Who was the Most Successful Pirate?

When you think of the folks who have ever imitated a pirate and let out a deep ; "Haarrr me maties !", you probaby immediately thought of some crusty, bearded, peg legged man. Maybe you thought of that movie with Johnny Depp, and his face flickered across your mind for a second. But the most successful pirate is probably not a bit like our sterotyped visions we have stored up in our thoughts.

In fact, the most successful pirate may not even be male, but female. Yes, I said female, and she was good looking to boot ! In the 1800's, the China seas had a fiery pirate princess, not with "guidelines" , but with rules that could get your head chopped off if you disobeyed. Her name was Cheng I Sao, wife of a pirate named Cheng.

She started on the wrong side of the law. Cheng I Sao was a prostitute when Chen married her. She married him on agreement that she would have half of the powers of Cheng. Cheng agreed, and so started a legacy. Under the astute rule of Cheng I Sao, business boomed. Piracy became a profit. While Cheng was taking care of the enemies, fighting as any other pirate would do, Cheng I Sao took care of the business of piracy.

She planned and organized lucrative deals, organized cartels, and did so with a good measure of success. So much so, that the number of pirates reportedly were as much as 50,000 and maybe more under her command. Every day business ranged from ransoming captives to that ever popular making a "deal you could not refuse" to those who happened to be on the shore ( also called extortion ) .

The rules were stern indeed, no pun intended. A disobedience was a swift beheading, stealing from the booty was also a beheading. If you wanted out, you lost your ears. But of course, the stooping to violence came at a cost to regular people.

Under her command, regular sailors on ships that dared to fight her pirate ships were nailed to the floor, and beaten until they vomited blood. Later they were butchered on shore. After all, she was a pirate ! All total she and her husband had about 1500 confederate ships, called "the Red Flag Fleet". Now that is a successful pirate.