Does anyone have info on the early life of Pirate Queen Cheng I Sao? Please provide referenc,need bibliography

Question

I need this for a school report, and I'm finding information on her life after marrying Cheng I, but I would like to find some on her childhood. If you have any info, please provide the source you got it from. Thank you!

Answer 1

I think you had better repost this in history while you still have the time. You posted it in royalty

Answer 2

The only thing I found was that she was a Cantonese prostitute named Shih Yang

Answer 3

Ching Shih (c. 1785 – 1844) (simplified Chinese: 郑氏; traditional Chinese: 鄭氏; pinyin: Zhèng Shì; Cantonese: Jihng Sih; "widow of Zheng"), also known as Zheng Yi Sao (simplified Chinese: 郑一嫂; traditional Chinese: 鄭一嫂; pinyin: Zhèng Yī Sǎo; Cantonese: Jihng Yāt Sóu; "wife of Zheng Yi"), was a prominent female pirate in middle Qing China.

Early life

Ching Shih successfully engaged in illicit activities throughout her life, and therefore little is known about her early life, including her birth name and precise date of birth. The name she is best remembered by means simply "widow of Zheng".

In 1801, she was working as a prostitute on one of Canton's floating brothels, and later that year she married Zheng Yi, the notorious Chinese pirate.

[Pirate career

Zheng Yi belonged to a family of successful pirates who traced their criminal origins back to the mid-Seventeenth century. Following his marriage to Ching Shih, Zheng Yi used military assertion and his family's reputation to gather a coalition of competing Cantonese pirate fleets into an alliance. By 1804, this coalition was a formidable force, and one of the most powerful pirate fleets in all of China.

In 1807, Zheng Yi died, and Ching Shih maneuvered her way into his leadership position. The fleet under her command established hegemony over many coastal villages, in some cases even imposing levies and taxes on settlements. According to Robert Antony, Ching Shih "robbed towns, markets, and villages, from Macau to Canton."

She ended her career in 1810, accepting an amnesty offer from the Chinese government. She kept her loot, married her lieutenant and adoptive son Cheung Po Tsai, and opened a gambling house.

She died in 1844, at the age of 69.