2. Ching Shih
In the 1800s, one woman led a massive armada to terrorise coastal China. The dreaded Red Flag Fleet, hundreds strong with tens of thousands of sailors, knew no bounds, as unafraid of taking on the world's most famed navies as it was of raiding small villages. And they owed their success to the pragmatic and utterly merciless Ching Shih. Initially making a living practising the world's oldest profession in southern China, around 1801 she married Zheng Yi indeed, history remembers her as his widow. Zheng was himself a feared pirate, and his new bride enthusiastically accompanied him on his unlawful endeavours. When his lifestyle caught up with him and Zheng Yi died in 1807, Ching Shih immediately went all
Game of Thrones on his crew, expertly manipulating her way into the vacant leadership position by equal parts incentive and intimidation. When her authority was assured, she began enforcing one of the most brutal codes of conduct in existence to maintain that power. Attempt to give orders not directly from Ching Shih? Death. Steal from people that paid tribute to the Red Flag Fleet? Death. Steal from the Fleet's funds? Death. Rape a female captive? Death. Have mutually consensual sex with captives?
Death to both. Suffice to say, the pervasive atmosphere of pants-soiling fear and enforced sexual frustration made the crew extremely eager to jump to the Fleet's defence on the occasions when it was attacked, channelling their pent-up aggression into relieving enemies of their limbs and lives. The Fleet went on to win many battles and accumulate some sweet loot, until the Chinese government finally tired of the constant harassment of their entire coastline, and sailed out to meet them in what it imagined would be a fantastical good-versus-evil final showdown. Ching Shih annihilated them, captured dozens of their ships and instantly assimilated their surviving crews with the venerable ultimatum of loyalty or death. The sensible amongst them welcomed their new pirate overlords. Even the British Royal Navy, premier power of the sea, allegedly called in by the Chinese government for the express purpose of blasting Ching Shih's corpse to the bottom of the ocean, was terrified by the Red Flag Fleet, with one account calling them 'the terror of the South China Sea'. Her reign of terror was only ended when the government effectively capitulated and offered her amnesty and a comfortable rural retirement in exchange for never setting foot on a ship again. Ching Shih considered the offer, and ultimately sailed into port for the last time. She used her acquired wealth to open gambling houses, brothels and other such places, and paid for her life of crime by dying peacefully in government-funded luxury at the age of 69. The vast and deep ocean itself revered Ching Shih, and so should you.