November 5, 2021 • 52 mins
The most dangerous and successful pirate in the world was a woman named Zheng Yi Sao who, together with her lover Cheung Po Tsai, united pirates under a single banner in the South China Sea. To end her bloody reign, the Qing Dynasty would have to negotiate, and her tongue was as sharp as her sword.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, that was terrible. Nice harmonics we got coming for
you today. Hi everybody, Hello, welcome back. I hope absolutely. Um,
it's it's so exciting. That's why we had to give
(00:20):
you such a musical intro. This is our fiftie episode
Ridiculous Romance, twenty five weeks of of these crazy stories. Yeah,
I feel like I've learned a lot. What have you
learned in this time? That? Um, some people through history
(00:42):
lie and record theirs as in fact. You know what. Honestly,
one thing one lesson that I've taken from this is
that it's similar basically what you just said is that
history is a manipulative tool, and you can really stick
it to someone, especially in earlier times, right when there
(01:06):
was like one person recording everything. Oh really, you looked
at me, funny. So you know what, I'm going to
change your entire legacy in this book I'm writing tonight.
It turns out you're ugly now everyone laughs at your
stupid face, historically documented, they'll be talking about it on
a podcast two thousand years from now. And also that
(01:28):
so much of history was shaped by the mistresses various rulers. True,
very true, and people are weird people are really, really weird,
and I think sometimes we forget that because we're very
like thinking about our own main stream. But people are
(01:50):
fucking weird. They really are. So thanks for sticking with
us for fifty episodes. Telling your friends, obviously, your neighbors,
your uncle's, your aunts. Yeah you know, you know, But
don't stop there. I don't want to let the song
limit you. Oh, definitely not. You're bringing to the show. Yeah,
(02:10):
so invite anyone, your next door group, your Facebook neighborhood.
I don't know. I'm not on one of those. Tell
them all, Tell them all. Tell your enemies. Yeah, and
you're you tell that multi level marketing group from your
high school friends. Tell them all. So we're excited to
(02:31):
have you for this episode, but we've it's been an
exciting week here in Atlanta. Yeah, that has. I don't
know if you heard, but we kind of won the
world series that one, you know, the world series of
people who only play in this country basically get some
of the Yeah, I get some like Toronto Blue Jay
(02:51):
is right. I don't know how it works. You don't neither.
You don't know how we are sports casual supporters. Right,
we did a Jackie rabbitson episode You know how much
we know about baseball, but it was exciting because, well,
we cut the cable cord a while ago, so we
don't get live sports here. But we were out to
dinner for Game six and we happened to be watching
(03:14):
the only part of the game the entire World Series
that we saw are really the entire baseball season was
when so Lair hit that home run. And you know,
I'm just saying, it's the only time we were watching,
and it was a hell of a home run. Sort
of You're welcome is what we're saying. You're welcome that
we went and gotten Mexican food that night. I had
(03:37):
the game on the You're welcome to everybody. But of
course Houston, right, sorry Houston. Yeah, Well, we've got a
sporty story for you today, rooted in competition. Sure, isn't
the Pirates a baseball team? The Pittsburgh Pirates are a
baseball team? Wow, look at me the trivia. Yeah, we're
(04:03):
talking about pirates today. And this is the story of
the most successful pirate in history, or at least one
of a woman named chung Yo woman a woman, yes,
and her first marriage was for power, but her second
marriage was also for power, but maybe also for love possible.
(04:27):
Let's find out. I want to find out about some
Chinese pirates. Let's set sail, Hey the French, come listen. Well,
Eli and Diana got some stories to tell. There's no matchmaking,
a romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relationships, a love.
It might be any type of person at all, and
abstract cons that don't a concrete wall. But if there's
(04:48):
a story. Were the Second Glance Ridiculous Roles A production
of I Heart Radio. In the seventeen nineties, China and
Vietnam were at war a right because in seventeen seventy one,
the Thai Shun brothers had started a peasant uprising against
the lords of Northern and Southern Vietnam, and they overthrew them.
(05:10):
And then they divided the country into three equal parts,
and they each took over one amongst themselves, got three brothers,
one of them each ruling a different part of Vietnam exactly,
And so they were kind of like feeling like great,
everything's coming up Tai Shun. But before they had really
even established their control fully, one of the overthrown lord's sons,
(05:34):
win On came back to Vietnam from exile in Thailand
and rallied his own army to overthrow them back again. Basically,
he was like, oh no, he like controls the undo. Yeah,
coming back, taking this back. I want my land back
right now, and not only mine, but everyone else's while
(05:55):
I'm at it. And so years of battle ensued. There's
this whole civil war going on between when On and
the Tai Shun brothers and the Taishan monarchy started relying
more and more on Chinese pirates to fight for them. Meanwhile,
when On had a bunch of allies from Laos, from
(06:16):
Siam and from Ching China. China was ruled by the
Ching dynasty at that time known as Ching China. Yeah,
so the Tai Shun they've got their army of Chinese
pirates and went on has like everybody else coalition of
Southeast Asia official governments pretty much. Yeah, exactly. And so
(06:40):
one of the Chinese pirates that was fighting for Tai
Shan was named chun Yi, and he was actually from
a long line of pirates dating back to the Ming dynasty.
This was a real family business. My father was a
pirate and his father and father's father's father. We are
all buccaneers. And so he was fighting as a privateer
(07:02):
on his cousin, Chun Chee's fleet. So chun Yi is
a pirate who's fighting on his cousin's fleet. Chung Chi
owns the fleet of ships, and they're fighting in favor
of the Tai Shun brothers, yeah, against the Chinese and
went on. Yeah. So in seventeen, Chun Ye kidnapped a
(07:25):
fifteen year old boy named Chung Potsi. Now he was
the son of a tonk and fisherman, and chun Yie
pressed him into piracy. It's like, you're coming with me,
welcome aboard. You're a pirate. Now, he didn't have that
Irish pirate accent because he's from China. Okay, but we're
not doing that accent. Definitely not very stupid. So this
(07:51):
was actually a pretty common thing to happen among pirates
and navies. Actually, if you remember our episode about Robert
Culifford on John Swan, it wasn't uncommon for the navy
to basically snatch you up and force you to sail
and fight with them. Guess what you do? And now, yeah,
working for me, it doesn't pay well and you won't
eat well either. Welcome aboard life at sea. I can't wait. So,
(08:16):
speaking of that episode, here's the thing about Chann Ye
and Chiung Potsi. Some sources claim that they were actually
lovers and that chun Ye kidnapped Chung and adopted him
just because he wasn't allowed to marry him. So he's like,
so we can't get married, I'm just gonna snatch you up.
And if I quote kidnap you, now we're together this way,
(08:39):
it's okay, Like that's better than I'm getting married. Apparently,
and again, this was another thing that was common amongst
sailors at the time, although speculation station this might have
been less common in China because there was no superstition
against having women on ships like there was in the West.
In the Western pirates and navies, you couldn't have a
(09:00):
woman aboard the ship. So there was a lot more
you know, alleged homosexual activity going on on board on
these ships. Uh. And it also wasn't allowed, but it
was pirates allowed it, but nabies didn't. Yeah, So it's
hard to say if that was the source of their
relationship here or if they were just into each other.
But Chung POTSI became a pirate, and though he was
(09:22):
not born into piracy like Chun Ye was, he was
totally good at it. He and a natural talent. He
adapted well to his life at sea, and he rose
quickly in the ranks. That might be because there was
a lot of room for promotion because Tai Shun and
their forces had started out really strong, but went On
(09:42):
was kind of decimating them at this point in in
the war, and by February eighteen o one, one of
the bloodiest battles of all had had ensued, and the
Thai Shun forces were getting a little worried because they
had not performed well that battle. Around this time, Chinese
starts to hear some rumors about this real shrewd, savvy
(10:06):
prostitute in a Cantonese floating brothel named she Yang. Now
She Yang was twenty six years old. She had a
very wealthy, politically connected clientele, and some of these fellows
like to talk after sex. This is what I'm saying
to these these ladies. Man, come in and they've got
(10:27):
the power. They yeah, if they got the brain to
use it, oh yeah yeah, or to recognize that they
have perhaps a position of powers that seems powerless. I mean,
Marguerite Aliberty obviously, Matame Pompadour. Here, I'm Sultan here, I'm sultan.
Totally several concubines. So we have a few more coming up, probably, yeah.
(10:50):
So yeah, these guys are talking during pillow talk, you know,
after they've been satisfied, I guess. And she had become
pretty notorious for being really good at collecting up these
scraps of information and little secrets and using them to
wield power over people and get more influence and probably
money and sell them and you know, just make ship happen.
This guy's lying on the bed one night, he's like, oh,
(11:12):
that was a pretty good time, lady boy. Oh, well,
time for me to get back to the fleet of ships.
I'm sailing into a secret bay tomorrow. Well good thing,
you won't tell anyone about it. You're just a woman
I have sex with, right, She's like, yeah, just a
lowly prostitute on a floating brothel. What can you do?
(11:33):
And then he leaves and she picks up the phone.
She's like, hey, I got the info for you. He
got the cash, and he's like, where did this phone
come from? It was about to say very early. It's Sully.
I also invented the telephone. Wow, but I could only
talk to myself. So Chunny liked the sound of this powerful,
(11:57):
smart lady, and he proposed to her, proposed to marry her.
This is most likely a business move because again, he's
probably in a romantic or at least a sexual relationship
with his adopted son Chung. Right, okay, so he's not like,
it's not you, I love you so much. She's like,
I already got somebody, but you seem like a smart
(12:17):
person to wed. Yes, and you know, a speculation station. Again,
I'm thinking, you know, this war is not going well.
Chinese might be looking to his future and he's like,
I need somebody, you know, real smart next to me,
who can do the things I can't do, is good
at the things I'm not good at, and was kind
of like, this bitch has what I'm like it We're okay, yeah,
(12:39):
that's what I'm thinking, right, I hope you don't mind
if we get married, but I'm sleeping with my adopted son.
She's like, I mean that sounds like your own business.
So yeah, basically he's like, hey, you know I like intrigue.
You like intrigue. I like boats, You like boats, why
not let's consolidate some power were together, you know, And
(13:02):
she Yang is like, oh, hell, yes, this is you know,
exactly probably what she would want to do with her life.
But on one condition, she said she wanted a contract
drawn up like formal paper, signed witnessed contract. Yeah, fully,
like filed away somewhere that said she got an equal
(13:25):
fifty control and share of everything they did. Oh yeah, exactly.
I'm like Chinese was probably like, yes, that is a
very smart and savvy and shrewd move. This is exactly
what I was looking for. God damn head, I didn't
mean to me. Yeah, And so he totally signed that
(13:46):
pre nup and they both adopted Chung Potsi as there
as her stepson, his adopted son, and air so he
would be the next in line, you know. And she
became known as chun Yi Saw, which means Chinese wife.
Basically very descriptive name, which is so funny because she's
(14:08):
known for his name, but she's much more powerful than him. Actually, right,
a patriarchy is around the world and across time. Beautiful.
So only a year later now it's eighteen o two,
win On is totally mowing down the Taishan fleets, and
he's beheading generals and he's parading prisoners through the streets.
(14:32):
In June, he was crowned Emperor Xia Long, but right
after the ceremony he goes to finish the job by
entering Hanoi, the capital city. You know, you gotta storm
the capital if you're gonna take over. On the way there,
he encounters chun Chi, who remember, is the cousin who
owns the fleet the chun Ye is working for and
(14:52):
Chu she's got forty pirate junks. A pirate junk is
like a type of Chinese pirate ship, like a vessel,
a junk u. I kind of love it, oh ye,
pirate junk junks. Forty junks coming straight for you. I
hit him writing the junks right, So went on marges
(15:19):
into Hannoi, but Chunch and his forty pirate junks are
waiting there. But it's not enough. Chun Chi gets captured
and executed. Went on, who's now The emperor takes over
Hannoi and by July he's unified the entire country of
Vietnam for the first time in centuries. Pretty good, So
(15:41):
it's all over for the Taishan faction. Things aren't looking
good for the Chinese pirates. Chung Yee had actually been
quick to take over after his cousin Chung Chi had
been executed. He came in and was like, I'll take
control of pirates. We're gonna SpongeBob the hell out of
Vietnam back to China, And in eighteen o three, Chun
Yi and chen Yi Sao had their first child, a
(16:02):
son named Chuon Yingshi. Man, it's crazy to think about
pirrating around doing crazy ship and you're pregnant. What's the same.
And yeah, as as we said, as soon as as
soon as his cousin Chon Chi had died, Chan Yi
took over the forty pirate junks, so he had a
pretty respectable fleet when he got back home in the
South China Sea. I'll take that junk, thank you very much.
(16:27):
One man's junk is another man's junk. But at the
time they were actually kind of a lot of competing
Cantonese pirate fleets, just kind of running around bouncing off
each other. But fortunately chen Yi Sao was a very
capable organizer and consolidator, and so together they managed to
(16:47):
unify all these rival fleets into one giant pirate confederation,
and each fleet signed an agreement in eighteen o five
basically to like work together. They would have a big
shared booty whole, one big shared booty hole. I mean,
I guess I see why they didn't call it that.
(17:10):
I found some more treasure. I'll go put it in
the booty hole. Anyway, they were basically like, we want
to become too big to fail. Okay, we can do
that together. Let's all sign this agreement. And there were
six fleets and they were known by the colors of
their flags, and there was the Black flag fleet, blue white, yellow,
and purple, and the largest fleet of all, commanded by
(17:34):
Chung Yi and his wife chungy Sou, was the Red
flag fleet. And they were one of the most powerful
pirate fleets in all of China. So they're pirrating around
for a couple of years like you do. And together
they have another son, Chung Xiongi in seven. But then
(17:55):
tragedy struck. Chung Ye fell overboard during io. Some people
think that he was deliberately murdered by Chung Yi Sao,
his wife, or maybe even by Chung Potsi, the adopted
son slash maybe love slash maybe lover uh. Some say
(18:17):
that it was totally an accident. These things happen. It's
the life on the sea, you know, the dangers of
a typhoon. A lot of people surely thrown overboard during storms.
But either way, change was dead and Chung Yi Sao
had to act fast if she wanted to hang onto
the reins of control of this massive pirate fleet. Fortunately,
(18:38):
she was already good at consolidating power, and she had
helped create this confederation of pirates after all, so she
was quick to win support of Guo PODi, who was
the commander of the second largest faction, the Black Flag Fleet.
Fun fact, Guopo Die was also abducted and pressed into
(18:59):
piracy at a young age by Chung Ye, and then
years later Chung Ye gave him a captive girl as
his bride and then put him in command of his
own fleet. So Chung Y out here just setting up
pirates left and right. Kidnap you you're a pirate. Of
kidnap you, tag you're a pirate. Now, tag you're a pirate.
And he's just making pirates all day long. Chung Y's
(19:22):
nephew and Chung Cheese son also supported her, which of
course helped a lot too. So a lot of family support,
a lot of other pirates coming in and saying, yes,
this lady knows what she's doing. I will follow her,
you know, through the seas. She can have all my junk.
I will put my junk in her booty hole any day.
(19:44):
And uh, that's how she became the world's most powerful pirate.
Oh you know, you know, we scripted some things on
this show, and some just happened in those mad sickle moments.
I love them over. Scripting is never the answer, But
(20:09):
attentive listeners might remember that Chung Potsi was named the
air of Chinese when they got married, right when they
adopted him. Yeah, when they got together and adopted him.
So you know what did he feel about all this
or trying to take Potually the son who's coming into
power is not so happy about some adopted mom running around.
(20:34):
Well not in this case. He was on her side
right away, and in fact, within weeks of Chinese death,
they took their relationship from the fleets to the sheets
and became lovers. So now that my adoptive dad lover
is dead, wing into bed with adoptive mom why not.
(20:57):
And actually some speculated they had already been sleeping together
before Chinese ever died. So speculation station, I have I
have to ask, because you know, I'm nasty. If Chan
Yi was doing Chung Potsai and Chen Yiao was also
doing Chung Potsi, do you think they ever mixed it
up along got it together, all three of them hanging
(21:21):
out in one ship. I don't know, supporters a life
on the sea will do strange things, or do you
think that it was strictly like strange? Never knew that
they had a relationship, like they kept it a secret.
Maybe as well. I don't know who knows, but I will,
I will. Uh, there's a second train in speculation station
(21:42):
right now, because I want to ask if Chung Potsi
and Chung y so we're sleeping together, stands the reason
that Chung yee death might have not been such an accident.
It get the old man out of the way, makes
the murder look more likely for he who knows who
knows that you know they never went in front of
(22:03):
a jury about it because they're pirates. Yeah, they made
their own jury and so yeah, so anyway, Chung probably
because they were already doing it and had planned this
out together from the get In my opinion, they kind
of worked out the situation where Chung pots I became
(22:25):
the commander of the Red Flag fleet. He was in
charge of the largest contingent of ships and that was
his his deal, where Chini Sao took over operations for
pretty much the entire confederation, so he was like her
second in command. And a report from eighteen ten to
(22:45):
the Chinese government said, quote, Chung Potsi obeyed Chinese SU's
orders and consulted her in all things before acting, so
she was like really in charge, like this this was
her show. So somebody comes up and it's like, Chunk Putsi,
will you lend us three ships? He's like, I have
to ask my mom first. I'll ask her next time
(23:07):
we're in bed, whatever the situation over there is. And
the other pirates are like, yeah, I'm not an ask,
I'm not you just you just tell me give me
a huster now tomorrow. Let me know what your convenience.
But that means that she was in charge of over
eighteen hundred pirate ships. This was one thousand large vessels
(23:28):
and eight hundreds smaller ships and junks, and an estimated
eighty thousand pirates at the height of her power. That's
insane fleet. For comparison, the infamous Blackbeard who you may
have heard of, he commanded four ships and three hundred pirates.
(23:49):
I mean, it doesn't even compare. No, that's huge. This
makes her one of the most successful pirates in history.
That's wild. I mean, eighty thousand people, eighteen hundred ships.
You gotta wonder, right, it begs a question how big
was her booty hole at this point. It had to
be pretty freaking big to hold all that. Yeah, I
(24:11):
mean the entire South China season in there, she's like,
don't you worry about my booty hole. Baby, got it
under control. I got it locked down tight, and I
know you're on the edge of your seat, but we've
got to take a break. We'll be right back with more.
(24:32):
Welcome back to the show, everybody. They got noticeably more
active after Chungi Sao and Chung pots I took over.
They ambushed two different factions of the Chinese Provincial Fleet,
basically wiping out half of their forces. This gave them
access to the Pearl River, which basically meant that they
could reach a whole bunch of towns and villages and
(24:53):
just go in and take all their ship because don't
forget they're pirates, I mean, and I also want to stay.
This additionally makes me think that they did murder chin
Ye because they were more active. So it's like a
couple of years went by after they made this confederation
and it seems like they didn't do yeah, so maybe
they were like, let's get rid of this boomer and
(25:15):
going up active is just a joke. Now, this, of
course was a big problem for the Chinese government. They
got all these towns getting ransacked by pirates. Pirates were
a major instruction to shipping, and most of the Chinese
navy was basically merchant ships that weren't like equipped or
(25:36):
trained to fight pirates, which honestly is probably why the
pirate fleet had such an easy time taken over and
crushing him so quickly getting access to the river in
the first place. But the provincial force the Chinese navy
was not going to back down. In eighteen o nine,
a hundred ships commanded by Sun chin Mo attacked a
(25:57):
small faction of pirates, probably thinking he could wipe amount easily,
but then they called on their old buddies. The pirate
Confederation for backup. So the Red Flag and the White
Flag fleets showed up and just handily took care of
Suon Chin Moo's force and set them a running or
(26:17):
sailing I guess sailing. Sailing takes you away the water
version of running. Um. But a few days later, the
ching fleet wiped out the entire White Flag fleet and
killed the pirate commander, but it did cost them twenty
five ships that they lost in the process. White fleet
(26:38):
put up a fight, yeah they did, so that's kind
of a bummer. They got one of their whole fleets
wiped out or whatever. But even so, Cheneau is like
all business. She's like, we still got shipped to do.
We're about to raid the ship out of everything. And
basically she like I imagine her sweeping a bunch of
(27:00):
ship off a desk, opening a big map of the
Pearl River, and then she was like, listen, I'm taking
my fleet to this city. We're gonna sack this city.
Chung Potsi, you take a Red flag fleet, get this
city taken care of, and all the villages on the way,
and Quopoda, you take the Black flag fleet, get this province,
(27:21):
take care of all those villages, raid, raid, raid, fill
that booty hole. Blew, you're over here, red, you're over here,
while you're up here. It's a whole game of risk.
She's got planned out on the map here. Yeah, and
the Black Flag Fleet spent six weeks working their way
along the waterways of the Pearl River, raiding towns and
villages and killed an estimated ten thousand people. Oh that's
(27:45):
no fun, yish And Chung pots I meanwhile completely destroyed
an entire town. He killed two thousand inhabitants. This is
this is turned from fun piracy to real piracy, and
I don't like it all right, Like, I was all
about this girl boss until she started murdering people. And
then Chungi Sao took command of five hundred ships. They
(28:06):
rated a bunch more, they captured people, they were taking ship,
they're burning shipped down. You know, pirate stuff, pirates, bloody pirates,
bloody pirates. Okay, but here's an interesting thing. One of
the ways the Pirate Confederation was unified. They all came
together to get on the same page, which doesn't sound
(28:26):
like pirates to me, but they put together a code
of conduct and often Chun Yi Sao is credited with
writing this code, although firsthand testimonies written by Chinese people
from the time say it was actually Chiung Poetsi who
came up with it. Mostly, this misattribution comes from a
white guy who wrote a book about pirates and then
(28:47):
either sort of mistranslated, or maybe he was just more
interested in selling books than getting the fact straight and
he thought like, oh, lady pirate, that'll sell. Well, that's
a good story. Regardless whoever wrote it, the was this one.
If any pirate goes privately on shore, he shall be taken,
his ears mutilated, and he will be paraded around the
(29:10):
fleet and executed. So don't go to shore by yourself,
no little personal visits to bring a buddy. Yeah, well
I think you had to get permission and probably yeah.
It's like I need to know where the funk you are,
and if you don't. If I don't know where you are,
I'm going to find out where you are and then
put you in a grave. Sol I'll always know where
you are after it screw up your ears. Number two,
(29:36):
not the least thing shall be taken privately from the
stolen and plundered goods. All shall be registered. The pirate
receives for himself. Out of ten parts, only two eight
parts belonged to the storehouse called the General Fund. And
those who steal anything out of this general fund shall
be executed. So hands off my booty hole. Ha ha.
(30:00):
I was going to say, I guess General Fund is
a little more professional, but you know who wants to
be professional not I clearly. So Number three, women captured
from villages shall not be harmed or harassed. All women
captives shall be registered at their place of origin, recorded,
(30:23):
and be given separate quarters. Those pirates who rape or
commit adultery with the women captives shall be executed. This
is unique. What a nice moral code of conduct there,
Like kill ten thousand people all day, but if you
rape one lady, you're dead. You're dead, like banks, I
(30:45):
love it, progressive question mark. I mean for pirates. Yes,
that is what's a human life. But you know the
consent is still key here guys were pirates. Now, some
sources include additions to this code, such as, for example,
if the woman was a willing participant insects with a pirate,
(31:08):
she would also be put to death. So if they're like,
if you sleep with a lady consensually, you're both dead,
it's so weird, Like, why would you punish her for
being like this pirate's hot. But if the pirate wanted
to marry a captive woman, he could do that and
she would become a full member of the crew. So
(31:28):
you can marry these ladies and then you can sleep
with them. But none of none of this, none of
this out of wedlock sex. I really wonder what that's about.
That's why I'm like, I'm not sure that's true, because
I don't know. It just seems like such a weird
thing to make a distinction. They're like, you can't go
around just you know, swing you're a dick all around,
all over town, in every port you want to you
(31:52):
want to have sex, you do it the old fashioned way.
You get married. We would commit you know, you have
a little over the close action and you and marry.
They were you know, it was all about commitment, right,
That's what the whole treaty was. I guess, so that's true.
They're like, that might actually you know what that might be.
It is there just like if you just have sex
(32:13):
with her, she could leave an escape and run off.
If you marry her, she's part of the crew, and
we can trust her more anything like that. Maybe it
was that, yeah, and encouraging encouraging the crew to grow too.
I mean that's like you said, you've got more people. Uh, Instead,
if you want to sleep with her, that's incentivizing us
to grow our fleet. Very true, So maybe that's it.
(32:34):
That was just like if you want to sleep with here,
you can, but you better marry. They get married more
like they have kids and they can raise them. In piracy,
you know, they're creating their own country or basically for real. Now,
villages that submitted the pirates and paid tribute were spared
and and protected, and any pirate who raided a protected
village would be hunted down and put to death. But
(32:56):
it's like a mafia thing, yeah, a little bit, the
go to big. But villages that resisted had their homes
burned and all of their men killed, and then the
village leader would be nailed to the dock by his
(33:16):
feet and beaten to death. Really just the again, the
moral code of conduct is all over the place here.
It's just like that's good, that's bad, that's good, that's bad.
Then if they captured a ship, the sailors aboard could
(33:36):
either live and join the confederation, or of course option
B was always execution, but you got an option. Okay,
it's more than some would do. I hate a two
party system. In October of eighteen o nine, Suon shin
Mo had gotten the provincial army back to full strength,
(34:00):
so he kind of tried again, you know, he tried
to step up to the red flag fleet and take
him down once and for all. But Chung pots I
crushed him yet again like a fly. Yeah. Really just embarrassing.
The same guy keeps beating him over and over. He's
really holding a grudge. Imaginely he's got like a portrait
of Chung pots side and Sung and he's throwing darts
(34:21):
at him every day or something. One day, I'll get
you and sees him again, he pulls his pants down again.
Damn pirates. So yea. At this point, the Chinese imperial
and provincial governments are starting to get a little desperate,
all right. They're not doing well against this giant pirate confederation.
(34:43):
So they're like, and guess will finally get over our
dislike of quote unquote foreign barbarians. And they started talking
to the Portuguese because you know, a lot of countries
had a lot of interests in the South China Sea
and trade supply roots and everything. So the Portuguese a
out there, East India companies out there, you know. They
so they kind of looking around there, like, I see
(35:04):
other allies that we just haven't talked to because they're
not Chinese, so let's maybe get over ourselves and go
talk to them. And the Portuguese were like, oh, yes, please,
we are so on board for this, because Chinese sous
pirates had earlier captured a Portuguese governor's ship and totally
ransacked and took all their stuff, so they're a little
(35:26):
embarrassed too, and they're like, yes, please, we want payback
so badly. They saw their opportunity in November when Chin
Ye Sow suddenly left the Pearl River with just a
few ships and she harbored at Tongue Chung Bay to
make repairs, and so they're like, oh, this is a
perfect time to take down pirate Queen. We could destabilize
(35:47):
her whole confederation because she's in charge of it. She's
all alone out there with just a couple of ships.
So the Portuguese sent like a few ships kind of
just to harass her. Freaker out and she immediately signaled
for help from chunk Hotsi. He immediately heads out to
join her. He arrives the next day, but he didn't
see any Portuguese ships anywhere. Everything looked fine, so he's like,
(36:09):
I guess i'll weigh anchor and do some repairs myself
while we're in this peaceful bay. And that's when six
big gass Portuguese ships showed up and blockaded Chunyee Sou
and Chung Potsi within the bay, so they couldn't get anywhere,
and of course they tried to counter attack and break free,
but the wind was not on their side, so they
could not really do anything. They were just kind of
(36:31):
sitting there. And then a couple of weeks later, nine
three more ships show up from the provincial fleet, and
guess who's at the helm. Their old friend sum chin Mo.
So they got the Portuguese sitting there being like he
we got you, bitch, And then Suon Chin Mo shows
up and he's like, he I got you, bitch. Finally
(36:53):
I got suspenders on this time, you're not following my
pants down. But then a couple of days later, the
pirates captured one of Suon's ships and killed all seventy
four men on board suon HInM is getting pissed at
this point. They were basically just in like a standoff,
and Sunshin Moo is getting impatient now. So he converted
(37:17):
forty three of his ships into fire ships, which sounds
it's exactly what you think. He filled them with gunpowder
and other combustibles and they set them on fire on
purpose and shoved him off towards enemy lines. The idea
is that the ships will either set the enemy ships
on fire or at least make them panic and kind
(37:40):
of scatter break formation a little, and then they'd be
easier to pick off one by one. But the pirates
like they saw these slow moving, flaming ships coming towards
them and they just like moved out of the way
or or managed to divert them towards the shore, and
then they extinguished the fires, broke up the ships and
used it for irewood. Yeah, like, thanks for the firewoods, Chin,
(38:03):
I guess that's kind of what stunent Chinmo was using
him for at that point, So why not. He's shaking
his fist, He's like, damn you, and then his pants
falled out. Chin, where is this? Uh? This Marx Brothers stooges,
three stooges maybe, But just then the winds changed and
(38:25):
two of Sun Chin Moo's fire ships actually got blown
back to the provincial Chinese fleet, and two of his
own ships caught fire. Oh no, he played congratulationship played
just this is not going well for this guy. This
is the most like comedically bumbling ship commander in history.
(38:48):
Then the next day, the pirates took full advantage of
that wind that's at their backs now and they blow through,
broke out of the blockade, and escaped into the South
China Sea. The provincial fleet lost three ships besides the
ones that they burned as fireships, plus at least seventy
four men. Meanwhile, the pirates they only lost forty men
(39:09):
and zero ships. So bye bye Suon Chin Mo. Smell later.
We're done here. This guy can't catch a break, not
at all. Like he is like, you know what, maybe
I should go back home to the country and take
up painting. Gonna be a hog farmer, hog farmer, something else.
(39:31):
He gets back, the pigs are running around, his pants
fall down, bloody piglets. But all was not well among
the Pirate confederation. So even though they had had this
big victory. It was a little bit hollow because Guopo Di,
the leader of the Black Flag Fleet, had been summoned
(39:53):
to come back up the Red flag Fleet and help
them against the Portuguese and everything. We got a contract.
He had refused to show up. Later that year, he
openly battled Chung Potsi at the mouth of the Pearl River,
and it turned out he had been negotiating with Bi Ling,
who was the Viceroy of lie Anguan, So basically he
was like the governor in town way. I thought by
(40:15):
Ling was the actress from different Cranked movies, and I
know she was on Lost, she was in the Jack's
Tattoo episode. She was the girl he met. As it look,
she deserves better. Yeah, everyone deserved and I deserve better
than having to watch it. Well, this is different Biling, Okay,
(40:38):
different Byling, different by Ling. Yes, this was the viceroy. Yeah,
and he was kind of the new vice roy and
he was pretty good at dealing with pirates. But before
we get into that, let's take a quick break, all right,
Welcome back to the show. In January, Guopo Die officially
(41:01):
surrendered the entire Black Flag Fleet to Bi Ling. He
was rewarded with the rank of sub lieutenant. So now
the government had part of chun Esau and Chung Post
size confederation on its side. Plus it had already wiped
out the entire White flag fleet earlier. So this, you know,
their confederation is kind of weakening at this point. Yeah,
(41:21):
they're losing colors left and right, right. And not only that,
but the British had decided to join the Fray. They
sent ships to help patrol the Pearl River. Bi Ling
had also instituted embargoes that were kind of sucking up
the pirates supply chains as well and just making things
hard for him. And so all of Bi Ling's efforts
were really starting to pay off, and big names and
(41:43):
piracy were being captured and executed, and so they were
kind of getting a little nervous. And then finally the
kind of the final straw sort of was that the
imperial government offered amnesty to any pirates who laid down
their swords voluntarily. So it was a wig out, you know,
without dying, and so Chinese Sao decided, you know, maybe
(42:05):
it's time to negotiate, okay, okay, So Chung pots I
was sent in first to handle negotiations, and those took
place on Chunk Post flagship with a Portuguese mediator. They
decided that they would only submit if they could retain
control of five thousand pirates and eighty ships so that
they could enter the salt trade as well as participate
in anti pirate campaigns. They're like, you bring us in
(42:29):
the trade salt and we'll fight pirates for you, as
long as we can still have all our ship Yeah,
we need all those ships. We can have a life
after this. You know, we don't want to start from nothing. Yeah,
we're not gonna go be hog farmers. That's for others.
But Bai Ling was like, hell no, I'm not making
that deal with you. And then some British ships sailed
past the pirate fleet and that's booked him. That made
(42:51):
Chunk pots I think that they were laying some kind
of trap. So he just retreated, you gotta go, negotiations
are over, we'll talk later. So Chungni Sao was like,
you know, if you want something done right, you gotta
do it yourself. So she gathered up a posse of
seventeen women and children, and she walked unarmed into Bai
(43:13):
Lang's office I imagine it was a bit of a
strut more than a walk. Definitely. I don't know that
this woman knew how to walk without a stagger, do
you know what I mean. She's like, I'm freaking the
most successful pirate in history. I'm about to walk up
into your spot with all the ladies at my back,
and we're going to tell you how it's going to be.
(43:33):
And just in case, we're surrounded by children, so don't
shoot at us. You'll feel like shit if you do anything.
So she steps in there and she starts negotiating with
them herself. This time he totally yielded to her demands.
He's like, whatever you say, lady, You're really good at this.
And by the end of the talks, she had gained
clemency for all except four hundred of her seventeen thousand,
(43:57):
three D eighteen pirates, and only a D six ended
up being executed. She and Cheung Po would also be
allowed to keep all of their ill gotten gains. Amazing.
That is the that is incredible. They were both raised
to Chinese nobility, and Chung Po has made a lieutenant
in the Chinese navy and allowed to keep thirty ships
(44:20):
for his own fleet. I mean, that's that's the best
deal since Lucy and DESI signed over there getting the
rights to rerun. See what a sweet deal. Plus only
a hundred pirates got executed? Do you think that thousand?
Do you think that they executed more pirates than probably?
(44:45):
But negotiations almost stalled when Biling demanded that all the
vanquished pirates kneel before him, and Homage like he just
wanted to be like, you're fully subjugated now and you
have to show it ye to see it, and Chinese
was like, um, did you not notice my ego walk
in before me? Because I'm not doing that that we
(45:10):
we don't do that here. And bi Ling was like, okay, well, okay,
not all seventeen thousand plus pirates have to kneel, but
you and chunk pots I have to. I need somebody
to be humiliated here, and it's not gonna be me
for once. So nobody's happy with this idea, right, They're like,
(45:30):
I don't want to leal Bilings like you have to. Chinese.
I was like, I have this great deal that's about
to break down because nobody wants to get on their knees.
So she came up with a solution. Traditionally, at the
end of a marriage ceremony, the couple would kneel in
thanks to the efficient. So Chinese I was like, how
(45:50):
about you dissolve the adoption that made Chunk pots s
im my adopted son and instead marry us, and then
we'll kneel in thanks, you'll get your homage, we'll get
what we want. Everybody wins, and he said okay, and
they did that ship and so Chung Potsi and Chenisa
were officially married in April of eighteen ten. They surrendered
(46:14):
to Biling with the a fourmentioned sevent thousand, three hundred
and eighteen pirates, as well as two hundred and twenty
six ships, one thousand, three hundred and fifteen cannons, and
two thousand, seven hundred and ninety eight assorted weapons. So
can you can imagine that they were very happy to
get their hands on all that. And chany Sao also
(46:36):
surrendered her own private fleet of twenty four ships and
one thousand, four hundred thirty three pirates that were just
her personal commands. But this wedding thing, like, we don't
want to kneel to you, but I'll tell you what
we'll do. The marriage thing. We get what we want,
and you can have some people who were in the
room who can go around and say, oh no, yeah,
(46:58):
they kneeled to him. We saw it, So what happened.
I'd take a lot of detector test on that we
watched them officially kneel, and they're like, yes, we did
technically kneel before him, and violens like rubbing tiger bomb
into his temples, like whatever gets you the funk out
of here and off my plate. Oh man, So now
these notorious pirates are just working for the man, and
(47:21):
they had to help defeat pirates that they had previously
worked with, so awkward little office reunion there. Chun Po
distinguished himself by continuing to be a badass and defeating
the Blue Flag fleet, and in eighteen thirteen Chun Yi
Sao gave birth to their child, Chung Yu Lin. Not
(47:42):
much is known about these years. Probably they were living
pretty well on there everything they had in their booty hole,
handling their business fighting pirates. But then in eighteen two,
Chung pots I was killed while serving as a colonel,
and he was only thirty six years old at the time.
Still he did a lot, and he did a lot more.
(48:03):
I'm thirty six right now, almost thirty seven, and I
ain't done a fraction. You never had to kneel before
the governor. I never sailed up a river and killed
ten thousand people. You know, you can't really measure yourself
against historical figures like they had, you know, different windows,
different opportunities, a little more exciting lives. I guess Chung
(48:26):
returned to her hometown of Guangdong with her child. Records
don't mention her other two sons that she had with
Chang Yi that we mentioned earlier. UM imagining that both
of them were just grown at this point and they're
kind of off like doing their own thing. Possibly also
pirates are working for the Chinese Chinese Navy or something
like that. UM. But Chung Yu Lin was only nine,
(48:47):
so he was still with his mom and they went
to Guangdong. But Chinese saw, we've got to know her
a little bit at this point, and she's not one
to sit quietly and dwindle into poverty or so thing.
So instead she opened an infamous gambling house in Gwengal
So she was like this dope like proprietor of this casino.
(49:10):
Basically and she operated it for twenty years and watched
her son grow up and give her grandchildren, probably just
as shrewd and savvy as ever with her customers, you know,
fully like I know exactly who's broke right now and
pretending to have a fortune, and who does have a
fortune is pretend to be broke, you know, like she's
she's got all the info. Um, so she did probably
(49:33):
just fine until she passed away peacefully at the age
of sixty nine. Really for a death age, look like
I know you hear the number. It's nice. What a story, Yeah,
so that adventry of the Yeah, she she married a pirate,
(49:55):
a notorious pirate, then maybe killed him, then started sleeping
with and and ruling with his adopted son, and then
married him and then ran Cassino, took over the pirate fleet,
and then ran a Cassino. What a life? Pretty cool?
What what a couple of romances? You know? Um? Well,
(50:18):
I love I love these crazy pirate stories. It's it's
it's so tough because you do find yourself like rooting
for them, I know, and then you're like, oh no,
they were they were horrible people. Yeah, murdered without regard,
you know, I guess it's tough because especially if you
know anything about the government they're fighting against, like you're
both murderous assholes. Like I guess I like the rebels
(50:39):
over the establishment. But it's not always Yeah, we murdered
ten thousand people, but you subjugated millions and made them
live in poverty. Maybe you know. I'm not I don't
know Chinese history. I'm just saying that's the kind of
thing you're up against. Sometimes where you like which is
you know, you can measure it in deaths, and that's
certainly a way to look at it and say a
(51:01):
number of deaths is worse on this side, therefore they
are the bad guys. But then maybe if you're looking
at quality of life for those people you haven't killed,
and you're saying, well, yours is pretty miserable, from a
lot more people, look, well, that's not what we're here for.
We are here to judge and decide the good guys
and bad guys are. All I can say is they
(51:21):
all sounded pretty bad to me. They were all bad,
But it is fun to kind of see how they outsmarted,
you know, the provincial navy and stuff, and all their
little close calls and stuff's pretty cool, right right, well
fun story. Yeah, tell us what you thought of this
awesome Chinese pirate story. We always love hearing your thoughts
(51:44):
and your feedback and your suggestions for episodes and everything
else you want to send us. So our email address
is Romance at I heart media dot com. You can
find us on Twitter and Instagram as well. I'm at
oh great, it's Eli, I'm at Dianamite boom. And then
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Romance or we have episode announcements and things like that. Yeah,
(52:04):
we're on YouTube also, so just search Ridiculous Romance and
don't forget to rate and review on Apple podcasts and
tell your friends, neighbors, uncle's and ance. We love it.
We love it. Tell everybody, um uh you know, download
all these episodes, put them in your booty hole, listen
to them again and again. And that's fifty babe, we
(52:26):
just did fifty the episode cool and two more will
be halfway through the year. Ye, very exciting. That'll be something.
Thanks for tuning in, everybody, and we will catch you
on the next one. Love you bye, so long friends,
it's time to go. Thanks so listening to our show,
tell your friends neighbor's, uncle's, And to listen to our
(52:47):
show Ridiculous roll Nance
Hello, that was terrible. Nice harmonics we got coming for
you today. Hi everybody, Hello, welcome back. I hope absolutely. Um,
it's it's so exciting. That's why we had to give
(00:20):
you such a musical intro. This is our fiftie episode
Ridiculous Romance, twenty five weeks of of these crazy stories. Yeah,
I feel like I've learned a lot. What have you
learned in this time? That? Um, some people through history
(00:42):
lie and record theirs as in fact. You know what. Honestly,
one thing one lesson that I've taken from this is
that it's similar basically what you just said is that
history is a manipulative tool, and you can really stick
it to someone, especially in earlier times, right when there
(01:06):
was like one person recording everything. Oh really, you looked
at me, funny. So you know what, I'm going to
change your entire legacy in this book I'm writing tonight.
It turns out you're ugly now everyone laughs at your
stupid face, historically documented, they'll be talking about it on
a podcast two thousand years from now. And also that
(01:28):
so much of history was shaped by the mistresses various rulers. True,
very true, and people are weird people are really, really weird,
and I think sometimes we forget that because we're very
like thinking about our own main stream. But people are
(01:50):
fucking weird. They really are. So thanks for sticking with
us for fifty episodes. Telling your friends, obviously, your neighbors,
your uncle's, your aunts. Yeah you know, you know, But
don't stop there. I don't want to let the song
limit you. Oh, definitely not. You're bringing to the show. Yeah,
(02:10):
so invite anyone, your next door group, your Facebook neighborhood.
I don't know. I'm not on one of those. Tell
them all, Tell them all. Tell your enemies. Yeah, and
you're you tell that multi level marketing group from your
high school friends. Tell them all. So we're excited to
(02:31):
have you for this episode, but we've it's been an
exciting week here in Atlanta. Yeah, that has. I don't
know if you heard, but we kind of won the
world series that one, you know, the world series of
people who only play in this country basically get some
of the Yeah, I get some like Toronto Blue Jay
(02:51):
is right. I don't know how it works. You don't neither.
You don't know how we are sports casual supporters. Right,
we did a Jackie rabbitson episode You know how much
we know about baseball, but it was exciting because, well,
we cut the cable cord a while ago, so we
don't get live sports here. But we were out to
dinner for Game six and we happened to be watching
(03:14):
the only part of the game the entire World Series
that we saw are really the entire baseball season was
when so Lair hit that home run. And you know,
I'm just saying, it's the only time we were watching,
and it was a hell of a home run. Sort
of You're welcome is what we're saying. You're welcome that
we went and gotten Mexican food that night. I had
(03:37):
the game on the You're welcome to everybody. But of
course Houston, right, sorry Houston. Yeah, Well, we've got a
sporty story for you today, rooted in competition. Sure, isn't
the Pirates a baseball team? The Pittsburgh Pirates are a
baseball team? Wow, look at me the trivia. Yeah, we're
(04:03):
talking about pirates today. And this is the story of
the most successful pirate in history, or at least one
of a woman named chung Yo woman a woman, yes,
and her first marriage was for power, but her second
marriage was also for power, but maybe also for love possible.
(04:27):
Let's find out. I want to find out about some
Chinese pirates. Let's set sail, Hey the French, come listen. Well,
Eli and Diana got some stories to tell. There's no matchmaking,
a romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relationships, a love.
It might be any type of person at all, and
abstract cons that don't a concrete wall. But if there's
(04:48):
a story. Were the Second Glance Ridiculous Roles A production
of I Heart Radio. In the seventeen nineties, China and
Vietnam were at war a right because in seventeen seventy one,
the Thai Shun brothers had started a peasant uprising against
the lords of Northern and Southern Vietnam, and they overthrew them.
(05:10):
And then they divided the country into three equal parts,
and they each took over one amongst themselves, got three brothers,
one of them each ruling a different part of Vietnam exactly,
And so they were kind of like feeling like great,
everything's coming up Tai Shun. But before they had really
even established their control fully, one of the overthrown lord's sons,
(05:34):
win On came back to Vietnam from exile in Thailand
and rallied his own army to overthrow them back again. Basically,
he was like, oh no, he like controls the undo. Yeah,
coming back, taking this back. I want my land back
right now, and not only mine, but everyone else's while
(05:55):
I'm at it. And so years of battle ensued. There's
this whole civil war going on between when On and
the Tai Shun brothers and the Taishan monarchy started relying
more and more on Chinese pirates to fight for them. Meanwhile,
when On had a bunch of allies from Laos, from
(06:16):
Siam and from Ching China. China was ruled by the
Ching dynasty at that time known as Ching China. Yeah,
so the Tai Shun they've got their army of Chinese
pirates and went on has like everybody else coalition of
Southeast Asia official governments pretty much. Yeah, exactly. And so
(06:40):
one of the Chinese pirates that was fighting for Tai
Shan was named chun Yi, and he was actually from
a long line of pirates dating back to the Ming dynasty.
This was a real family business. My father was a
pirate and his father and father's father's father. We are
all buccaneers. And so he was fighting as a privateer
(07:02):
on his cousin, Chun Chee's fleet. So chun Yi is
a pirate who's fighting on his cousin's fleet. Chung Chi
owns the fleet of ships, and they're fighting in favor
of the Tai Shun brothers, yeah, against the Chinese and
went on. Yeah. So in seventeen, Chun Ye kidnapped a
(07:25):
fifteen year old boy named Chung Potsi. Now he was
the son of a tonk and fisherman, and chun Yie
pressed him into piracy. It's like, you're coming with me,
welcome aboard. You're a pirate. Now, he didn't have that
Irish pirate accent because he's from China. Okay, but we're
not doing that accent. Definitely not very stupid. So this
(07:51):
was actually a pretty common thing to happen among pirates
and navies. Actually, if you remember our episode about Robert
Culifford on John Swan, it wasn't uncommon for the navy
to basically snatch you up and force you to sail
and fight with them. Guess what you do? And now, yeah,
working for me, it doesn't pay well and you won't
eat well either. Welcome aboard life at sea. I can't wait. So,
(08:16):
speaking of that episode, here's the thing about Chann Ye
and Chiung Potsi. Some sources claim that they were actually
lovers and that chun Ye kidnapped Chung and adopted him
just because he wasn't allowed to marry him. So he's like,
so we can't get married, I'm just gonna snatch you up.
And if I quote kidnap you, now we're together this way,
(08:39):
it's okay, Like that's better than I'm getting married. Apparently,
and again, this was another thing that was common amongst
sailors at the time, although speculation station this might have
been less common in China because there was no superstition
against having women on ships like there was in the West.
In the Western pirates and navies, you couldn't have a
(09:00):
woman aboard the ship. So there was a lot more
you know, alleged homosexual activity going on on board on
these ships. Uh. And it also wasn't allowed, but it
was pirates allowed it, but nabies didn't. Yeah, So it's
hard to say if that was the source of their
relationship here or if they were just into each other.
But Chung POTSI became a pirate, and though he was
(09:22):
not born into piracy like Chun Ye was, he was
totally good at it. He and a natural talent. He
adapted well to his life at sea, and he rose
quickly in the ranks. That might be because there was
a lot of room for promotion because Tai Shun and
their forces had started out really strong, but went On
(09:42):
was kind of decimating them at this point in in
the war, and by February eighteen o one, one of
the bloodiest battles of all had had ensued, and the
Thai Shun forces were getting a little worried because they
had not performed well that battle. Around this time, Chinese
starts to hear some rumors about this real shrewd, savvy
(10:06):
prostitute in a Cantonese floating brothel named she Yang. Now
She Yang was twenty six years old. She had a
very wealthy, politically connected clientele, and some of these fellows
like to talk after sex. This is what I'm saying
to these these ladies. Man, come in and they've got
(10:27):
the power. They yeah, if they got the brain to
use it, oh yeah yeah, or to recognize that they
have perhaps a position of powers that seems powerless. I mean,
Marguerite Aliberty obviously, Matame Pompadour. Here, I'm Sultan here, I'm sultan.
Totally several concubines. So we have a few more coming up, probably, yeah.
(10:50):
So yeah, these guys are talking during pillow talk, you know,
after they've been satisfied, I guess. And she had become
pretty notorious for being really good at collecting up these
scraps of information and little secrets and using them to
wield power over people and get more influence and probably
money and sell them and you know, just make ship happen.
This guy's lying on the bed one night, he's like, oh,
(11:12):
that was a pretty good time, lady boy. Oh, well,
time for me to get back to the fleet of ships.
I'm sailing into a secret bay tomorrow. Well good thing,
you won't tell anyone about it. You're just a woman
I have sex with, right, She's like, yeah, just a
lowly prostitute on a floating brothel. What can you do?
(11:33):
And then he leaves and she picks up the phone.
She's like, hey, I got the info for you. He
got the cash, and he's like, where did this phone
come from? It was about to say very early. It's Sully.
I also invented the telephone. Wow, but I could only
talk to myself. So Chunny liked the sound of this powerful,
(11:57):
smart lady, and he proposed to her, proposed to marry her.
This is most likely a business move because again, he's
probably in a romantic or at least a sexual relationship
with his adopted son Chung. Right, okay, so he's not like,
it's not you, I love you so much. She's like,
I already got somebody, but you seem like a smart
(12:17):
person to wed. Yes, and you know, a speculation station. Again,
I'm thinking, you know, this war is not going well.
Chinese might be looking to his future and he's like,
I need somebody, you know, real smart next to me,
who can do the things I can't do, is good
at the things I'm not good at, and was kind
of like, this bitch has what I'm like it We're okay, yeah,
(12:39):
that's what I'm thinking, right, I hope you don't mind
if we get married, but I'm sleeping with my adopted son.
She's like, I mean that sounds like your own business.
So yeah, basically he's like, hey, you know I like intrigue.
You like intrigue. I like boats, You like boats, why
not let's consolidate some power were together, you know, And
(13:02):
she Yang is like, oh, hell, yes, this is you know,
exactly probably what she would want to do with her life.
But on one condition, she said she wanted a contract
drawn up like formal paper, signed witnessed contract. Yeah, fully,
like filed away somewhere that said she got an equal
(13:25):
fifty control and share of everything they did. Oh yeah, exactly.
I'm like Chinese was probably like, yes, that is a
very smart and savvy and shrewd move. This is exactly
what I was looking for. God damn head, I didn't
mean to me. Yeah, And so he totally signed that
(13:46):
pre nup and they both adopted Chung Potsi as there
as her stepson, his adopted son, and air so he
would be the next in line, you know. And she
became known as chun Yi Saw, which means Chinese wife.
Basically very descriptive name, which is so funny because she's
(14:08):
known for his name, but she's much more powerful than him. Actually, right,
a patriarchy is around the world and across time. Beautiful.
So only a year later now it's eighteen o two,
win On is totally mowing down the Taishan fleets, and
he's beheading generals and he's parading prisoners through the streets.
(14:32):
In June, he was crowned Emperor Xia Long, but right
after the ceremony he goes to finish the job by
entering Hanoi, the capital city. You know, you gotta storm
the capital if you're gonna take over. On the way there,
he encounters chun Chi, who remember, is the cousin who
owns the fleet the chun Ye is working for and
(14:52):
Chu she's got forty pirate junks. A pirate junk is
like a type of Chinese pirate ship, like a vessel,
a junk u. I kind of love it, oh ye,
pirate junk junks. Forty junks coming straight for you. I
hit him writing the junks right, So went on marges
(15:19):
into Hannoi, but Chunch and his forty pirate junks are
waiting there. But it's not enough. Chun Chi gets captured
and executed. Went on, who's now The emperor takes over
Hannoi and by July he's unified the entire country of
Vietnam for the first time in centuries. Pretty good, So
(15:41):
it's all over for the Taishan faction. Things aren't looking
good for the Chinese pirates. Chung Yee had actually been
quick to take over after his cousin Chung Chi had
been executed. He came in and was like, I'll take
control of pirates. We're gonna SpongeBob the hell out of
Vietnam back to China, And in eighteen o three, Chun
Yi and chen Yi Sao had their first child, a
(16:02):
son named Chuon Yingshi. Man, it's crazy to think about
pirrating around doing crazy ship and you're pregnant. What's the same.
And yeah, as as we said, as soon as as
soon as his cousin Chon Chi had died, Chan Yi
took over the forty pirate junks, so he had a
pretty respectable fleet when he got back home in the
South China Sea. I'll take that junk, thank you very much.
(16:27):
One man's junk is another man's junk. But at the
time they were actually kind of a lot of competing
Cantonese pirate fleets, just kind of running around bouncing off
each other. But fortunately chen Yi Sao was a very
capable organizer and consolidator, and so together they managed to
(16:47):
unify all these rival fleets into one giant pirate confederation,
and each fleet signed an agreement in eighteen o five
basically to like work together. They would have a big
shared booty whole, one big shared booty hole. I mean,
I guess I see why they didn't call it that.
(17:10):
I found some more treasure. I'll go put it in
the booty hole. Anyway, they were basically like, we want
to become too big to fail. Okay, we can do
that together. Let's all sign this agreement. And there were
six fleets and they were known by the colors of
their flags, and there was the Black flag fleet, blue white, yellow,
and purple, and the largest fleet of all, commanded by
(17:34):
Chung Yi and his wife chungy Sou, was the Red
flag fleet. And they were one of the most powerful
pirate fleets in all of China. So they're pirrating around
for a couple of years like you do. And together
they have another son, Chung Xiongi in seven. But then
(17:55):
tragedy struck. Chung Ye fell overboard during io. Some people
think that he was deliberately murdered by Chung Yi Sao,
his wife, or maybe even by Chung Potsi, the adopted
son slash maybe love slash maybe lover uh. Some say
(18:17):
that it was totally an accident. These things happen. It's
the life on the sea, you know, the dangers of
a typhoon. A lot of people surely thrown overboard during storms.
But either way, change was dead and Chung Yi Sao
had to act fast if she wanted to hang onto
the reins of control of this massive pirate fleet. Fortunately,
(18:38):
she was already good at consolidating power, and she had
helped create this confederation of pirates after all, so she
was quick to win support of Guo PODi, who was
the commander of the second largest faction, the Black Flag Fleet.
Fun fact, Guopo Die was also abducted and pressed into
(18:59):
piracy at a young age by Chung Ye, and then
years later Chung Ye gave him a captive girl as
his bride and then put him in command of his
own fleet. So Chung Y out here just setting up
pirates left and right. Kidnap you you're a pirate. Of
kidnap you, tag you're a pirate. Now, tag you're a pirate.
And he's just making pirates all day long. Chung Y's
(19:22):
nephew and Chung Cheese son also supported her, which of
course helped a lot too. So a lot of family support,
a lot of other pirates coming in and saying, yes,
this lady knows what she's doing. I will follow her,
you know, through the seas. She can have all my junk.
I will put my junk in her booty hole any day.
(19:44):
And uh, that's how she became the world's most powerful pirate.
Oh you know, you know, we scripted some things on
this show, and some just happened in those mad sickle moments.
I love them over. Scripting is never the answer, But
(20:09):
attentive listeners might remember that Chung Potsi was named the
air of Chinese when they got married, right when they
adopted him. Yeah, when they got together and adopted him.
So you know what did he feel about all this
or trying to take Potually the son who's coming into
power is not so happy about some adopted mom running around.
(20:34):
Well not in this case. He was on her side
right away, and in fact, within weeks of Chinese death,
they took their relationship from the fleets to the sheets
and became lovers. So now that my adoptive dad lover
is dead, wing into bed with adoptive mom why not.
(20:57):
And actually some speculated they had already been sleeping together
before Chinese ever died. So speculation station, I have I
have to ask, because you know, I'm nasty. If Chan
Yi was doing Chung Potsai and Chen Yiao was also
doing Chung Potsi, do you think they ever mixed it
up along got it together, all three of them hanging
(21:21):
out in one ship. I don't know, supporters a life
on the sea will do strange things, or do you
think that it was strictly like strange? Never knew that
they had a relationship, like they kept it a secret.
Maybe as well. I don't know who knows, but I will,
I will. Uh, there's a second train in speculation station
(21:42):
right now, because I want to ask if Chung Potsi
and Chung y so we're sleeping together, stands the reason
that Chung yee death might have not been such an accident.
It get the old man out of the way, makes
the murder look more likely for he who knows who
knows that you know they never went in front of
(22:03):
a jury about it because they're pirates. Yeah, they made
their own jury and so yeah, so anyway, Chung probably
because they were already doing it and had planned this
out together from the get In my opinion, they kind
of worked out the situation where Chung pots I became
(22:25):
the commander of the Red Flag fleet. He was in
charge of the largest contingent of ships and that was
his his deal, where Chini Sao took over operations for
pretty much the entire confederation, so he was like her
second in command. And a report from eighteen ten to
(22:45):
the Chinese government said, quote, Chung Potsi obeyed Chinese SU's
orders and consulted her in all things before acting, so
she was like really in charge, like this this was
her show. So somebody comes up and it's like, Chunk Putsi,
will you lend us three ships? He's like, I have
to ask my mom first. I'll ask her next time
(23:07):
we're in bed, whatever the situation over there is. And
the other pirates are like, yeah, I'm not an ask,
I'm not you just you just tell me give me
a huster now tomorrow. Let me know what your convenience.
But that means that she was in charge of over
eighteen hundred pirate ships. This was one thousand large vessels
(23:28):
and eight hundreds smaller ships and junks, and an estimated
eighty thousand pirates at the height of her power. That's
insane fleet. For comparison, the infamous Blackbeard who you may
have heard of, he commanded four ships and three hundred pirates.
(23:49):
I mean, it doesn't even compare. No, that's huge. This
makes her one of the most successful pirates in history.
That's wild. I mean, eighty thousand people, eighteen hundred ships.
You gotta wonder, right, it begs a question how big
was her booty hole at this point. It had to
be pretty freaking big to hold all that. Yeah, I
(24:11):
mean the entire South China season in there, she's like,
don't you worry about my booty hole. Baby, got it
under control. I got it locked down tight, and I
know you're on the edge of your seat, but we've
got to take a break. We'll be right back with more.
(24:32):
Welcome back to the show, everybody. They got noticeably more
active after Chungi Sao and Chung pots I took over.
They ambushed two different factions of the Chinese Provincial Fleet,
basically wiping out half of their forces. This gave them
access to the Pearl River, which basically meant that they
could reach a whole bunch of towns and villages and
(24:53):
just go in and take all their ship because don't
forget they're pirates, I mean, and I also want to stay.
This additionally makes me think that they did murder chin
Ye because they were more active. So it's like a
couple of years went by after they made this confederation
and it seems like they didn't do yeah, so maybe
they were like, let's get rid of this boomer and
(25:15):
going up active is just a joke. Now, this, of
course was a big problem for the Chinese government. They
got all these towns getting ransacked by pirates. Pirates were
a major instruction to shipping, and most of the Chinese
navy was basically merchant ships that weren't like equipped or
(25:36):
trained to fight pirates, which honestly is probably why the
pirate fleet had such an easy time taken over and
crushing him so quickly getting access to the river in
the first place. But the provincial force the Chinese navy
was not going to back down. In eighteen o nine,
a hundred ships commanded by Sun chin Mo attacked a
(25:57):
small faction of pirates, probably thinking he could wipe amount easily,
but then they called on their old buddies. The pirate
Confederation for backup. So the Red Flag and the White
Flag fleets showed up and just handily took care of
Suon Chin Moo's force and set them a running or
(26:17):
sailing I guess sailing. Sailing takes you away the water
version of running. Um. But a few days later, the
ching fleet wiped out the entire White Flag fleet and
killed the pirate commander, but it did cost them twenty
five ships that they lost in the process. White fleet
(26:38):
put up a fight, yeah they did, so that's kind
of a bummer. They got one of their whole fleets
wiped out or whatever. But even so, Cheneau is like
all business. She's like, we still got shipped to do.
We're about to raid the ship out of everything. And
basically she like I imagine her sweeping a bunch of
(27:00):
ship off a desk, opening a big map of the
Pearl River, and then she was like, listen, I'm taking
my fleet to this city. We're gonna sack this city.
Chung Potsi, you take a Red flag fleet, get this
city taken care of, and all the villages on the way,
and Quopoda, you take the Black flag fleet, get this province,
(27:21):
take care of all those villages, raid, raid, raid, fill
that booty hole. Blew, you're over here, red, you're over here,
while you're up here. It's a whole game of risk.
She's got planned out on the map here. Yeah, and
the Black Flag Fleet spent six weeks working their way
along the waterways of the Pearl River, raiding towns and
villages and killed an estimated ten thousand people. Oh that's
(27:45):
no fun, yish And Chung pots I meanwhile completely destroyed
an entire town. He killed two thousand inhabitants. This is
this is turned from fun piracy to real piracy, and
I don't like it all right, Like, I was all
about this girl boss until she started murdering people. And
then Chungi Sao took command of five hundred ships. They
(28:06):
rated a bunch more, they captured people, they were taking ship,
they're burning shipped down. You know, pirate stuff, pirates, bloody pirates,
bloody pirates. Okay, but here's an interesting thing. One of
the ways the Pirate Confederation was unified. They all came
together to get on the same page, which doesn't sound
(28:26):
like pirates to me, but they put together a code
of conduct and often Chun Yi Sao is credited with
writing this code, although firsthand testimonies written by Chinese people
from the time say it was actually Chiung Poetsi who
came up with it. Mostly, this misattribution comes from a
white guy who wrote a book about pirates and then
(28:47):
either sort of mistranslated, or maybe he was just more
interested in selling books than getting the fact straight and
he thought like, oh, lady pirate, that'll sell. Well, that's
a good story. Regardless whoever wrote it, the was this one.
If any pirate goes privately on shore, he shall be taken,
his ears mutilated, and he will be paraded around the
(29:10):
fleet and executed. So don't go to shore by yourself,
no little personal visits to bring a buddy. Yeah, well
I think you had to get permission and probably yeah.
It's like I need to know where the funk you are,
and if you don't. If I don't know where you are,
I'm going to find out where you are and then
put you in a grave. Sol I'll always know where
you are after it screw up your ears. Number two,
(29:36):
not the least thing shall be taken privately from the
stolen and plundered goods. All shall be registered. The pirate
receives for himself. Out of ten parts, only two eight
parts belonged to the storehouse called the General Fund. And
those who steal anything out of this general fund shall
be executed. So hands off my booty hole. Ha ha.
(30:00):
I was going to say, I guess General Fund is
a little more professional, but you know who wants to
be professional not I clearly. So Number three, women captured
from villages shall not be harmed or harassed. All women
captives shall be registered at their place of origin, recorded,
(30:23):
and be given separate quarters. Those pirates who rape or
commit adultery with the women captives shall be executed. This
is unique. What a nice moral code of conduct there,
Like kill ten thousand people all day, but if you
rape one lady, you're dead. You're dead, like banks, I
(30:45):
love it, progressive question mark. I mean for pirates. Yes,
that is what's a human life. But you know the
consent is still key here guys were pirates. Now, some
sources include additions to this code, such as, for example,
if the woman was a willing participant insects with a pirate,
(31:08):
she would also be put to death. So if they're like,
if you sleep with a lady consensually, you're both dead,
it's so weird, Like, why would you punish her for
being like this pirate's hot. But if the pirate wanted
to marry a captive woman, he could do that and
she would become a full member of the crew. So
(31:28):
you can marry these ladies and then you can sleep
with them. But none of none of this, none of
this out of wedlock sex. I really wonder what that's about.
That's why I'm like, I'm not sure that's true, because
I don't know. It just seems like such a weird
thing to make a distinction. They're like, you can't go
around just you know, swing you're a dick all around,
all over town, in every port you want to you
(31:52):
want to have sex, you do it the old fashioned way.
You get married. We would commit you know, you have
a little over the close action and you and marry.
They were you know, it was all about commitment, right,
That's what the whole treaty was. I guess, so that's true.
They're like, that might actually you know what that might be.
It is there just like if you just have sex
(32:13):
with her, she could leave an escape and run off.
If you marry her, she's part of the crew, and
we can trust her more anything like that. Maybe it
was that, yeah, and encouraging encouraging the crew to grow too.
I mean that's like you said, you've got more people. Uh, Instead,
if you want to sleep with her, that's incentivizing us
to grow our fleet. Very true, So maybe that's it.
(32:34):
That was just like if you want to sleep with here,
you can, but you better marry. They get married more
like they have kids and they can raise them. In piracy,
you know, they're creating their own country or basically for real. Now,
villages that submitted the pirates and paid tribute were spared
and and protected, and any pirate who raided a protected
village would be hunted down and put to death. But
(32:56):
it's like a mafia thing, yeah, a little bit, the
go to big. But villages that resisted had their homes
burned and all of their men killed, and then the
village leader would be nailed to the dock by his
(33:16):
feet and beaten to death. Really just the again, the
moral code of conduct is all over the place here.
It's just like that's good, that's bad, that's good, that's bad.
Then if they captured a ship, the sailors aboard could
(33:36):
either live and join the confederation, or of course option
B was always execution, but you got an option. Okay,
it's more than some would do. I hate a two
party system. In October of eighteen o nine, Suon shin
Mo had gotten the provincial army back to full strength,
(34:00):
so he kind of tried again, you know, he tried
to step up to the red flag fleet and take
him down once and for all. But Chung pots I
crushed him yet again like a fly. Yeah. Really just embarrassing.
The same guy keeps beating him over and over. He's
really holding a grudge. Imaginely he's got like a portrait
of Chung pots side and Sung and he's throwing darts
(34:21):
at him every day or something. One day, I'll get
you and sees him again, he pulls his pants down again.
Damn pirates. So yea. At this point, the Chinese imperial
and provincial governments are starting to get a little desperate,
all right. They're not doing well against this giant pirate confederation.
(34:43):
So they're like, and guess will finally get over our
dislike of quote unquote foreign barbarians. And they started talking
to the Portuguese because you know, a lot of countries
had a lot of interests in the South China Sea
and trade supply roots and everything. So the Portuguese a
out there, East India companies out there, you know. They
so they kind of looking around there, like, I see
(35:04):
other allies that we just haven't talked to because they're
not Chinese, so let's maybe get over ourselves and go
talk to them. And the Portuguese were like, oh, yes, please,
we are so on board for this, because Chinese sous
pirates had earlier captured a Portuguese governor's ship and totally
ransacked and took all their stuff, so they're a little
(35:26):
embarrassed too, and they're like, yes, please, we want payback
so badly. They saw their opportunity in November when Chin
Ye Sow suddenly left the Pearl River with just a
few ships and she harbored at Tongue Chung Bay to
make repairs, and so they're like, oh, this is a
perfect time to take down pirate Queen. We could destabilize
(35:47):
her whole confederation because she's in charge of it. She's
all alone out there with just a couple of ships.
So the Portuguese sent like a few ships kind of
just to harass her. Freaker out and she immediately signaled
for help from chunk Hotsi. He immediately heads out to
join her. He arrives the next day, but he didn't
see any Portuguese ships anywhere. Everything looked fine, so he's like,
(36:09):
I guess i'll weigh anchor and do some repairs myself
while we're in this peaceful bay. And that's when six
big gass Portuguese ships showed up and blockaded Chunyee Sou
and Chung Potsi within the bay, so they couldn't get anywhere,
and of course they tried to counter attack and break free,
but the wind was not on their side, so they
could not really do anything. They were just kind of
(36:31):
sitting there. And then a couple of weeks later, nine
three more ships show up from the provincial fleet, and
guess who's at the helm. Their old friend sum chin Mo.
So they got the Portuguese sitting there being like he
we got you, bitch, And then Suon Chin Mo shows
up and he's like, he I got you, bitch. Finally
(36:53):
I got suspenders on this time, you're not following my
pants down. But then a couple of days later, the
pirates captured one of Suon's ships and killed all seventy
four men on board suon HInM is getting pissed at
this point. They were basically just in like a standoff,
and Sunshin Moo is getting impatient now. So he converted
(37:17):
forty three of his ships into fire ships, which sounds
it's exactly what you think. He filled them with gunpowder
and other combustibles and they set them on fire on
purpose and shoved him off towards enemy lines. The idea
is that the ships will either set the enemy ships
on fire or at least make them panic and kind
(37:40):
of scatter break formation a little, and then they'd be
easier to pick off one by one. But the pirates
like they saw these slow moving, flaming ships coming towards
them and they just like moved out of the way
or or managed to divert them towards the shore, and
then they extinguished the fires, broke up the ships and
used it for irewood. Yeah, like, thanks for the firewoods, Chin,
(38:03):
I guess that's kind of what stunent Chinmo was using
him for at that point, So why not. He's shaking
his fist, He's like, damn you, and then his pants
falled out. Chin, where is this? Uh? This Marx Brothers stooges,
three stooges maybe, But just then the winds changed and
(38:25):
two of Sun Chin Moo's fire ships actually got blown
back to the provincial Chinese fleet, and two of his
own ships caught fire. Oh no, he played congratulationship played
just this is not going well for this guy. This
is the most like comedically bumbling ship commander in history.
(38:48):
Then the next day, the pirates took full advantage of
that wind that's at their backs now and they blow through,
broke out of the blockade, and escaped into the South
China Sea. The provincial fleet lost three ships besides the
ones that they burned as fireships, plus at least seventy
four men. Meanwhile, the pirates they only lost forty men
(39:09):
and zero ships. So bye bye Suon Chin Mo. Smell later.
We're done here. This guy can't catch a break, not
at all. Like he is like, you know what, maybe
I should go back home to the country and take
up painting. Gonna be a hog farmer, hog farmer, something else.
(39:31):
He gets back, the pigs are running around, his pants
fall down, bloody piglets. But all was not well among
the Pirate confederation. So even though they had had this
big victory. It was a little bit hollow because Guopo Di,
the leader of the Black Flag Fleet, had been summoned
(39:53):
to come back up the Red flag Fleet and help
them against the Portuguese and everything. We got a contract.
He had refused to show up. Later that year, he
openly battled Chung Potsi at the mouth of the Pearl River,
and it turned out he had been negotiating with Bi Ling,
who was the Viceroy of lie Anguan, So basically he
was like the governor in town way. I thought by
(40:15):
Ling was the actress from different Cranked movies, and I
know she was on Lost, she was in the Jack's
Tattoo episode. She was the girl he met. As it look,
she deserves better. Yeah, everyone deserved and I deserve better
than having to watch it. Well, this is different Biling, Okay,
(40:38):
different Byling, different by Ling. Yes, this was the viceroy. Yeah,
and he was kind of the new vice roy and
he was pretty good at dealing with pirates. But before
we get into that, let's take a quick break, all right,
Welcome back to the show. In January, Guopo Die officially
(41:01):
surrendered the entire Black Flag Fleet to Bi Ling. He
was rewarded with the rank of sub lieutenant. So now
the government had part of chun Esau and Chung Post
size confederation on its side. Plus it had already wiped
out the entire White flag fleet earlier. So this, you know,
their confederation is kind of weakening at this point. Yeah,
(41:21):
they're losing colors left and right, right. And not only that,
but the British had decided to join the Fray. They
sent ships to help patrol the Pearl River. Bi Ling
had also instituted embargoes that were kind of sucking up
the pirates supply chains as well and just making things
hard for him. And so all of Bi Ling's efforts
were really starting to pay off, and big names and
(41:43):
piracy were being captured and executed, and so they were
kind of getting a little nervous. And then finally the
kind of the final straw sort of was that the
imperial government offered amnesty to any pirates who laid down
their swords voluntarily. So it was a wig out, you know,
without dying, and so Chinese Sao decided, you know, maybe
(42:05):
it's time to negotiate, okay, okay, So Chung pots I
was sent in first to handle negotiations, and those took
place on Chunk Post flagship with a Portuguese mediator. They
decided that they would only submit if they could retain
control of five thousand pirates and eighty ships so that
they could enter the salt trade as well as participate
in anti pirate campaigns. They're like, you bring us in
(42:29):
the trade salt and we'll fight pirates for you, as
long as we can still have all our ship Yeah,
we need all those ships. We can have a life
after this. You know, we don't want to start from nothing. Yeah,
we're not gonna go be hog farmers. That's for others.
But Bai Ling was like, hell no, I'm not making
that deal with you. And then some British ships sailed
past the pirate fleet and that's booked him. That made
(42:51):
Chunk pots I think that they were laying some kind
of trap. So he just retreated, you gotta go, negotiations
are over, we'll talk later. So Chungni Sao was like,
you know, if you want something done right, you gotta
do it yourself. So she gathered up a posse of
seventeen women and children, and she walked unarmed into Bai
(43:13):
Lang's office I imagine it was a bit of a
strut more than a walk. Definitely. I don't know that
this woman knew how to walk without a stagger, do
you know what I mean. She's like, I'm freaking the
most successful pirate in history. I'm about to walk up
into your spot with all the ladies at my back,
and we're going to tell you how it's going to be.
(43:33):
And just in case, we're surrounded by children, so don't
shoot at us. You'll feel like shit if you do anything.
So she steps in there and she starts negotiating with
them herself. This time he totally yielded to her demands.
He's like, whatever you say, lady, You're really good at this.
And by the end of the talks, she had gained
clemency for all except four hundred of her seventeen thousand,
(43:57):
three D eighteen pirates, and only a D six ended
up being executed. She and Cheung Po would also be
allowed to keep all of their ill gotten gains. Amazing.
That is the that is incredible. They were both raised
to Chinese nobility, and Chung Po has made a lieutenant
in the Chinese navy and allowed to keep thirty ships
(44:20):
for his own fleet. I mean, that's that's the best
deal since Lucy and DESI signed over there getting the
rights to rerun. See what a sweet deal. Plus only
a hundred pirates got executed? Do you think that thousand?
Do you think that they executed more pirates than probably?
(44:45):
But negotiations almost stalled when Biling demanded that all the
vanquished pirates kneel before him, and Homage like he just
wanted to be like, you're fully subjugated now and you
have to show it ye to see it, and Chinese
was like, um, did you not notice my ego walk
in before me? Because I'm not doing that that we
(45:10):
we don't do that here. And bi Ling was like, okay, well, okay,
not all seventeen thousand plus pirates have to kneel, but
you and chunk pots I have to. I need somebody
to be humiliated here, and it's not gonna be me
for once. So nobody's happy with this idea, right, They're like,
(45:30):
I don't want to leal Bilings like you have to. Chinese.
I was like, I have this great deal that's about
to break down because nobody wants to get on their knees.
So she came up with a solution. Traditionally, at the
end of a marriage ceremony, the couple would kneel in
thanks to the efficient. So Chinese I was like, how
(45:50):
about you dissolve the adoption that made Chunk pots s
im my adopted son and instead marry us, and then
we'll kneel in thanks, you'll get your homage, we'll get
what we want. Everybody wins, and he said okay, and
they did that ship and so Chung Potsi and Chenisa
were officially married in April of eighteen ten. They surrendered
(46:14):
to Biling with the a fourmentioned sevent thousand, three hundred
and eighteen pirates, as well as two hundred and twenty
six ships, one thousand, three hundred and fifteen cannons, and
two thousand, seven hundred and ninety eight assorted weapons. So
can you can imagine that they were very happy to
get their hands on all that. And chany Sao also
(46:36):
surrendered her own private fleet of twenty four ships and
one thousand, four hundred thirty three pirates that were just
her personal commands. But this wedding thing, like, we don't
want to kneel to you, but I'll tell you what
we'll do. The marriage thing. We get what we want,
and you can have some people who were in the
room who can go around and say, oh no, yeah,
(46:58):
they kneeled to him. We saw it, So what happened.
I'd take a lot of detector test on that we
watched them officially kneel, and they're like, yes, we did
technically kneel before him, and violens like rubbing tiger bomb
into his temples, like whatever gets you the funk out
of here and off my plate. Oh man, So now
these notorious pirates are just working for the man, and
(47:21):
they had to help defeat pirates that they had previously
worked with, so awkward little office reunion there. Chun Po
distinguished himself by continuing to be a badass and defeating
the Blue Flag fleet, and in eighteen thirteen Chun Yi
Sao gave birth to their child, Chung Yu Lin. Not
(47:42):
much is known about these years. Probably they were living
pretty well on there everything they had in their booty hole,
handling their business fighting pirates. But then in eighteen two,
Chung pots I was killed while serving as a colonel,
and he was only thirty six years old at the time.
Still he did a lot, and he did a lot more.
(48:03):
I'm thirty six right now, almost thirty seven, and I
ain't done a fraction. You never had to kneel before
the governor. I never sailed up a river and killed
ten thousand people. You know, you can't really measure yourself
against historical figures like they had, you know, different windows,
different opportunities, a little more exciting lives. I guess Chung
(48:26):
returned to her hometown of Guangdong with her child. Records
don't mention her other two sons that she had with
Chang Yi that we mentioned earlier. UM imagining that both
of them were just grown at this point and they're
kind of off like doing their own thing. Possibly also
pirates are working for the Chinese Chinese Navy or something
like that. UM. But Chung Yu Lin was only nine,
(48:47):
so he was still with his mom and they went
to Guangdong. But Chinese saw, we've got to know her
a little bit at this point, and she's not one
to sit quietly and dwindle into poverty or so thing.
So instead she opened an infamous gambling house in Gwengal
So she was like this dope like proprietor of this casino.
(49:10):
Basically and she operated it for twenty years and watched
her son grow up and give her grandchildren, probably just
as shrewd and savvy as ever with her customers, you know,
fully like I know exactly who's broke right now and
pretending to have a fortune, and who does have a
fortune is pretend to be broke, you know, like she's
she's got all the info. Um, so she did probably
(49:33):
just fine until she passed away peacefully at the age
of sixty nine. Really for a death age, look like
I know you hear the number. It's nice. What a story, Yeah,
so that adventry of the Yeah, she she married a pirate,
(49:55):
a notorious pirate, then maybe killed him, then started sleeping
with and and ruling with his adopted son, and then
married him and then ran Cassino, took over the pirate fleet,
and then ran a Cassino. What a life? Pretty cool?
What what a couple of romances? You know? Um? Well,
(50:18):
I love I love these crazy pirate stories. It's it's
it's so tough because you do find yourself like rooting
for them, I know, and then you're like, oh no,
they were they were horrible people. Yeah, murdered without regard,
you know, I guess it's tough because especially if you
know anything about the government they're fighting against, like you're
both murderous assholes. Like I guess I like the rebels
(50:39):
over the establishment. But it's not always Yeah, we murdered
ten thousand people, but you subjugated millions and made them
live in poverty. Maybe you know. I'm not I don't
know Chinese history. I'm just saying that's the kind of
thing you're up against. Sometimes where you like which is
you know, you can measure it in deaths, and that's
certainly a way to look at it and say a
(51:01):
number of deaths is worse on this side, therefore they
are the bad guys. But then maybe if you're looking
at quality of life for those people you haven't killed,
and you're saying, well, yours is pretty miserable, from a
lot more people, look, well, that's not what we're here for.
We are here to judge and decide the good guys
and bad guys are. All I can say is they
(51:21):
all sounded pretty bad to me. They were all bad,
But it is fun to kind of see how they outsmarted,
you know, the provincial navy and stuff, and all their
little close calls and stuff's pretty cool, right right, well
fun story. Yeah, tell us what you thought of this
awesome Chinese pirate story. We always love hearing your thoughts
(51:44):
and your feedback and your suggestions for episodes and everything
else you want to send us. So our email address
is Romance at I heart media dot com. You can
find us on Twitter and Instagram as well. I'm at
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Romance or we have episode announcements and things like that. Yeah,
(52:04):
we're on YouTube also, so just search Ridiculous Romance and
don't forget to rate and review on Apple podcasts and
tell your friends, neighbors, uncle's and ance. We love it.
We love it. Tell everybody, um uh you know, download
all these episodes, put them in your booty hole, listen
to them again and again. And that's fifty babe, we
(52:26):
just did fifty the episode cool and two more will
be halfway through the year. Ye, very exciting. That'll be something.
Thanks for tuning in, everybody, and we will catch you
on the next one. Love you bye, so long friends,
it's time to go. Thanks so listening to our show,
tell your friends neighbor's, uncle's, And to listen to our
(52:47):
show Ridiculous roll Nance
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