Episode 49 Cheng Shih

In this episode of Illiquid History, the hosts Morgan and Emily discuss the story of Cheng Sao, a badass lady pirate who is considered the most successful pirate of all time. Not much is known about Cheng Sao's early life, but she became involved with pirate leader Cheng Yi and played a crucial role in uniting various pirate factions. After Cheng Yi's death, Cheng Sao took over as the admiral of the pirate confederacy and married Cheng Pao, another leader in the organization. She continued to lead and expand the pirate operations, disrupting governments and establishing dominance in the South China Seas. Welcome to Illiquid History, where two super cool ladies, who are also best friends, tell you a cool story from history. I'm Morgan, joined by my glowing, stardusty, co-host Emily, these intros get away from me and I'm sorry. I think they get better every time, honestly. I kind of like to be stardusty, that sounds fun. As long as it's not stardusty as, like, the planet that What's-His-Face was in, like, last episode. Oh, like Xenon 45. That was too much stardust in that motherfucker. He was light years ahead of us. He probably solved, like, all sorts of world problems, but he saw God that night. Honestly. And that God is Fat Boy Slim. Rumor has it he's still high. How are you doing today, Emily? I am well. I am well. I'm just here. Like, is that a vibe? I'm just here. Yeah, I dig that vibe. I'm also just here. I'm in the present. Yeah, I'm in the present. We be vibin'. I think last week's episode is carrying over a little too much. Just a little bit. Just a little bit. Fun. It couldn't be the vodka. Mm-mm. No. Mm-mm. We discussed that I talked it out of my system, so. Yeah. Yeah, it's fine. It's totally fine. Well. It's totally fine. Let's hop into our skeet today. Yes! Did you hear? Chang Yi died in a storm. Crazy that an old pirate captain could still fall victim to the seas. You know as well as I do that the seas cannot be tamed. What a way to go. I wonder who will take over now. What if? No. Maybe. Oh, no. What? Spit it out. I bet. I bet his wife takes over. Oh, no. I'd take a stormy seas over her any day. She's terrifying. I know. I've never met a scarier person in my life. All right, Qi Lan lovers. Way anchor. Avast towards the shore. We be off to see our new pirate queen. Prepare yourselves. So I take it we're talking about a pirate today. Yes, we're talking about another badass lady pirate. I love badass lady pirates. Me too. And the cool thing about this badass lady pirate is she is considered the most successful pirate of all time. Um, fucking badass. Yeah. So today, and the crazy thing is that we don't even know her name. What? Yeah. We only know, like, the only names we really know her by are in reference to her husband because we are in the South China Seas in the late 1700s today. So we don't really know what year she was born. We don't know her name because as we talked about in the Wu Zetian episode, they didn't really take records on girls that were born in China. I'm making big old spank face right now. Yeah, she's got a big spank face. I hate this. Okay, proceed. But some names that we can call her, and I'll be calling her, there's multiple ways to spell. I saw several just doing Google searches of her, but she's known as Cheng Sao, which means wife of Cheng, or Cheng Shi, which is Cheng's widow, which I'll get to in a little bit. Okay. So our story opens not with Cheng Sao, but in the Qing Dynasty in the late 1700s in China. Things aren't great. They're fine, but they're not super great, especially with farmers. There was, like, some natural things going on, like some famine, and the culture at the time was not super great politically, so some farmers were starting to turn to crime. Yeah, because when you're poor and you can't feed your family, a lot of times you turn to crime. It's just something that happens. In politics in general, they're just kind of running fast and loose at the time. So warlords were starting to pop up in different provinces around China, and pirates were on the rise in the 1700s. I love that. Yay, pirates. Yeah. Additionally, in 1771, there was a rebellion in Vietnam called the Taishan Movement. I think I pronounced that right. I'm not sure. I am not Vietnamese, so don't come at me. We're trying here, okay? We are really trying. There's going to be some, also several Chinese names that sound very similar. I'm going to do my best. I'm not Chinese, so I know I'm going to butcher the pronunciations. I'm sorry. So the Taishan Movement, this was an uprising, it was a revolution, and it was a civil war. It was just a really big mess that lasted years, and this led to a lot of Vietnamese people fleeing to China, and a lot of pirate gangs started popping up in China, in that area of Asia just in general. And there's also a history of Chinese privateers working for the King of Vietnam. So just pirates everywhere. Okay. I mean, it makes sense. I mean, they're right on the coast. Our story is really in Southeast Asia, or Southeast China, and Vietnam borders Southeast China. Makes sense. Yeah. Again, like I said earlier, we don't know a whole lot about Cheng Tsao. We don't really know anything about her early life. We suspect she was born around 1771-ish. In 1801-ish, she was a sex worker working on a floating brothel, which honestly, it was like a ship that was also a brothel. That's interesting, but all right. Yeah. She was very popular. She was super well-known for her beauty, her intelligence, her charm, and she caught the attention of a man named Cheng Yi. He was a pirate. He fell in love with her and was like, please be my wife. She was like, yes, but I want as full of participation in your pirate gang as you do. I'm not going to be some- She liked being on the boat. Yes. She's like, I'm not going to just be some pirate's wife sitting at home or in the cabin while you go around gallivanting. I want just as much of the share of being a pirate. Give me a sword, bitch. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Sure. You know what? She was basically the mastermind behind the whole operation that was going on. Good for her. While all this turmoil is going on between Vietnam and China, all this going on, Cheng Yi is working to start uniting all the pirate factions. This has been going on in the background for a while. Also, at the same time, this is going to be really weird. I'm going to try to explain it as best I can. Just remember this is a different culture, different time. Okay. Cheng Yi, years before this happened, had come across, at the time, a teenager named Cheng Pao. I saw in some places he was the captain of a ship. I saw in other places he was a fisherman. Cheng Yi captured Cheng Pao. At some point, I don't know when, they became lovers, which was not unusual for homosexual relationships to go on on pirate ships. But he also adopted Cheng Pao. And from what I gathered, because I was looking into this, I was like, that's very strange. Adoptions in China at this time were not for kinship. They were not familial. They were closer to business transactions for inheritance purposes. What I assume is that Cheng Yi was like, something may happen to me, I may die. This was before he had met Cheng Pao. He was like, I want someone to pass on my things to if something happens to me. So he adopted Cheng Pao. Okay. From what I could see, there was not like a father-son relationship. Okay. In addition to the lover relationship, but it was also weird as well. It wasn't something that was super common because he still adopted him. Yeah. It's weird. I can't explain every single nuance of it. Anyway, so when Cheng Pao married Cheng Yi, she also took Cheng Pao as a lover, too. So there were like a whole throuple thing going on. Wow. Yeah. Okie doke. Mm-hmm. So at some point, again, I can't figure out a pinpoint, but around 1802, so a year after they met and probably got married, Cheng Yi managed to unite the pirates floating around the Kuangtung province. Okay. And also the Taishan Rebellion ended, so there was no more piracy in Vietnam, so they all went to China. So Cheng Yi and Cheng Pao united the displaced pirates under their rule, and this was from an article I read by Dan Murray, said, quote, while Cheng Yi was a unifier and the patriarch, his wife was consolidator and organizer. Okay. And at this point, they had 400 junks or Chinese ships, and in the skit I have a picture of a junk. It's not as big as, like, European ships. It's smaller, and they have these fan-like sails that are really cool looking. I bet they're fast as shit. Yeah. And they had 400 of them. Bam! And 70,000 men. Hold on. How many is that per? I don't know. And their entire operation wasn't just on the boats. I'll go into it later, but they also had some land-based operations, too. So 70,000. I've seen upwards of 80,000 and 400 junks. That's, like, 175 per boat, and I'm sure they have some on land as well. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. In their league, in their confederacy, they had six leagues, red, white, black, blue, green or purple. I've seen both. And yellow. Okay. And Cheng Yi and Cheng Tsao were primarily under the red league. Okay. This is another quote from the Murray article I read. Quote, the Chengs were so successful in establishing the pirates in Kwantung province that, within a year, they precipitated the downfall of the provincial commander-in-chief and the death of one of his leading generals, Old Tiger Huang. End quote. Wow. So they're, like, completely disrupting governments. Governments, yeah, with their piracy. Damn. Yeah, it's crazy. So there's a big gap in time between 1802 and 1807. I couldn't really find what was happening in these five years. I assume pirate shenanigans. I was about to say, they were just sailing the seas. They were just pirating. Pirating. Pirating, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But in 1807, Cheng Yi died. Oh. It is suspected he died in a storm and, like, fell overboard. But no one knows 100% for sure. Cheng Yi or Cheng Tsao was like, well, someone has to take over this operation now. Yeah. So she immediately got the loyalty of Cheng Pao Yang and Cheng An Peng. And these are the top two leaders in the organization. And she appointed herself as admiral over, like, the entire Confederacy. And I appoint me. Yeah. And also, at some point, she married Cheng Pao. I couldn't find when. Okay. And she appointed Cheng Pao as a leader of the Red Flag Squadron. And he was, like, super respected by many of the ship captains, leaders of the Pirate Confederation. And I'll start calling her Cheng Xi from now on because Cheng Xi means widow. Got it. She trusted him to completely follow her orders, you know, be loyal to her. He wasn't going to be pulling any shenanigans on her. Got it. And now she is, like, the queen of the pirate kingdom. Wow. She went from a floating brothel to the queen of the pirates. Of, like, 70,000 pirates. Her fleet, her pirate forces were double Spain's navy. Holy shit. Damn. Get it, girl. Yeah. So, she consolidated power within the Pirate Confederacy, and she installed a system of laws that were very strict. Yeah. And if you broke these laws, punishment was extremely severe. So, I have a list of the rules. Oh, God. So, the first rule was a top-down order of command, which meant that you cannot act, like, perform any, like, actions, like a mission or, like, pirate things without someone else telling you to do that, like a higher-up. Okay. As a subordinate did something on their own, they were decapitated. What? Mm-hmm. Like, I'm telling you, swift and severe punishments. And it's also if they disobeyed an order from a higher-up, decapitated. Wow. Rule number two, no underhanded business dealings. Everything had to go through her. So, a ship that captured Booty. Okay. The ship got 20% of the haul. Okay. The rest went to a public fund for, like, the entire Pirate Confederacy. Okay. If you pilfered from the public fund, decapitated. Giving the Heart Queen off with his head. Yes. Yes. Rule number three, no harm came to any women that were captured. Okay. Like you. Like that. You're not going to like this next one. Oh, no. Attractive women would be sold into sex work and or slavery. Hate that. Yeah. Hate that. And unattractive women were let go. But no harm of any kind was to come to captured women. If a pirate raped a captive or if a pirate and or a captain and a captive had consensual sex, head chopped off. Decapitation. Man, that's her favorite punishment. Mm-hmm. You could take a captive as a wife or a concubine because, as we talked, we knew that ten concubines were common in Chinese culture. You had to be faithful to her or your head would be chopped off. Okay, so the only thing that I'm seeing as negative is, like, the sold into sex work kind of a thing. Yeah. Hate that. And, honestly, this didn't come up, but it wouldn't surprise me if she had, like, her own things going on, too, like her own brothels, her own. It never came up. I never saw anything. But it wouldn't surprise me either, I think. Mm-hmm. Rule number four, no harm to come to allied villages. So any kind of villages that had allied themselves with the pirates, that provided them supplies, if you stole from them or harmed from them, decapitation. Decapitation. Off with his head. Yep. And the last one, if you deserted, just your ears would be chopped off, but then you would be, like, paraded in front of all your fellow pirates and humiliated. So once you're in, you're in. Yeah. And I assume, like, if you need to leave, like, you can, but you can't just, like, ditch. You can't desert. So I don't know the rules about, like, I have a medical issue and I can't be a pirate anymore. I don't know. Yeah. Decapitation. But she was very highly respected by all the pirates. They were like, yeah. She was like, okay, I'm coming into power. These are my rules. And they were like, cool. What else were they going to say? If they said anything else, off with your head. Yeah. Okay. Scare tactics work. She also, this is super sneaky. Her and Cheng Pao, they also engage in religious manipulation. So a lot of their crew were religious. And they would go to temples and get, like, signs from the gods that their missions would be auspicious. They would be beneficial. They would go well. So Cheng Pao had a temple constructed on one of the ships, like a pretty, really nice temple. And before, like, a big mission, he would go in and, like, talk to the priests beforehand, like, hey, this is what Ching Shou's, this is what she wants them to, Cheng Shi, this is what she wants them to do. We need you to say that this is fine. And so then the priests would, like, confer with the gods and say, like, yes, this is a blessed mission. You should do this. How much money were those priests making? Oh, I'm sure a lot. God, so much. Like, oh, that's a big ask. I'm going to need an extra coin or two. Yeah. And this really helps cement Cheng Shi as, not just politically, but religiously as well. Wow. She's a very intelligent woman as well. She knew that just pirating on its own is not going to be enough to sustain, like, 70,000 crew. So she gets involved in the salt trade. Of course she does. Which was extremely profitable. Wow. There were salt mines all over the Guangdong province in southeast China. So what they started doing is there were, like, merchants and I think even some government ships that were involved in the salt trade, and the pirates kept capturing the ships. At some point, I can't find a date, but at one point only four of the original 270 salt junks were outside of pirate control. Four out of 270? Yeah. Oh, my God. Oh, they were making money hand over fist. So then what happened is that the salt merchants were like, fine, we'll just deal directly with you. And so now she has, she set up a protection ring for all the salt merchants to do their trade, and in exchange they bought, at very exorbitant prices, they bought protection from the pirates. And this started extending to landowners and villages by 1809. So they're basically just paying the pirates to not pirate them. A little bit, yeah. I think they're also paying them so they wouldn't be attacked by, like, other pirates that weren't in their gang. You know, there was, like, official government-sanctioned privateers that would attack merchant ships. But it was kind of like, we won't attack you, or we won't capture you if you pay us. You know, it was all that kind of stuff going on. So Chengxi started establishing headquarters in major provinces along Southeast China and in the, I don't know what you call it, just like the Southeast Asia in general. Like, I don't know how much they went into, like, the Philippines or anything like that. Macau was brought up a lot. So she had major provinces along the Southeast of China. She had agents acting on her behalf to collect money for protection deals, buy weapons. She even had a tax office in Canton. Oh, my God. Where people, like, paid taxes to her. Hi, I am the government, so pay me. Yeah, basically. And Macau in China was super lucrative in its business practice and made a lot of money from protection deals from fishermen and merchants. Wow. She also understood the necessity of not just exploitation, but establishing good relationships with people. The pirates provided some goods, but they mostly traded in information. Okay. And this included with bandits and intelligence agencies in the different local governments. This is also probably in the actual government. Some of the best providers of intelligence were government officials and not even government ships were safe from the protection racket. Like, it basically came to a point, like, you cannot leave the harbor if you didn't pay for protection papers. I'm just imagining her ships just literally outside the harbor, and it's almost like a security checkpoint. You have to sail up, go next to her. They check your papers and you go on. She wants to make sure that you paid your money for us to not attack you. Wow. Yep. Cheng Shih was an indomitable force. Under her leadership, she cultivated a fighting force that was virtually undefeatable. She was an expert strategist. She was comparable with any great military leader. And she also ensured pirate wives could fight on the front lines with their husbands. Good for her. Yeah. She's most of the way there. Yeah. So we're backtracking a little bit because this is all, like, from this is all within three years between 1807 to 1810. She established all of this going on. Jesus Christ. She had a busy three years. I know. Yes. So we're backtracking down back to, like, 1804 when the pirates were, like, all over the place. The Cantonese Navy was not willing to leave the shore. And because they were so afraid of the pirates attacking them. And so they would literally, if they thought there was a pirate close by, they would shoot off, like, shoot guns. So the pirates would, like, avoid them. Just go a little further. Because they didn't want to get attacked by pirates. They were like, we're here. We have guns. Don't come close. And they're like, okay. And quote, by the end of the decade, the situation had deteriorated to the extent that military personnel, afraid to go to sea at all, were sabotaging their own vessels. So they wouldn't have to go out where all the pirates were. Oh, my God. The pirates had overwhelmed land-based garrisons, too. So it wasn't just naval attacks. They were starting to go, like, attack, like, land-based military operations. Well, yeah, they're out of ships because no one wants to go into the ocean. They have to go to the people now. And, of course, they were super well-trained in hand-to-hand combat. Of course they are. Because do you think she would let that slide? No, decapitation. You're not good enough with a sword. Yeah. And in 1808, the Czech young provincial commander-in-chief was killed by the pirates when he sailed into Kwantung. So it's just a lot. One day in 1809, her pirates captured five American schooners in Macau, captured a Portuguese ship, and blockaded a tribute mission from Siam. In one day, all that happened. Oh, it was probably just like a Tuesday for her. Yeah. They're like, yeah, we just captured, like, all this stuff. Cool, cool. Thanks for the schooners. Yeah, American schooners. The government was desperate at this point. Cheng Shih and her pirate kingdom were unstoppable. Yeah. They perceived them to be unstoppable. So the Cantonese government were negotiating with the British and Portuguese governments to help them stop the piracy going on around China. So now Westerners are, like, coming in and, like, doing pirate battles and all that. So in 1810, things are starting to deteriorate. Things within the pirate kingdom are starting to deteriorate. Captains are starting to – no one's going against Cheng Shih, the pirate captains are starting to butt heads with each other. There's also – Britain had a trade, like, an opium trade going on with China, and that was being disrupted as well. There was just a lot of things going on. So Cheng Pao came forward with the offer to negotiate with the British, and they – he agreed to refrain from attacking British ships, but I couldn't see what he was going to get in return. Okay. I couldn't find what that was. But nothing really came of it. And the Portuguese were also keen to negotiate, and Cheng Pao said that if they loaned him three to four man-at-wars, he would give the Portuguese some land after he conquered Macau. I also don't know if that happened either. I don't think it did. I think they were all scared to actually do anything. Yeah. Well, like, Cheng Pao was like, well, you give us, like, three to four of your biggest warships, we'll conquer Macau, and you have, like, three to four provinces. Yeah. In Macau. Don't think it went anywhere. So I also think at this point, I think a lot of people were kind of tired of being pirates. I think Cheng Shih knew this. So February 21, 1810, Cheng Shih and Cheng Pao met with the Lian Kuang governor and Miguel Jose de Arriga Brum de Silveira, who was the second highest official of Macau. What a name. I know. Damn, get it. I love that. That's quite the name. It's quite the name. It seems so official and, like, I don't know. It's a very nice name. It's a very nice name. So the governor general demanded they give up all their ships and weapons, and Cheng Shih and Cheng Pao wanted to keep 80 junks and 5,000 crew. Okay. They came to the meeting with 260 ships and 14,000 men under just the red squadron. Wow. And they wanted to also get full pardons for not just them, but for everyone in their pirate confederation. Okay. They were like, nah, there is a stalemate. Yeah. And negotiations went back and forth, and nothing was really agreed upon. And finally, on April 8, 1810, Cheng Shih went without Cheng Pao. She only went with some other pirate wives and children to meet with Pai Ling, who was the highest official in the province. She demanded not just the 80 junks and 5,000 men that she started the negotiations with, but an additional 40 junks to continue her salt trade. She was steadfast and obstinate in her side of the deal. She didn't listen to any counteroffers Pai Ling made. And she was like, if you don't do what I ask, I'm just going to continue pirating. Yeah. And he was like, okay. And that hurt their demands. What a negotiator. So two days later, all the pirates surrendered to the governor general without any fuss, and Cheng Pao and the other pirate leaders were given official military and government positions. If you can't beat them, let them join you. Yeah, that's really. And this is another quote from the Murray article, quote, for Cheng Yi's wife, ambition did not end with her retirement from the sea. For just as she had propelled Cheng Pao's meteoric rise to the ranks of the pirate hierarchy. So too has she made possible his second equally spectacular rise to the ranks of the Imperial military bureaucracy. Wow. So she just not only propelled herself, but propelled her husband's too. Wow. Damn. Cheng Pao was quickly promoted to colonel because he was a pretty effective like strategist and good at military things. And Cheng, she immediately used his rank to her advantage. Of course. Quote from Murray again. In 1821, she petitioned the government asking for the relevant title, despite the fact that for remarried widows, such a conferring of rank was illegal, but the stipulations of the law, notwithstanding Cheng Yi's wife seemed to have prevailed and therefore thereafter referred to herself as a wife of an official or Ming Tsao. She's like, Hey, yeah, I'm going to have this title. I know I'm not a pirate anymore, but I'm still scary as fuck. So I'm going to do what I want. Thanks. Break the law for me. Thank you. Bye. And everyone's like, okay, okay. You know what? I like my head attached to my neck. Sure do. Like it combined. I have two depictions of her in the skit. The one's like an artist's rendition of her being super badass. She's terrifying. Yes. And then the second one is from what I can gather is a photo of her, like an actual photograph of her. Well, she's very pretty. She is very pretty. She was known for her beauty. And she also looks scary as fuck. Yeah. That is art. That is mastered RBF. That is, I don't give a fuck. That is probably the sword that took a mini head. And also, okay, so let's look at the artist's rendition. If you look at the men's faces, they're scared as fuck. Look at that. They're like, no one guys literally like has his hand by his chest. He's like, oh, no. Another guy is shooting at her. And she's like, I don't give a shit. Yeah. Yeah. And she's just like, nah, I think I might like not die today. That would be great. And you guys are going to be headless. It's pretty badass. She's so badass. I've been like staring at the picture of her with the sword, like this whole time, kind of in this, in this, in this, envisioning her doing all these things. I could see it. Yeah. Yes. So another big time skip. Okay. We're jumping from 1810 to 1822. Question. Chang Pao. When was she born again? 1770 ish. Okay. So 1770 ish. So by the time that she retired in 1810, she was about 40. Ish. Ish. Give or take. Okay. Yeah. Got it. Timeline. So in 1822, Chang Pao died. I can't figure out what from. Okay. And Chang, she returned to Kwantung, which is where she was from with her children. Okay. I've seen varying accounts of how many children she had. She had a couple with Chang Yi. She had a couple with Chang Pao. Okay. Not a hundred percent sure. Cool. She lived out the rest of her life in relative peace. She had some brothels and some gambling dens in Canton. I'm sure she was loaded so she could just do whatever she wanted. Yeah. And I just like how she continued, like, the kind of, like, underbelly actions going on. I mean, she knew what she wanted to do, and she did it. I have. I'm almost done. This is going to be a shorter episode today. So this is another quote from the Murray article. Quote, significant perhaps in Mrs. Chang's story is the reversal of the old phenomenon of marriage as an avenue of upward mobility for women. Instead, marriage to Chang Yi's wife appears to have been an avenue of mobility for the men. She aided Chang Yi by enabling him to transform the refugee pirates from Vietnam into a formidable confederation of which he became the undisputed head. Then she permitted Chang Pao to rise within the pirate hierarchy to command the red flag squadron and to make the transition from outlaw to official. Wow. And you know what I was thinking about earlier is that in the other pirate episodes that we talked about, they, their lives ended very tragically. Their way out of piracy was basically death. And I mean, by the hands of the government and she was so stubborn that she just would not allow that to happen. She's like, I think you're going to pardon all of us. And we're actually going to be part of your government now. Thank you. And I think that's very different than how we depict typical pirates. Cause we're like, they're outlaws and they stay outlaws, but she was smart enough to find a way out without death. I mean, she bullied entire countries for like a decade and then was just like, I'm bored of this. I think I'm done. Okay. I'm forgiven. Like she forgave herself. And she made the government officials like follow her lead. Yeah. Who was going to tell her no. No one. No. And it was crazy that any pirate who surrendered would be placed within a respectable position of society. Like it was like, all right, like we're just going to pretend that you're never a pirate at all. And actually you'll be given like ranks and honors and like be seen with honor. Yeah. Actually. In fact, here's some land. There you go. It's a little muddy. Yeah. Just don't do pirating ever again. Now I'm sure that they had some stipulations. Like you can't just go back to pirating. Your pirating days are over. But we'll forgive you this one time. If you go back to pirating, that's on you. Yeah. But, okay. Wow. God bless. And she was so highly respected by not just those within her confederacy, but those outside of it, you know, and like I said, she's considered one of, if not the most successful pirates of all time. Like I was reading something that I think like Blackbeard, who's one of the most notorious pirates of all time, only had like a couple thousand crew mates at one time. And he died like a really horrible, violent death where she has like double the naval force of Spain under her command. And she's honestly just like dicking about. She's just doing whatever she feels like she wants to do with absolutely no repercussions. I mean, I'm sure there were some, but like nothing major, like that's what I said. Fine. Like she, she pirated, she had a protection racket. She was in the salt trade. And then she was like, all right, I'll surrender on threat of continuing to be a pirate. Yeah. And you're just going to give us all a good life. And they're like, okay, that's how threatening of an existence. Do you have to have to, like I said, bully the shit out of governments until they give you not only pardons, but allow you to join their ranks. I'm still cracking up at like, she added to her own deal, which she was initially like, I want 80 ships and 5,000 men. And they're like, no, she was like, I want 80 ships, more ships. And they're like, okay, you've wasted my time. My decapitating sword is getting a little antsy. You want to, you might want to agree before I start adding on more shit. And what a power move to like show up to this government officials, like, I don't know, palace or house or whatever with no men, just yourself and some pirate wives and children. On your ships and be like, this is my deal. I bet everyone. And I bet every one of those women knew how to fight. Oh, Oh, 100%. They all fall on the front lines with their husbands. They were all just as much pirates as anyone else. I'm imagining five-year-olds with swords, just like Spartan style being able to, Jesus Christ. Oh, God, she's a complicated woman. I love her. Yes. And Chang, she died in 18, the 1840s. Okay. In her late sixties or seventies. Yeah. I mean, that's a pretty good life time for that, that time range. Yeah. Yeah. Especially like in the 1800s, like living to your seventies, that was definitely like, good job. Wow. And in a, in an industry for the first part of her life, that was so dangerous. I mean, even a brothel, isn't like the best place to be and things can happen. Well, I mean, I guess things could happen anywhere at any time, but yeah, she, it just, she's giving me the vibe that she just survived because she chose to just, she just embodied it. And not just survive, but like rose to like complete power. She survived. Yeah. Wow. By being cold hearted and very intelligent and not giving any shits. I mean, I guess she loved her husband. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She seemed pretty faithful to her husband. I mean, there was, I don't, the thing with Changi and Chang Pao and how they were like a throuple. I don't know all the details behind it. I don't know if it was secret. I don't know if it was like out. I don't know. Yeah. I don't, I have no idea. It's a lot of the, the sources, which I mean, I really only have a few sources because it's kind of hard to find some things about her. Yeah. Some things were contradicting. So like, if one, I saw a couple of sources that said one thing and another source said something else. I was like, okay, I'll like look at these two. But my, my sources were Ching Shi, the pirate widow menace of the South China sea by biographics on YouTube. I have a link to that video. There's a really cool article. I found by D and Marie called one woman's rise to power. Changi's wife and the pirates. I found out on J store used our new subscription. That was pretty cool. A couple of things about the taste on uprising called the taste on uprising society and rebellion in 18th century Vietnam by Koo Boon Dar. And finally the Chinese female pirate commanded 80,000 outlaws by Urvija Banerjee energy. Wow. Okay. So yeah, let's change. She, I like how one of them called her a nuisance. What was it? A new order? What, what was it? What was one of the titles was like the pirate with a menace, menace, the menace. She kind of was a menace to everyone else. Literally everyone. What a bully. Oh my God. I didn't think I'd actually like a bully, but here I am. It's okay to have complicated feelings. I'm rooting for. Yeah. And she lives like a long life. She lived a quiet life, successful life. That is incredible. Well, that was a wonderful episode, Morgan, even if it was short, but like little nugget, nice little nugget. I loved it. It, I'd love her at these ships. I feel like we're not talking about these ships enough because they're really cool looking. The sailor on them look like, I don't know how to say it. It looked kind of like walk. They're very family. Yeah. Yeah. And, and there's a bunch of other different styles too. Like if you look up Chinese junk, there'll be a bunch of different types of junk to pop up. And actually, when I was watching the video, they kept saying junk. And I was like, what is he saying? And it wasn't until I read it. I was like, Oh, a joke. It's called J U N K. That's interesting. They're small. Like, I'm sure they had different sizes, like you said, but like, they seem pretty small, but I don't, I don't know a lot about boats as we've all established. It looks fast. Like, it looks like it would be a quick boat. Yeah. Cause it's small. It's sleek. Yeah. It's got really big sails compared to like its size. Yeah. And, you know, like we did establish in the last pirate episode, we talked about some of these pirates would come up. They, they didn't have these big monstrosity boats that you imagine they would have because it's easier. They had slips. Yeah. It was easier to come up on other boats. In smaller boats. So, I mean, it makes sense. Great. Getting the socials. Let's do it. Cool. So if you liked it, you can find us on Facebook page and group, illiquid history podcast page and group, Instagram at illiquid history. You can email us at illiquid history at gmail.com. And, uh, we have a Tik TOK at illiquid history. We have really funny videos. And we remember to upload. And last but not least, we have a patrion, patreon.com slash illiquid history, where you have access to bonus episodes. And we're going to play a little clip of this month's bonus episode. Just a little teaser, just a little, little teeny bit, little nugget. No one thought at this point that the princess and Dodie were actually seeing each other and that they were only guests. And according to Trevor and Kazza's account, even within the whole month, they're thinking, why in the hell is this woman dating this guy? He is in his forties. And doesn't do anything. He literally does not do anything. He has to ask his daddy for money. She can do so much better than this guy. Why the hell? And their personalities don't match. Like she's a go getter. I mean, by all accounts, Dodie's dad is a go getter. Dodie, not so much. He's just kind of living on it. Like literally he, Dodie would do something and his own bodyguard would call his dad and be like, your son is a mess. And at the time, Dodie had a fiance. Oh shit. Oh shit is right. And they were to be married on August the ninth. You're shitting me. Oh my God. Oh boy. Okay. Her name was Kelly Fisher. And this is also sketchy as fuck. Remember, Diana and the boys went down on July the 14th. Kelly Fisher went down there to St. Tropez, but never encountered the princess and the boys because fucking Dodie had her on another boat and would go back and forth. Doesn't that make you want to come subscribe to our Patreon? Do you want to get more of the tea? Then subscribe for $5 a month. You can listen to the whole episode. I think this one was like two hours and 40 minutes long. So it's, it's almost three hours. She, a long episode all about princess Diana. I think most of our episodes are about two, at least two hours long or close to it. So you definitely get your, your money's worth. Absolutely. Definitely get your money's worth. It's like $2 and 50 cents an hour per month. Yeah. And we send you a sticker. Yeah, it's awesome. And I think we've been talking about starting to sell like t-shirts maybe. And so we're trying to think about how we're going to go do about that. That's going to be like a patron exclusive, you know, however, however we want to do that. Yeah. So if you have any suggestions, let us know. We don't know how to do our job, please. Yeah, somebody needs to. Okay. Um, should we let these people go? Let's let's go have a great Thursday and we'll see you next week for our 50th episode. We're old and we're married. 50th episode. Jesus Christ. It's not our anniversary yet. Not yet. Not yet. We're getting close to it though. It's in May. It's in May. Oh my God. It's like May the 4th, right? I don't know. I think it is. I have to check a release schedule. Okay. Um, well, don't, if you have a pirate queen, don't not do what she says. She'll cut your head off. Yeah. Um, one, either listen to about us pirate queen or to become a pirate pirate queen. Solid advice. Words to live by. We should get that tattooed on us. Become a badass pirate queen. Okay. Um, t-shirt idea, but a picture of her off that just says off with your head. I love it. Um, right. Okay. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.