At the height of their power, infamous Caribbean pirates like Blackbeard
and Henry Morgan commanded as many as ten ships
and several hundred men. But their stories pale next to the most
successful pirate of all time. Madame Zheng commanded 1800 vessels, made enemies of several empires, and still lived to old age. Madame Zheng began her life as a commoner working on one of the many
floating brothels, or flower boats, in the port city of Guangzhou. By 1801, she had attracted
the attention of a local pirate captain named Zheng Yi,
and the two soon married. Guangzhou’s fishermen had long engaged
in small-scale piracy to supplement their meager incomes
in the offseason. But a successful peasant uprising in
neighboring Vietnam at the end of the 18th century
had raised the stakes. The victorious Tây Sơn rebels
had unified their country only to face a Chinese invasion and ongoing maritime battles with the
Vietnamese rulers they had overthrown. So they commissioned Guangzhou’s pirates
to raid the coast and join the fight against their enemies. Serving their Vietnamese patrons
turned the Zhengs and other pirates from ragtag gangs aboard single vessels into professional privateer fleets with dozens of ships
able to hold their own at sea. In 1802, the Tây Sơn were overthrown and the pirates lost
their safe harbor in Vietnam. But instead of scattering, the Zhengs met the crisis by uniting
the rival Cantonese pirate groups into a formidable alliance. At its height, the confederation
included 70,000 sailors with 800 large junks and nearly 1,000 smaller vessels. Those were organized into six fleets
marked by different colored flags. The Zhengs were unlike many other
historically-known privateers, such as Henry Morgan or Barbarossa, who acted on behalf
of various naval powers. Instead, the Zhengs were now true outlaws, operating without support or approval
from any government. Zheng Yi met an untimely end in 1807, but his widow didn’t hesitate
to secure their gains. Through skillful diplomacy, Madame Zheng took
charge of the confederation, convincing the captains that their best
interests lay in continued collaboration. Meanwhile, she appointed Zhang Bao,
the young protege of her late husband, as the commander of her most
powerful squadron, the Red Flag Fleet. Zhang became not only her right-hand man,
but her lover and, soon, her new husband. Madame Zheng consolidated her
power through strict military discipline combined with a surprisingly
progressive code of laws. Female captives were theoretically
protected from sexual assault, and while pirates could
take them as wives, mistreatment or infidelity towards
them was punishable by death. Under Madame Zheng’s leadership, the pirates greatly
increased their power, with 200 cannons
and 1300 guns in the Red Flag Fleet alone. Within a few years, they destroyed 63 of
Guangdong Province’s 135 military vessels, forcing their commanders
to hire more than 30 private junks. Madame Zheng was so feared that Chinese
commanders charged with apprehending her spent most of their time ashore, sometimes sabotaging their own
vessels to avoid battle at sea. With little to stop them, the pirates were able to mount successful
—and often brutal— raids on garrisons, villages,
and markets throughout the coast. Using her administrative talents, Madame Zheng established financial offices
in cities and villages, allowing her pirates to extract regular
protection payments on land and sea alike. This effectively created
a state within a state whose influence reached
far beyond the South China Sea. At the peak of her power, Madame Zheng’s confederation drove
five American schooners to safe harbor near Macao, captured a Portuguese brig, and blockaded a tribute
mission from Thailand —all in a single day. But perhaps Madame Zheng’s greatest
success lay in knowing when to quit. By 1810, increasing tension
between the Red and Black Flag Fleets weakened the confederation from within and rendered it more vulnerable
to attack from without. So, when the Chinese government,
desperate to stop the raids, offered amnesty in exchange
for the pirates’ surrender, Madame Zheng and Zhang Bao agreed,
but only on their own terms. Their confederation was successfully
and peacefully dismantled in April 1810, while Zhang Bao was allowed to retain
120 junks for personal use and became an officer in the Chinese navy. Now fighting pirates himself, Zhang Bao quickly rose through
the ranks of military command, and Madame Zheng enjoyed all
the privileges of her husband’s status. After Zhang Bao died in 1822, Madame Zheng returned with their
eleven-year-old son to Guangzhou, where she opened a gambling house
and quietly lived off the proceeds. She died at the age of 69—an uncommonly
peaceful end to a pirate’s life.
Here's more about Cheng: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ching_Shih. There are also many videos made about her as well: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ching+shih.
She is considered to be one of history's biggest badasses, but I'm guessing not many of you have heard of her given her race and gender, more so race. At the height of her reign, she commanded over 300 ships and 20,000-40,000 pirates, which included men, women, and children. Unlike whiteys, who usually only included men in their ranks regardless if it's a pirate ship or a polo club. She was feared by the Qing Dynasty and even took on the British and Portuguese Empires, which were at their height at the time. And surprisingly, unlike many pirates in history, she lived until old age and passed away of natural causes.
Cool history, but do we need to give any credence to these red herrings from fems.
Asian feminism destroyed its own relevance by sheltering open misandry against AM and perpetuating rather than fighting gendered racism. Their hypocritical nonsense has been completely discredited. Almost all their stuff misapplied concepts from white feminism
I mean, nearly all societies in humankind have been patriarchal....... thats indisputable. And yea, men are misogynistic don't fuck with that shit man its true.
But I see your point, what the asian american "woke" community is trying to do isn't anywhere close to what white mens rights activists are championing, those who call us MRAzns are retarded, and we should all be asian feminists as well
This idea makes no sense because it assumes that rare cases of powerful women cannot exist in any misogynist society. Has this been true? Was Victorian England misogynist? If the answer is yes, how could the Queen be the ruler? Same goes for racism, if America is racist, how could Obama have become the president?
All I have to say is, before socialism, China (I don't know enough about other Asian countries to comment) was very androcentric. That is not to say that Asians are evil patriarchal maniacs, but don't go too far in your statements to say that we were pioneers of equality, makes us look stupid.
That said, after 1949 things changed a lot in China.
oh, also yea, throughout chinese wuxia (martial arts fantasy) literature and movies, females are consistently portrayed as strong characters who really kick as. Sometimes they are leaders, and often times their skills surpass those of the male characters.
You may think "eh, those are just books and movies," true...but books and movies are a reflection of a culture and their mentality. In those terms, at least, we were way ahead of the West.
For your purposes, I think Tsai Ing-wen - Taiwan's first female president - would be a better example since she did not "inherit" her leadership position from a father, brother or husband who was in a position of power.
With that said, wouldn't the UN's Gender Inequality Index be more useful in assessing a nation/culture's general level of misogyny or sexism? Here are how several Asian countries compared to the US in 2017:
Switzerland 1
South Korea: 10
Singapore: 12
Canada: 20
Japan: 22
Australia: 23
Ireland: 23
UK: 25
New Zealand: 34
China: 36
USA: 41
Malaysia: 62
Vietnam: 67
Philippines: 97
Indonesia: 104
India: 127
Source: http://hdr.undp.org/en/composite/GII
If you look at the data, you cannot make a sweeping conclusion that Anglo-cultures are less sexist than Asian cultures. But if you say "white" vs. "Asian" in the most loose sense, that it is true that there are more white-majority nations (particularly Scandinavian countries) in the top 25.
no help for the Opium Wars
could be a Mulan type movie
Personally, I feel extra history made a better overview video even though the graphics are simple and it's sprinkled with jokes.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3342478/
Don't worry, Hollywood whites and some other people are already taking her story and replacing her husband and lover with white men (Dylan McDermott and Francois Arnaud respectively).
So what if she killed WM in history? In Hollywood, she's going to be their whore.
No doubt they will be killing Asian men and overthrowing the Chinese government in that TV series. Hopefully it never gets made.