8 Historical Figures That Deserve To Be Remembered

Ching Shih was a Cantonese pirate who known as 'The Terror of South China'.

Ching Shih spent her early life as a prostitute. In 1801, she married the leader of the Red Flag Fleet. They ran the fleet together, and this is where Shih began her incredible career in piracy.

Under Shih and her husband's leadership, the Fleet grew from 200 ships to 1800 ships. Piracy prospered under their watchful eyes.

Her husband died in 1807 and Shih decided that returning to prostitution was not on the cards. She took charge of the whole fleet.

Shih was strict and disciplined, forming a taxation system among her pirates. Offenders had their ears cut off.

Influenced by her previous career in prostitution, Shih also set out strict rules on the treatment of female prisoners. Any captives deemed "ugly" were set free. Her pirates were allowed to marry captives, on the condition that they remain faithful. Unfaithfulness and rape were both punishable by death.

In 1809, when it seemed that no one could defeat the almighty power of the Red Flag Fleet, the Chinese government offered amnesty to all pirates, hoping to regain some control over the sea.

The official in charge of the negotiations insisted that the pirates surrender all of their loot. Ching Shih visited the official, and walked out without giving over a thing.

Ching Shih returned to Canton with the last of her loot and opened a gambling house, where she eventually died at the age of 69.

Ching Shih was one of the most successful pirates of all time, amassing a fleet four times the size of Blackbeard's. She was also one of the few to live out her life in freedom. She also did so as a woman from an impoverished background, long after the Golden Age of Piracy.