her fleet was held down by 6 Portuguese Brigs at Tung Chung Bay. Two weeks later they were enforced by a full 93 vessels from the local Chinese fleet, but 6 medium sized ships still held back a WAY larger fleet for 2 whole weeks. (to put that into scale the British had about 600 active military ships at that time.) This Blockade went horrible, especially when the Chinese decided to yeet half their fleet into Zheng Yi Sao's fleet as fireships (essentially incendiary ammo) which did nothing except Zheng Yi Sao intercepting them and sending some back after which they fled. The Portuguese took no damage to any of their vessels in this encounter.

    Another example is the Battle of the Tiger's mouth where the Red Flag Fleet, consisting of a few hundred ships, lost against 1 Frigate and six Brigs. She surrendered her fleets the same year. It's also important to note that this was a confederation she led, not all her fleet. It was held together mostly by her, Zhang Bao, and Guo Podai.

    Mentioning the British is pretty weird as they sent ONE ship to aid, of course, one ship means a TON compared to the coast guard Junks the Qing boasted.

    She probably tossed the towel for multiple reasons. The Qing wanted her piracy gone no matter what even if that meant loss of face so she felt like she had room to negotiate. The coalition was under pressure near the end, she and Zhang Bao held the Red and White fleet, Guo Podai who held the Black fleet refused to aid them in the blockade I mentioned earlier and later fought Zhang Bao, not long after which he turned sides and became a Qing admiral.

    Zheng Yi Sao's life is super interesting, but reducing her career to "being an amazing pirate queen" makes it so much more uncool. She led a confederation of 3 pirate lords for 2 years under her they were super aggressive and all got away scot, free Zhang Bao became a lieutenant, Guo Podai an admiral and she a rich gambling house owner. It 100% COULD be a show and that's what makes it so cool. You don't need to overblow her contributions as they already were massive and you DEFINATELY needn't overblow the contributions of the British because (reminder) they sent ONE ship.

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