Vulgar History - International, part 39： Chinese Pirate Queen, Zheng Yi Sao

00:00:00.000 Hello, and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast.

00:00:16.880 My name is Anne Foster, and this is, I think I'm counting correctly, the 39th episode of

00:00:24.520 our Internationale season. For full context, I'm pretty sure I had planned on doing something like

00:00:31.160 12 episodes of Internationale, but I started doing multi-part episodes and then I kept

00:00:37.720 accidentally finding more people to talk about. And then here we all are. Now, I do want to say

00:00:43.440 technically, this is the finale of Vulgar History Season 5, Tits Out Internationale. What was the

00:00:50.980 full title. It was Tits Out Sans Frontières, Skandaliciousness Without Borders. Yes, but there

00:00:57.760 is going to be another episode next week. So I'm not just like abandoning you like that. There is

00:01:03.660 going to be a super, I think it'll be our third annual Tits Out Festive Holiday Super Spectacular.

00:01:09.740 That's next week. But yeah, so we're wrapping up this international journey. What a journey it's

00:01:15.960 been. I don't want to, you know, we can listen to all the episodes to learn about everything that

00:01:20.400 we learned. But my goal with the international season was really to really intentionally

00:01:27.160 diversify the people who I'm learning about. So that diversifies who I get to talk to you about.

00:01:34.040 And I was really leaning heavily on suggestions from you, the Tits Out Brigade. And almost all

00:01:38.600 the episodes this season were, other than the ones that I just kept accidentally finding myself,

00:01:42.860 were specifically suggestions from you. In some cases where I found it harder to find

00:01:48.960 information to learn about i was able to tits of brigade members stepped up and helped explain

00:01:53.240 things to me um some people even sent me recordings of their voices pronouncing words to try and help

00:01:58.160 me so like it's been such a um i just feel the arms the tits of brigade wrapped around me all

00:02:03.460 season just suggesting things and helping out and it's been really fun and another thing that's

00:02:08.140 happened too is because we're talking about all these international places and because they have

00:02:12.140 repeatedly asked you to do this tits of brigade members have been sending me pictures when they

00:02:17.360 go to places we've mentioned in the stories recently-ish, I forget the name of the person

00:02:21.300 who sent them, but I think it was Sarah, sent pictures from the Gallery of Beauties in that

00:02:26.120 castle in Germany where Ludwig put the picture of Lola Montes. I was just like, oh my God,

00:02:32.020 like grifter icon Lola Montes, just her portrait in this like castle iconic. I also sent a picture

00:02:38.700 by somebody who was visiting the Vatican and saw the like surprisingly large memorial to

00:02:45.060 Christina of Sweden. So if you ever, even if it's like five years from now, whatever, like go to one

00:02:50.720 of the places ever mentioned on this podcast, like please send me a picture. I don't do much

00:02:54.700 traveling and I love to see these things and share them with others. Anyway, I've learned so much

00:02:59.920 this season. I'm not going to be like, okay, that was fun. Like now back to only England. Like no,

00:03:06.000 like this is like changed how I research. I've learned so many more sources and so many more

00:03:10.380 contexts of different countries. So like in the seasons to come, and there will be numerous more

00:03:14.860 seasons of vulgar history like there will definitely still be an international focus

00:03:19.360 because i think i stated in the first episode of this season that one of my goals was to talk about 1.00

00:03:23.720 a scandalous woman from every country from which there is a member of the tits out brigade and 0.99

00:03:27.840 there's still lots of countries i haven't done so please keep sending me suggestions please send me 1.00

00:03:32.620 pictures of if you go to one of these places and there will be another episode next week it's just

00:03:38.000 the international season, the season that just would not let go of me. This is the finale of

00:03:46.640 that season, not of the show, and not of episodes for this year. Anyway, so today, to wrap things

00:03:53.020 up, I kind of like that this is where we're landing, which is, again, not at all what I

00:03:56.800 had planned. Things got a bit out of order based on various things you don't need to know about.

00:04:01.520 But anyway, we finished the story of Empress Dowager Tsushi last week, and we're going back a bit, a slightly earlier time period from her, although there's a bit of crossover. We're still in China in the Qing Dynasty era, because we're talking about someone who is, I usually try to say like, hey, thanks to so-and-so from the Titsa Brigade for suggesting this person, but so many people suggested this person, I can't, I don't have a record of all the people who there were.

00:04:28.280 But I will say that when I first started researching this, like last March, I had in my notes here that Erica and Vivian had suggested this.

00:04:37.380 But since then, I would say dozens of people were talking about the most successful pirate of all time.

00:04:44.140 Not just the most successful lady pirate, the most successful pirate of all time, who was a woman.

00:04:50.780 And the name that she's known by is mostly Zhang Yisao.

00:04:54.540 but like what would it be as an episode of the international season of vulgar history

00:04:59.320 if there wasn't like five to ten minutes of explanation about like was that her name and

00:05:04.680 here's what name i'm going to use so like with the sishi episode i really found it helpful to listen

00:05:11.160 to podcasts hosted by people by asian people talking about asian history because there's

00:05:17.560 context and nuance and pronunciations there that i appreciate learning and so specifically for this

00:05:23.200 episode I listened to the episode about Zhang Yisao from the podcast with Chinese characteristics

00:05:28.240 which is a great podcast hosted by Natalie and Cherie super recommend that and also the Asian

00:05:33.960 American History 101 podcast hosted by Jen and Ted so both of them have episodes about Zhang Yisao

00:05:39.660 which I listened to and took notes about so I use them both as sources but I also recommend them

00:05:44.320 just to shows to listen to I also really appreciated a lot of you there's just that

00:05:50.240 thing the Spotify wrapped where if you listen to this podcast on Spotify, which like a lot of you

00:05:55.100 are, you get the thing saying like, here's how much you listen to this. And here's like the most

00:05:59.460 podcasts you listen to and whatever, which I really appreciated. And I honestly, it's like

00:06:03.700 really moving to me to see how many people listen to this podcast. I know people listen to this

00:06:08.080 podcast, but to see specifically people sending me their Spotify wrapped, I was like, oh, look,

00:06:12.440 these, these are like real people, not just like theoretic imaginary people. Anyway, I did notice

00:06:17.960 that several of them also listen to this podcast and if you don't i recommend it too it's called

00:06:22.120 you're dead to me which is a podcast by it's from the bbc it's hosted by greg jenner who is a public

00:06:28.380 historian he also describes himself as the head nerd behind horrible histories and after having

00:06:33.860 talked about charles ii i know that a lot of people across the atlantic in like great britain

00:06:40.040 and also in ireland like watch that show because the number of people who've also referenced how

00:06:46.360 sexy you find Charles II, comma, as portrayed on Horrible Histories was pretty, it was notable.

00:06:53.680 Anyway, so your Dead to Me podcast, their episode about Zheng Yizhou, featured Professor Ronald

00:06:58.700 C. Poe, who is a specialist, like his expertise is in like Qing Dynasty, China, specifically

00:07:05.260 the Maritimes. So in terms of who you're going to talk to about like a Chinese pirate from this era,

00:07:12.040 he's like the guy. So I was just like, listen to this podcast, like taking down basically a 0.75

00:07:16.920 transcription of everything he said, because he had some facts that I didn't encounter in other

00:07:19.920 places. So that's super recommend that and his work. I also referred to a book I looked at for

00:07:25.860 some other episodes before, Pirate Women by Laura Sook Duncombe. Here's Hepburn. I don't know that

00:07:33.080 there's any information about pirate cats, but often I think you do get have cats on ships for

00:07:39.020 mousing purposes. So perhaps Hepburn's ancestors were there as well. Anyway, Pirate Women by Laura

00:07:45.060 Sook Duncombe is a book that I recommend too. Also some information from the Encyclopedia of

00:07:51.240 Women's Biography, an article by Tanner Price on the Pirates and Privateers website, Wikipedia as

00:07:59.220 ever, an article on Atlas Obscura by Urveda Benerji, and also an article by Zooting Christine

00:08:06.420 Ni on the sixth tone, which she's a woman who's either in China or like is from China. And so her

00:08:12.800 perspective and point of view, I found really interesting and useful to include. So I also

00:08:18.040 appreciate that the season, which has been like, I have to say like a wild ride, very fun for me.

00:08:24.600 But also there's been sort of like themes that emerge. And one of them has been this like late

00:08:29.520 season theme of like suddenly just like pirates, like the amount of times I've gone back to pirate

00:08:34.180 women and some other books about piracy. It's just like, oh, okay. Because we had Saida al-Hura

00:08:39.940 early on. It's like, she's kind of known as a pirate queen. Was she a pirate? Like,

00:08:44.540 maybe. Was she friends with pirates? Sure. But then we also talked about Artemisia I of Caria,

00:08:52.080 who also is listed sometimes in things about pirates because she was a woman with a ship,

00:08:55.660 and she ran her ship into the other ship. And so I think honorary pirate for sure. 1.00

00:08:59.560 and we had the interview with Daphne Palmer Janikopoulos about Sarah Kidd who was not herself

00:09:06.660 a pirate but she was the wife of a pirate so although we have talked about piracy on this

00:09:11.560 podcast Zhang Yisao was the first like literal pirate I think we've profiled on this show so

00:09:19.260 this is taking place like slightly before the whole sushi situation so it's the Qing dynasty

00:09:26.720 but like the Qing dynasty was a thing in China for like 300 years, but this is like just before.

00:09:32.840 So a lot of the stuff they talked about what was going on, like before things got really chaotic

00:09:37.960 in her life slash in China, like part two of Sushi, a lot of this is the same, like the Confucian

00:09:43.780 society, the gender roles, the foot binding, like that's all still going on here. So the

00:09:49.500 emperor during most of this story was Qianlong, who was the great grandfather of Sushi's husband.

00:09:56.960 So it's like that long before her time. So Qianlong was actually, and like the emperor is in like

00:10:03.920 all of Sushi's story. He was actually like a well-regarded emperor. He was like, his reign

00:10:09.680 was basically the most prosperous period in all of Qing history. He ruled for 60 years and he

00:10:15.340 didn't stop ruling because he died or like you know had health conditions he just chose to retire

00:10:20.200 at that point like age 85 out of respect for his grandfather because his grandfather had ruled for

00:10:26.200 61 years so and that was the longest serving monarch of the Qing dynasty and he didn't want to

00:10:31.520 like upset his grandfather's records so he just retired after ruling for 60 years so as to not

00:10:38.360 get to 61 years, which I think just is an interesting, fun trivia point, but also really

00:10:45.440 talks about or demonstrates how in this culture that we're looking at, there's a sense of respect

00:10:53.060 and honoring your elders was a big thing. So under his rule, which had been, again,

00:10:58.240 like very prosperous, China had gotten even larger. It had gotten really as big as it had

00:11:05.080 ever been, been really quickly. And like anything, like when anything gets too big,

00:11:11.780 too fast, it's like, how do you stay on top of it? How can you be in control? Especially when

00:11:15.080 you think of like a landmass, the size of, it's not exactly the size of modern day China, but it's

00:11:19.320 like, even if you think of just of modern day China, it's like a huge area. So like, like in

00:11:25.380 the sushi episode, it's just like, there can be rebellions and riots happening all over the place

00:11:30.080 and you wouldn't know about it because there wasn't phones. Like, how could you know? Anyway,

00:11:35.220 so the other thing about this guy, Emperor Qianlong, was that he also was fond of spending

00:11:41.500 money on luxuries for himself. And that sort of was a role model for the other wealthy people to

00:11:47.620 also act that same way, which left people in the provinces, like the less wealthy people,

00:11:51.600 struggling financially. And because it was China during the Qing dynasty, of course,

00:11:56.780 there's going to be a rebellion led by a super secret, sexy, religious cult. In this case,

00:12:01.480 it was the White Lotus Rebellion led by the White Lotus Society. Oh, I looked at this. There's been 0.81

00:12:08.300 so many religious, spiritual rebellions in these stories. I think they had something about either

00:12:14.980 their leader was the reincarnation of the Buddha or they were waiting for the Buddha or something

00:12:18.580 like that. Anyway, White Lotus Society was unsuccessful, but they were plentiful. There

00:12:24.120 was a lot of them. This rebellion went on for several years. And so the cost of fighting them

00:12:28.920 depleted the government's money. They had to spend so much money fighting off the White Lotus Society. 0.99

00:12:33.960 So to make this money back, the emperor raised taxes, raised import duties, and this would,

00:12:41.560 and remember, this is also before the country was really open to the West, which happened so much

00:12:46.580 more during Sushi's life. So I think this is import duties for the people they're dealing with,

00:12:52.540 with which I think was like Vietnam, Japan, like other Asian countries. Anyway, import duties,

00:12:58.720 taxes being raised. This affected not the wealthy people living in Beijing, but it really especially

00:13:03.960 affected people in Guangdong, which is a coastal region in the south of China, which is where most

00:13:10.380 of the story takes place. And in fact, it was in Guangdong, where this week's heroine was born

00:13:15.560 around 1775. So her birth name was probably Shi Yong, or maybe Sek Yong. But later in life,

00:13:26.040 she became known as Jung Yi Sao. And that is how she is widely known in most of the resources that

00:13:32.040 I've been looking at about her. And if for this podcast, we're looking at kind of like raising

00:13:36.380 the profile of lesser known women in history, although I feel like she's like a pretty well

00:13:41.140 known person in history, I want to use the name that she's mostly referred to by. So it's a

00:13:45.540 Sayyid al-Hura situation. It's a Harem Sultan situation. It's, I don't know how many other 0.91

00:13:50.780 people this season, it's a Malinzine situation. Like I'm using a name I know people called her 1.00

00:13:54.960 when she was alive. And even though that wasn't the name with which she was born.

00:14:01.100 So she's also sometimes written about in English language as Cheng Shi or Qing Shi,

00:14:07.620 sometimes as Madam Qing, various different things. We're going with Zhang Yisao.

00:14:12.380 so for context she was born as i said 1775 that was 60 years before the birth of sushi

00:14:18.900 so the two of them did overlap like being alive for a little bit um towards the end of jangisau's

00:14:25.100 life beginning of sushi's life but just 60 years can be quite a significant period of time when

00:14:30.600 there's this much kind of instability happening in the world so in terms of people we've talked

00:14:35.740 about on this podcast 1775 was shortly after the birth of caroline of brunswick from her very first

00:14:42.060 of her episode and around 20 years before Mary Shelley was born. So that's kind of what's

00:14:47.340 happening in England, I guess. Obviously, we don't know anything about her childhood.

00:14:53.100 Like we don't even really quite know what her name was, but we talked about that in the Sushi

00:14:56.800 episode where it's kind of like girls in Qing Dynasty. Their names kind of didn't matter. You

00:15:03.180 were just called like older sister or younger sister and then you get married and then you're

00:15:06.240 called so-and-so's wife. But also in general, like we don't know anything about her childhood

00:15:10.940 because she was a lower class girl born in the 18th century, like whether that's in China

00:15:15.380 or anywhere, like as we've seen time and time again in this podcast, if you're not a princess,

00:15:21.980 then no one really knows what you did until you suddenly started doing things that were important.

00:15:29.000 But here's what we do know. I don't know if you can hear Hepburn, but she is like

00:15:33.380 purring up a storm directly next to the microphone. I hope that's like

00:15:37.500 soothing for you is like an asmr moment she grew up in guangdong yeah the stuff we talked about

00:15:45.900 with sushi still in play here except so um it's a poor neighborhood so you know the stuff about

00:15:53.980 like gender expectations where it's like women and men can never like interact women and girls

00:15:59.240 have to stay inside all the time uh that was not so strictly enforced in guangdong among the

00:16:05.420 working class and poor people because it's not practical to keep girls and women trapped at home

00:16:09.440 with their feet bound all the time because you need hands on deck. Like literally, this is a 0.87

00:16:14.460 pirate story in a shipping town. Like you need them as workers. So women and girls were maybe

00:16:20.440 less. They were allowed to do more stuff because everyone needed to help out because they had to. 0.99

00:16:27.480 Because it's, unless you're really super wealthy, it's like you can't really afford to just like

00:16:31.080 keep your daughters in the house doing nothing all the time. Which is interesting to note in

00:16:36.940 contrast to what we talked about with Sushi. Because so much of the history of the Qing

00:16:42.040 dynasty era that is recorded is about the royals and the wealthy people and what they were up to

00:16:47.140 and how bound they were by the Confucian values and ethics. But in this story, in Guangdong,

00:16:53.800 that's like not the top of anyone's priorities. They're more busy like making money to feed their

00:16:59.620 family have a roof over their head. Not really a lot of time to like really get into like the

00:17:04.340 ethics of Confucian philosophy. So Guangdong, which is where she was born and probably grew up,

00:17:10.320 was and is like, it is an area now that's like a huge port town. And back then it was also huge

00:17:18.140 in the sense of the population of this region was like 20 million people. So huge coastline,

00:17:24.840 this is the region where Macau and Canton are. Um, Canton was the name is known by then. It's

00:17:31.000 now called Guangzhou. So most of the people who lived in this region then relied on the sea for

00:17:37.000 their livelihood. Like it's a port town, like, like anything, like, I don't know, like oldie

00:17:41.960 times, um, you know, places in the Greek islands or like, I don't know, Boston where I grew up in

00:17:48.100 Halifax, Nova Scotia. It's just like a place with a port where it's just like, there's fishermen,

00:17:51.940 there's merchants um and then other businesses pop up because there's so many fishermen and

00:17:57.140 merchants around they need whatever hotels and restaurants and things so here there's also 0.99

00:18:00.880 water boat men which is kind of like fairies so fish like don't care that this is the livelihood 1.00

00:18:09.500 like fish would migrate during part of the year because that's just like what they're up to 1.00

00:18:13.460 so the people who are fishermen were just like well fuck i can't be a fisherman all the fish 0.85

00:18:18.420 just like migrated so it's like a side hustle the fishermen would be like fishermen part of the year 0.97

00:18:24.000 and then like pirates the other part of the year just to kind of make ends meet because again it's

00:18:29.560 like everyone everyone's got to have a side hustle so this is just like the region where she's growing

00:18:35.220 up it's giving me like like new orleans in the interview with the vampire original movie like

00:18:42.400 just kind of because that's also kind of like 1700s but just like a port town where there's

00:18:47.400 just lots of people, lots of criminal activity happening, but also lots of businesses, just kind

00:18:53.080 of like people making their lives on the sea, just inherently like piracy is going to come up.

00:18:59.020 In terms of like what's happening, I don't know, politically or culturally. So throughout

00:19:04.220 her childhood, Jaggi South's childhood, there had been this civil war happening in Vietnam.

00:19:10.320 So Vietnam then is basically where Vietnam still is. It's a country just to the south of China,

00:19:16.720 sharing a land border. Actually, side note, because I talked in the Artemisia of Caria episode about

00:19:23.720 like the oldest civilizations, like what places were countries or kingdoms and like are still

00:19:29.600 countries and kingdoms. And I wanted to double check because I know just from like casual

00:19:34.440 Googling, I learned that China is another one of the oldest cultures in the world. So the list I

00:19:40.340 found in order of like oldest-ist. So Iran, the oldest, like that was Persian Empire. Japan,

00:19:47.200 also super old. Greece, Ethiopia, Georgia, not the one in the US, American listeners. Georgia,

00:19:53.000 the like country in Eastern Europe. China, also on this list. Afghanistan, India, and Egypt are

00:20:00.660 some of the oldest places that are still countries now, but that have been countries for the longest.

00:20:05.840 So like when we're talking about China and Vietnam, what happens in Vietnam affects what

00:20:10.480 happens in China and had for hundreds and hundreds of years. So at this point, what was going on

00:20:15.220 is the Taishan Rebellion, which like all these rebellions lasted a really long time. In fact,

00:20:22.540 this rebellion lasted two decades. And so some of these freelance pirates of Guangdong took part,

00:20:29.740 like they were, they were freelance pirates. I feel like that could be some new merch. We've

00:20:33.820 got freelance queen, freelance pirate. Yeah. So they just like took jobs as mercenaries to like

00:20:38.800 help out in this battle because the people in the Tyson rebellion, both sides needed people either

00:20:43.700 to help smuggle stuff around or to like bring their ships to help out in battles, et cetera.

00:20:48.680 So this was keeping the pirates of Guangdong pretty busy when they weren't, you know, fishing.

00:20:53.460 So we don't know, again, anything about Zheng Yi Cao from age birth until when she was like 25

00:21:01.120 years old. And we know about her when she was 25 years old, because at that point she was working

00:21:06.000 on a flower boat, which was perhaps still is kind of a floating brothel. She was working as a sex

00:21:14.640 worker. So flower boats, given how busy and populated Guangdong was and how many people 0.99

00:21:20.880 were at sea all the time, a floating brothel makes total business sense. You can like float

00:21:25.480 your flower boat out near where there's like a fleet is visiting, or you can like take your

00:21:29.800 flower boat like along the coast. Like maybe there's no one in that town, but maybe there's

00:21:33.080 people in the next town who like could be customers. So it's just a thing that was happening

00:21:37.740 and she's 25. So I'm gonna make some assumptions here, which is that I don't think she probably

00:21:47.080 would have started being a sex worker on a flower boat age 25. She probably had been doing it for a 0.98

00:21:52.280 while perhaps. And so she was also allegedly was successful in this career job, but also she was

00:22:02.700 like smart. She was like getting her scheming on in that she was able to charm the various men 1.00

00:22:08.840 who were being her paid clients, which included pirates, but maybe also like government people

00:22:14.640 to share secrets with her. And then she could trade those secrets to other people. So she's

00:22:18.220 like a sex worker slash kind of spy in that like Mata Hari sort of way. So yeah, this is what she 1.00

00:22:26.380 was up to. And then suddenly one day, why do we know about her? It's because when she was about

00:22:31.300 25 years old, she one day was recorded as marrying the most famous pirate of this age and region

00:22:36.780 who was called Zhang Yi. He was like 10 years older than her. So he was like 35. She was like

00:22:42.380 25. In terms of ages of people getting married for vulgar history, this is like normal-ish 0.99

00:22:49.260 sounding. Anyway, so his name was Zhang Yi. And when they got married, that's when she started

00:22:54.340 being known as Zhang Yi Cao, which means the wife of Zhang Yi. And I'll try and say their names

00:23:01.420 very specifically because, so she's Zhang Yi Cao and the husband is Zhang Yi. So I think it'll be

00:23:08.720 apparent when I'm talking which one I'm talking about. So let's talk about this guy. So he was

00:23:14.220 also from the Guangdong region. His family went back generations as pirates because that was 0.98

00:23:19.600 the sort of region and era that it was. His father was a pirate. His younger brother was

00:23:24.480 also a pirate. I'm going to guess his grandfather was a pirate. He comes from a long line of like

00:23:28.040 pirate biz. So he was one of the pirates who got involved in the Taesong Rebellion in Vietnam.

00:23:34.500 mom. And a few years before he met and married Zhang Yisao, he had kidnapped a 15-year-old boy

00:23:42.640 called Zhang Baozai, who was the son of a fisherman. And this is like, like we talked

00:23:50.000 about in the sushi episode, like having an heir is important. So if he was like, whatever, 30 years

00:23:56.520 old at that point, didn't have a son, like he needed someone who would take over the family

00:24:00.000 biz because it's like an inherited pirate title. So he just kind of kidnapped this guy, this teenage

00:24:06.100 boy. And I think that's normal for pirates, not just here, but other places. What's it called?

00:24:12.340 Where you like forcibly grab people and make them be pirates. Like that's just like how you get new

00:24:17.700 pirates all the time. You just kind of like, oh, I forget there's a word for it. Anyway. So Zhang

00:24:22.420 Baozi, the like boy had natural talent. He adapted well to this unplanned new career. And he wrote

00:24:29.240 swiftly through the ranks. He's going to be a main character later, which is why I'm talking

00:24:33.820 about him now. So Zheng Beozai, the boy, was probably had been with Zhang Yi for like a couple

00:24:39.680 years by now. He was maybe 17 at the point that Zhang Yi married Zhang Yi Cao. So there are some

00:24:47.060 references to the fact that maybe Zhang Yi and Zheng Beozai were like lovers, like that he had

00:24:53.820 kidnap this boy to be his boy concubine which is like maybe but there's some other stuff that

00:25:01.680 comes up in the story that just makes me think of so many other stories this season where it's like

00:25:06.820 if you're trying to exoticize like if you by you i guess i mean white men writers of western europe

00:25:15.520 they're trying to tell like a sexy fun story they're just like and also they also had lots of

00:25:20.400 sex so it's like in the story with harem sultan how the like people from the west weren't allowed

00:25:26.060 to come into the harem which made them be like what's happening in the harem i guess it's lots 0.98

00:25:30.400 of like weird orgy shit where it's like that says more about you than about what's happening 0.99

00:25:34.860 behind closed doors like if you are um the only thing you can imagine is like weird sex stuff 1.00

00:25:40.180 which is not to say the jangyi did not take like kidnap this boy to become his concubine but it's 0.99

00:25:49.320 kind of like I'm dubious about that not because I don't support well do I support 30 year old men 0.97

00:25:57.320 kidnapping teenage boys no it's just like queer stuff in history is so like we talked about this 0.90

00:26:04.600 in the episode with Kit Haim and also the episode with Mai Dean where it's just kind of like there's

00:26:08.400 these references to things and you're like is this genuinely what was going on or is this just

00:26:13.540 somebody making stuff up to make somebody look bad because it would have made them look bad at

00:26:17.360 the time. Anyway, I don't know. So just know if you're researching this, some people suggested

00:26:21.540 these two had a sexual relationship, as well as being adopted father and apprentice pirate.

00:26:27.940 I just have a quote here. So Diane Murray is a writer who, she like literally wrote the book,

00:26:35.200 like the first English language book about Zhang Yizhou. And she says, unlike in the West,

00:26:40.280 adult adoption was often practiced in China in order to establish a kinship basis for further

00:26:44.620 interaction, particularly of a business or discipleship sort, says Diane Murray.

00:26:50.460 Zhang Yi, adopting an adolescent fisherman's son, was not too out of the ordinary.

00:26:55.260 Anyway, moving on, we don't know how or why Zhang Yi Cao was chosen to marry Zhang Yi.

00:27:03.020 One source suggested he sought her out because she was like famous, is like the glamorous,

00:27:07.100 like most beautiful or whatever sex worker on this flower boat. Other sources suggested she 1.00

00:27:12.780 sought him out, like maybe from her like pillow talk spy work, she learned that he was like the

00:27:17.440 best pirate and she's like, I want to align with him. So I don't know if he sought her out, if she

00:27:21.800 convinced him to, if like they had like a relationship as one of her clients, but whatever

00:27:25.900 transpired. These two got married and became the glamorous new pirate it couple on the scene.

00:27:32.780 So women on boats. In contrast to in the West, where it was often seen as like unlucky to have

00:27:39.360 a woman on a boat it was common for south chinese pirates to bring their whole families to see like 0.95

00:27:44.220 not just the wife but also their children um women commonly engaged in combat and performed other

00:27:48.820 duties on board the ships it's kind of like this is like maybe a niche comparison star trek's the

00:27:55.120 next generation where on the enterprise they have like the people like the star trek crew is there

00:28:00.340 but also the ones that are married like their spouse is also there even if they don't work

00:28:04.260 for starfleet and like their kids are there and there's a school there and that was all put on

00:28:08.680 the show to show like look how peaceful it is in the future but quickly they realize like this show

00:28:12.280 is boring if it's always peace so you know price starts getting into fights and stuff and there's

00:28:17.160 parts where they're like abandoned ship and i'm just like is there still the school on the ship

00:28:20.700 like are there still like spouses and children like just this just seems like unwise anyway but

00:28:27.020 you know it's like with the flower boat is floating around like these pirate ships are

00:28:30.700 floating around and so it's a great way to keep a family together shortly after the marriage of

00:28:36.360 Zhang Yi Cao and Zhang Yi, the Tyson rebellion in Vietnam came to an end, which meant all these

00:28:42.380 freelance pirates came back to Guangdong, sort of just kind of like unemployed pirates. Maybe the 0.74

00:28:48.600 fish were still away. They're just like, I don't know what to do. Like, anyone have any work for

00:28:52.980 us? And so Zhang Yi and Zhang Yi Cao were like, hey, we're a glamorous pirate couple. Do you want

00:28:57.960 to come work for us? And so they start putting together what turns out to be an organized fleet

00:29:03.620 of pirates. And it's kind of like in the movie Newsies, where all the newsies of all the burros 0.99

00:29:10.340 come together, but they each have their own kind of like their own style and their own accent. 0.98

00:29:14.720 You know, one group has like the slingshots and one group like wears top hats or whatever.

00:29:19.340 So the different pirate groups just joined under the flag, but like still with their own kind of

00:29:24.200 style. So like truly like Zhang Yisao and her husband put together this confederation of pirates,

00:29:30.580 which was like a new radical thing. So there was six squadrons. Each one was named after the flags

00:29:36.060 that they had, which were either black, blue, white, yellow, and purple, except red was the

00:29:41.620 other color, which was the one Zhang Yi commanded the biggest fleet, the red flag fleet. And so

00:29:47.100 within a few years, these pirate married couple, they had around 400 ships and something like

00:29:52.980 70,000 sailors, men mostly under their command, which is part of where we're talking about like

00:30:00.180 she's the most successful pirate of all time. Like no one else had this many, but why is it just

00:30:05.660 she's the greatest pirate of all time? Well, stay tuned. Yeah. So Zhang Yi was captain of the Red

00:30:11.980 Fleet. Zhang Yi Cao helped with administrative work, which we're going to see. She's like very

00:30:15.780 skilled with, but then six years into married life, during which time they might've had two

00:30:20.260 sons. Some sources mentioned that. Anyway, just after six years of marriage, Zhang Yi died

00:30:26.100 in a pirate sort of way, which is he either was drowned in a huge typhoon or he was potentially

00:30:34.300 killed by a cannonball during battle, which leaves Zheng Yisao without a husband and 70,000 pirates

00:30:41.740 who need a new leader. And I think you know what's coming next, which is that she takes over. 0.85

00:30:48.080 So she did this by securing the support of the two kind of like next most important pirates, 1.00

00:30:54.280 the two leading chieftains of the fleet. And she truly just took over. Like, if you're looking for 0.52

00:30:58.980 a story, like, so she, where it's like, she had to scheme and she had to, like, do all this stuff

00:31:02.740 and, like, trick everybody and use loopholes. It's like, no, she truly just, like, took over.

00:31:07.900 As commander of everything, her adopted son, Zhang Bozai, was captain, because, like, that was not

00:31:15.200 her strong suit. Like, the sailing of the ships, she was good at the, like, administrative,

00:31:18.660 of managerial role. She also, at this point, married him. So please note, Zheng Bozai,

00:31:26.580 the adopted son of Zheng Yi, is at this point like 24. And she's like, I don't know, 30 or so.

00:31:34.640 And they met when he was 17. So while this is all, to me, unconventional, this could have been

00:31:42.500 much weirder. Just look back at the Cleopatra episode for more about how much weirder and

00:31:47.580 incestuous this could have been. So I will just say he was an adult man. They met when he was 17

00:31:52.220 and they have no blood relation and they have a successful partnership. And I don't know if this

00:31:58.520 was a marriage of like a love marriage or like a sexy marriage, like again, these like sexy rumors,

00:32:03.340 which I think in the very first episode ever, not of this season, but of Vulgar History ever,

00:32:08.940 at some point I know I've shared my past theory, which is that in history, if it seems like two

00:32:14.640 people were fucking like they probably were like let's not overthink it since then and with 0.99

00:32:20.580 everything I've learned and how much women in history just get smeared by people being like 0.99

00:32:26.620 when they can't find anything else like the men writing about them can't find anything else to 1.00

00:32:30.640 criticize they're like and also she was a slut like Manuela Sanz for instance was some people 0.98

00:32:37.680 wrote up her as the harlot of the Americas which is like I'm sorry she like married one guy left 1.00

00:32:43.580 him for simone believer and dedicated the whole rest of her life to simone believer like she wasn't

00:32:47.840 sleeping around it's like it's the cleopatra thing again it's just kind of like well like 0.98

00:32:53.260 when wild fox king was saying that about sushi it's like if somebody was the whore of the americas 0.98

00:32:59.040 good for you like love that for you but sometimes it just seems yeah hepburn is last to say this 0.74

00:33:07.140 week i don't know it's just kind of like i see through it you know so there's some people who

00:33:12.240 say that maybe Zhang Yisao was a lover of Zhang Bozai and maybe they killed her husband so they

00:33:17.660 could be together or maybe like the three of them were in a throuple and like any of these things

00:33:21.320 are possibly true but like what's the motivation for saying that is it just to you know further

00:33:27.240 exoticize quote-unquote this like Asian women or is it a way to just be like these pirates like

00:33:33.320 oh they were all so like unhinged or whatever it's like maybe there was like a father-wife-son 0.99

00:33:41.200 love triangle. And maybe there wasn't, I don't know. Anyway, these two got married. They might

00:33:46.640 have gotten married just for like political expediency, just so she could be like, I have a 1.00

00:33:50.020 husband, don't worry about it. And like, we're in charge. Or maybe they were like secretly loved, 0.99

00:33:54.340 or maybe they got married and then fell in love later, like in a romance novel with like enemies

00:33:58.360 to lovers or whatever. Who knows? Who cares? Like she's just getting started. Let's go.

00:34:04.040 So a bit about her new husband, Zhengbozai. So he had been the son of a fisherman. He was,

00:34:09.640 again, I can't remember that word, but like kidnapped into being a pirate, but it turns out

00:34:13.660 great choice. He's well suited for it. He was like a military sort of guy, but he just didn't

00:34:18.620 have the skillset for the administrative stuff that Zhang Yisao was like clearly really good

00:34:22.860 with. And I think that's where I listened to the episode of the oldest profession podcast,

00:34:27.040 which is the podcast about sex workers of history. And the host there was theorizing that Zhang Yisao

00:34:32.860 had a lot of this skillset to do this because of her sex work, like because she knew about how to 1.00

00:34:38.080 do paperwork. She knew about how people could work together in a group. She knew, I don't know, 1.00

00:34:44.260 she knew how to negotiate. Those were maybe transferable skills from her previous work on

00:34:47.720 the flower boat. Anyway, I had mentioned earlier, there was sometimes women pirates. That wasn't 1.00

00:34:53.520 super weird in China at this time, but it was rare to have a woman pirate leader the same way

00:34:58.160 it was rare to have a woman anything leader in China at this point slash ever. This is again,

00:35:05.160 like still decades before Sushi takes over. And she only took over like asterisks as regent. 0.99

00:35:10.760 And the only female Chinese monarch before Sushi was a thousand years before this. And that was

00:35:15.740 Wu Zetian. And that has also been very frequently requested for this podcast. And I will talk about

00:35:21.040 that at some point. Anyway, so a woman leader, like Zhang Yisao was just like, I'm not here to 1.00

00:35:26.920 like break the glass ceiling. I just want to be like a fucking awesome pirate. So let's just go. 1.00

00:35:30.520 so kind of like how I talked about the emperor was having trouble because China like got too big

00:35:38.160 too quickly it's like how can you be in control of such a huge amount of space but also Zhang Yisao

00:35:44.460 has this issue like how can she be in charge of this gigantic multi-fleet pirate force like how 1.00

00:35:49.580 can she keep all these people in line to do so she enforced strict law codes and these law codes were 1.00

00:35:56.340 previously, the men on a pirate ship would be loyal to a single captain, but they're the fleet. 0.95

00:36:02.340 So everyone needs to be loyal to her, commander of all the fleets. Well, I guess technically her

00:36:07.100 and her husband were in command of the fleets, but like she's running the show. So here are some

00:36:11.320 of the rules. So disobedience of an order resulted in the pirate's decapitation and his body thrown

00:36:18.160 into the sea. So like, it's not a three strikes thing. Like if you don't obey your rules, then

00:36:23.600 your head's cut off, au revoir. Also, if you gave commands without being a commander, so if you're

00:36:30.720 like, I don't know, a non-commander, just like basic pirate, you can't give commands. If you

00:36:36.400 steal from the fleet's treasury, and if you rob the village that supplies the pirates, you also

00:36:42.420 get decapitation, body thrown in the sea. So you know what, easy to remember. If that's always a

00:36:47.420 punishment, then just don't break any rules. If you're deserted, or if you're absent without

00:36:52.780 leave that will result in a pirate being paraded through the squadrons with their ears cut off.

00:36:59.320 I would rephrase that as that would result in having your ears cut off and then you get paraded

00:37:04.820 through the squadrons. And now we're just going to take a break for a word from our sponsors.

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00:40:04.680 And we're back. 1.00

00:40:06.080 Captured women.

00:40:06.820 Okay, this is interesting too. And I talk about this on the You're Dead to Me podcast, but also on the Oldest Profession podcast. Because some of these rules that Zheng Yisao implements, I have to assume are based on her experience having worked on the flower boat and having just really wanting women to have an okay time on the pirate ships without having to deal with too much fuckery.

00:40:30.940 so women were captured as part of pirate biz that's just what happens so captured women who 0.66

00:40:37.720 are found unattractive would be released without harm i mean good for them i guess but also 1.00

00:40:43.520 kind of an insult attractive women could be divided between the crews as loot or purchased 0.92

00:40:51.200 as wives so if a pirate earned or purchased a wife he was required to be faithful to her

00:40:57.580 so like enforced monogamy or else face execution by decapitation and having his body thrown into 1.00

00:41:04.860 the sea so again that's just like zhangi's out thought of a punishment and she's like guess 0.99

00:41:09.800 what this is the punishment for everything so this whole thing about the women i just said like

00:41:15.180 she wanted women to be treated okay and it's like what are you talking about ann like did you not

00:41:18.640 just say women could be divided between crews as loot or purchase as wives i did say that 0.95

00:41:22.400 but further rule says that, um, rape, non-consensual sex between a pirate and a woman 0.98

00:41:31.040 captive would mean that the man would be decapitated, body thrown in the sea. So like 0.90

00:41:36.300 you could get the women as loot, but you could not then rape them. I guess they just became like 0.99

00:41:42.840 new crew members. Not sure what that situation would be. And then there was also a rule that

00:41:49.120 if a pirate has sex with a woman and then doesn't marry her, then guess what? Decapitation body 0.99

00:41:56.020 thrown in the sea. And the women also, I think would be thrown in the sea, but like with weights 1.00

00:42:00.360 attached to her. So it was kind of in the best interest. Like if you wanted to have sex with 1.00

00:42:04.980 one of the women, like you needed to agree to marry her. And then once you're married to her, 0.93

00:42:11.260 you had to be faithful to her as well. But then what does faithful to her even mean? Because

00:42:17.320 Zhang Yisao also forbid consensual sex. So like once you had married the prisoner or once the

00:42:25.000 prisoner had been married to the pirate, like you could stay on the ship, like I said, like Star

00:42:28.860 Trek's The Next Generation, wives and children could be there, but you couldn't have sex when

00:42:32.440 you were on duty because Zhang Yisao felt that that like distracted you from your work. So if 0.51

00:42:39.000 you were founded to have had consensual sex on duty, man, head cut off, thrown in the sea for 1.00

00:42:45.000 both of you, for the woman and for the man. So some real specific rules here. Now there's some 0.99

00:42:50.440 debate about did Zheng Yisao herself create these rules or did she collaborate with her husband,

00:42:55.040 Zheng Baozai? Did they work? Some people say like, well, Zheng Baozai wrote up the rules

00:42:59.500 because like Zheng Yisao didn't know how to write, but it's like, I feel like the amount of paperwork

00:43:03.360 she did, she probably learned how to write at some point. Anyway, here's what we know for sure.

00:43:07.980 Whoever came up with these rules, Zheng Yisao was the commander of the fleet of the pirate

00:43:12.260 confederation and she was the one enforcing these rules so it's not like she had nothing to do with

00:43:16.600 them uh there's also some religion aspects of all of this so the religion in this context

00:43:23.820 parts of the six flag fleets were notoriously religion so when they went on a mission or a raid

00:43:30.580 they would like pray to the gods for safety and good fortune so zhang yi sao and her husband

00:43:36.700 built a magnificent temple aboard one of the largest vessels, which became the center of

00:43:42.360 ritual for the leaders before every mission. So before every mission, the leaders would burn

00:43:46.320 incense and beseech their gods for the holy favor. But before that happened, like before the actual

00:43:51.180 like ceremony, Zhang Bozai would meet in secret with the priests to like tell them like, here's

00:43:55.880 what I want the gods to say today. And so as fate would have it, the gods always seem to smile on

00:44:01.820 their crew, blessing them in their endeavors from these religious ceremonies. Yeah. And so there was

00:44:08.300 religious stability. People felt like her leadership was her and her husband's leadership

00:44:15.720 was maybe sort of divinely ordained, like the gods were blessing them. They also had all these

00:44:20.460 rules to follow. And morale became really high. All the pirates in the fleets love being part of

00:44:25.700 this pirate confederation of pirates under Zhang Yisao and her husband. In terms of religious stuff,

00:44:32.160 apparently Zhang Yisao was very suspicious. Quite a bit of what we know about her and what was going

00:44:37.500 on was there was a British captive named Richard Glasspool who later wrote about them where it's

00:44:42.160 like, okay, Glasspool, like do we trust everything he says? How much is him like misinterpreting what

00:44:48.960 he sees because he's coming from such a different cultural context and he, I don't think, spoke the

00:44:52.900 language. But anyway, he wrote that Zhang Yisao sprinkled her captives with garlic water,

00:44:58.540 which was believed to be protection against getting shot. Apparently, she never made decisions

00:45:04.860 without first consulting a particular guardian spirit. And she kept statues of the spirit on

00:45:09.940 each of her ships, but which spirit she allegedly sought guidance from is unknown. And in terms of

00:45:15.160 her like commander managerial role. So she controlled over all finances and operations,

00:45:23.280 which again, I feel like is a transferable skill from having been a sex worker. And there was a 0.96

00:45:28.840 strict, so she set up this rule, strict division of wealth. So when any of the parts of the fleets 0.72

00:45:33.800 raided a place, 20% of whatever was gathered would be divided among the crew who like actually were

00:45:39.020 involved in the raid. And the other 80% would be put in the like main treasury for like to support

00:45:44.740 the whole fleet as a whole. As I mentioned, if you take money beyond that 20%, you would have

00:45:51.160 your head cut off and thrown in the sea. I don't know. It's giving me union. It's giving me just 0.91

00:45:59.640 workers' rights. Of course, people are cool being in this pirate fleet. I'm always in admiration of

00:46:07.060 someone who's just a good leader. It's so rare to be actually good at this and to get people to

00:46:13.760 trust you. And I'm just, I love the girl boss of it all. Speaking of, she was not just a pirate.

00:46:20.640 She also was an entrepreneur and she had her own side hustle, which was controlling the salt 1.00

00:46:26.480 industry. So in this era, most salt was produced. I don't know if it's like in the world or just in

00:46:33.760 this region. Anyway, so a lot of salt was produced in the Guangdong province and then it would be

00:46:39.000 moved up the coast to the port of Canton. And so the salt that was produced was found in salterns,

00:46:45.600 which is a word I had not heard. S-A-L-T-E-R-N. So these are pools of salt water, which produced

00:46:51.440 salt, which was then left to evaporate. And that's where salt came from. So each year,

00:46:56.680 like four times a year, large fleets from the government, like working for the emperor,

00:47:01.680 would ship salt to Canton, like to the port. And this is a very profitable business for the

00:47:07.780 government. And Zhang Yisou saw this happening and she's like, okay, but what if this was a

00:47:11.640 profitable business for me and the pirate fleet? So her fleet attacked the salt fleets, like the

00:47:20.020 government salt fleets basically took over the ships and made them deliver the salt to like her.

00:47:24.960 So she became so successful that, um, so the government had 270 salt ships. And after she

00:47:32.200 like set her sights on this, only four of those remained outside of her control. And I think those

00:47:37.360 ones ruined outside of her control because those ships just kind of like wouldn't leave port.

00:47:40.600 They're like, the winds are bad. We can't go sailing today. Oh, well, because they didn't

00:47:44.520 want to be attacked by her. So she would capture these ships and then force the people manning 0.71

00:47:48.700 these government ships, salt ships to work for her instead of for the government. And therefore, 1.00

00:47:53.260 she took over the entire salt industry. She also introduced what is described sometimes as a

00:47:58.900 passport system, which is one of the first passport systems ever, I think, in the history of anything.

00:48:04.620 and this is part of her regulation of the salt industry so it's called a passport system i mean

00:48:11.260 it's basically just like a protection racket like one might hear about any gang doing anywhere in

00:48:17.660 the world where there's gangs so this passport system quote-unquote forced salt merchants to

00:48:22.400 purchase a passport of safe passage from the pirates before setting out on their journey

00:48:26.780 so these ships that she had like taken control of that used to work for the government would have to 0.87

00:48:32.440 pay her for the right to transport the salt. Soon this system extended to all sorts of

00:48:39.540 merchant ships, not just salt and fishing vessels. Even people in the villages where the pirates

00:48:44.560 would go started paying for protection as well. She's just kind of like, what if everyone just

00:48:49.100 pays me money because I'm great and everyone's like, don't want our heads cut off and bodies

00:48:53.560 thrown in the sea. So sure. Even the British East India Company, at that time, the world's most

00:49:00.900 powerful corporation paid her fees for protection. She also offered like so many businesses these

00:49:09.760 days. You could pay per ship or you could get an annual subscription or pay as you go for specific

00:49:15.600 voyages. Like the vision of this woman. I am so in awe and I love to see a person in exactly the

00:49:22.880 right job for that person because other people in this role wouldn't have come up with this shit. 0.99

00:49:26.460 she is like were she alive today she could write a business about just like being a girl boss and 0.99

00:49:34.000 how to destroy the government's salt fleet i'm just like i love her i love her so she also like 0.75

00:49:43.320 it wasn't just like her running around giving a piece of papers like she had teams working for

00:49:47.860 her like crews she set up financial officers and harbors along the coast in major centers like

00:49:53.020 canton and macau which is where these would be like collection points for fees and to check the 1.00

00:49:57.420 passports yeah so through her like taking control of like the entire ocean and all merchants

00:50:06.940 she created a stable seascape that was orderly because she was in charge of it

00:50:13.280 instead of just being this chaotic thing about all different pirate bands not different stuff

00:50:17.760 like she was in charge of like everything and she didn't control these people through

00:50:22.440 terror. I mean, that was certainly part of it. Just like when you knew her pirate,

00:50:27.180 one of these fleets was coming up, especially the red fleet, you'd be like, okay, I'll do

00:50:30.120 whatever you say just because of the reputation. But she and her pirates also worked hard to

00:50:34.760 ensure alliances with people on land. For instance, in small villages that were like

00:50:40.160 isolated and it was harder for them to like get supplies, the six flag fleets would help provide

00:50:44.800 them with delicacies, luxuries, and oddities from far off lands, which they sold to locals for

00:50:50.640 modest prices. So they came to town as like a little bookmobile type thing. Because they knew,

00:50:57.700 she knew, like any skilled diplomat, a few generous gifts to the right people would go a

00:51:02.440 long way in establishing relationships to make these villages loyal to them. So before long,

00:51:07.420 local politicians were on the take or, you know, paying for protection or whatever. And corruption

00:51:13.960 only grew from there. So her pirate fleet secured footholds among merchants, farmers, laborers, 0.97

00:51:19.820 government officials they also like going back to her previous skill from her sex work life 1.00

00:51:24.380 traded secrets um they shared information intelligence with secret societies and bandit 0.73

00:51:29.860 gangs so these pirates truly had influence over every aspect of life on the chinese coast and

00:51:37.340 then this part is like this whole story at first i was reading like doing the research and i'm just

00:51:42.080 like usually in these stories that i do in the podcast there's like challenges sushi for instance

00:51:47.460 She had to keep, you know, people were getting in her way. 0.88

00:51:50.720 People were trying to stop her.

00:51:51.800 But Zheng Yisao was so powerful.

00:51:53.640 The story is just like a delightful journey of a woman who did great, kept being more great.

00:52:00.080 No one could ever stop her.

00:52:02.220 Like, it's just like, it's a relaxing story.

00:52:05.340 Yeah.

00:52:05.700 So when I say like, no one tried to stop her, you're like, what about like the government?

00:52:09.780 What about the emperor?

00:52:11.280 do you remember in that sushi episode about how the Qing dynasty didn't really have very much of

00:52:18.320 a navy that was like part of her thing she's like I'm gonna make there be a navy but then she like

00:52:21.660 took a lot of money to build her like marble boat the Chinese navy was not really um well funded 0.95

00:52:29.120 shall we say their ships were not great there was a lot of people working for them so the navy didn't 0.83

00:52:34.280 dare to oppose her because her ships and weapons and like crew were better than theirs each of her

00:52:39.520 fleets was effectively a floating military fortress with lots of ships and cannons.

00:52:44.520 It was estimated that her fleet outnumbered the Imperial Navy three to one, which again is why a

00:52:49.980 lot of the Navy ships spent most of their time in port claiming the winds were bad and they couldn't

00:52:54.160 go to sea. Like, oh no, my ship's broken. I can't go out, which just made things even easier for her.

00:52:59.840 And one of the reasons why their Navy was so shitty, while hers was so good, 0.93

00:53:03.180 is because she had all this money from all these businesses she was running. 0.98

00:53:07.840 Meanwhile, the Qing Empire couldn't afford to put together a powerful army because they bankrupted themselves through like buying too many luxury goods, but also the whole like White Lotus rebellion and stuff.

00:53:20.460 Here's just some fun facts, just some pirate facts.

00:53:23.740 So her pirates apparently drank before their battles a concoction of gunpowder mixed with wine. 0.99

00:53:30.540 Don't try that at home.

00:53:32.560 And so some of the ways that they attacked ships, like part of being a pirate, like even

00:53:37.120 I know this as like a person who's watched Our Flag Means Death and maybe one of the

00:53:41.940 Pirates of the Caribbean movies a thousand years ago.

00:53:44.340 Like I know the part and the Princess Bride, part of being a pirate is just like having

00:53:48.820 a reputation.

00:53:49.380 So when you show up, people just like give you whatever you want.

00:53:53.060 So you don't actually have to work that hard when your reputation is so good.

00:53:56.380 So here's how they would attack ships.

00:53:58.900 So they would use grappling hooks to like climb up onto the ships to attack after having

00:54:04.880 drunken gunpowder mixed with wine, which again, don't do that.

00:54:08.520 One of their weapons that they used was called a zingau, which was an eight foot long musket

00:54:14.080 like device, which was so long, like eight feet long.

00:54:17.240 It required three people.

00:54:18.900 So two men would fire it as arrested on the shoulder of a third.

00:54:24.280 So just imagine people climbing up a grappling hook with this like eight foot long musket.

00:54:28.180 um they would also one of their techniques is they had another thing they had these kind of

00:54:35.180 15 to 30 foot long posts like i don't know what else to call it with a razor sharp machete on the

00:54:41.800 end so just like a machete with like a 15 foot long post and they would just like come swimming

00:54:46.480 up with that um they also used handmade grenades filled with gunpowder and gin which is interesting

00:54:52.860 that they would drink the gunpowder and wine and then they were like oh hey this our favorite drink

00:54:57.200 could also be a weapon okay so they would come in your ship and you would just be like okay i give

00:55:02.640 in like obviously so you would be okay if you were the person who they were attacking as long as you

00:55:08.760 gave up your booty and paid them some money like you could probably just like go along but that

00:55:15.080 would not be the case if you like imagining yourself when the service of the imperial navy

00:55:20.280 um if they came in your ship and you were with a navy you would probably be nailed by your feet

00:55:25.380 to the deck and then chopped up in little pieces and thrown overboard to feed the sharks,

00:55:30.340 which is quite a specific and strange thing to do. Instead of the like chopping off the head,

00:55:35.080 throwing off the body. Instead, this is like chopping off the feet and throwing off the body.

00:55:39.340 I don't know why you'd be nailed by your feet first. Anyway, that's what they did. And again,

00:55:43.500 this is why the Navy people just were like, I'm sick today. I'm just going to not go sail in the

00:55:49.020 ocean right now. Anyway, 1809. Again, everything I just described, Zhang Yisao had accomplished in

00:55:57.200 like eight years. This is not like decades of work. So 1809, the imperial government had had

00:56:04.540 enough, like you'd think that would have happened earlier, but maybe this is just when the whole

00:56:08.240 salt stuff had really gotten going. Like her fleet was like, they're like, okay, they're

00:56:13.480 unstoppable. Like we can't, we literally can't stop them. And I think this is when they started

00:56:17.860 being described not as bandits, but as rebels. Like her fleet was so powerful. It was kind of

00:56:23.480 like a civil war level thing. It wasn't just like, oh, here's some like criminals. It's like, oh no,

00:56:27.700 this is, this is like a war. And she like has her own nation effectively. So the imperial government

00:56:35.360 was like time for international help. So this is like, again, like before sushi, I think still,

00:56:40.280 yeah, no, it is the Chinese government. This is when they're still like really like not letting 0.95

00:56:44.720 Westerners in. They despise Westerners. They consider them to be barbarians, but they were 0.88

00:56:49.420 just like, we can't stop her. So they enlisted the aid of British, Portuguese, and Dutch war

00:56:54.540 vessels to try and stop her in this kind of like civil war. This was when Richard Glasspool was

00:57:00.040 captured by the pirates, the guy who wrote the thing before about how she had garlic and things.

00:57:05.280 So Glasspool wrote in his account of being captured, he estimated there's 80,000 pirates

00:57:11.920 under her command, um, with about a thousand large ships and 800 smaller ships and rowboats. 0.96

00:57:19.720 And like, again, like the Imperial Chinese Navy would never have agreed to work with these Western

00:57:24.080 powers, except they were completely desperate. And I mean, needless to say, like she won every 0.80

00:57:31.060 battle. Her fleets were better trained, better armed, better supplied, and more numerous than 0.82

00:57:34.620 anyone else. So for two years, her fleets won battle after battle until the government realized

00:57:40.720 and further attempts to fight her reign would only lead to more death on their side. So instead, 0.80

00:57:46.060 they decided to get tricky about it by offering her and most of her crew amnesty. Well, it's kind

00:57:52.620 of like a divide and conquer situation where I think they offered amnesty to like one of her

00:57:57.400 other captains to try and lure him away. And he took their deal and she was just like, oh,

00:58:02.800 I see where this is going. So like as skilled as she obviously was, the years of expansion and

00:58:09.040 growth had given rise to new power struggles between the fleet leaders who wanted to seize

00:58:13.820 more control for themselves. The green flag fleet waged rebellion against the red flag fleet.

00:58:19.980 And then after suffering a loss, they decided to accept the offer of amnesty,

00:58:23.820 which reduced the number of pirates that Zheng Yisao had, like if she lost the whole green fleet.

00:58:28.480 So she had to think like, not just what was best for herself, but also what was the best for the

00:58:33.240 future for the like tens of thousands of people who depended on her, like not just the pirates,

00:58:37.120 about their wives and their children. Like it was a whole enterprise. And if she, she had to

00:58:42.280 make the best choice for everybody. And this is again, where I just like respect this woman's

00:58:45.920 business sense. She wasn't just like, no, I'll fight until I go down. She's like, 0.98

00:58:49.760 let's just accept this deal. So she decided to negotiate a deal, which again, her former skills

00:58:56.060 from her sex work job, like she's really good at negotiating. So she just kind of walked into a

00:59:00.820 government office to talk to a local official. The government, the governor general insisted that

00:59:05.720 she had to entirely relinquish control of all of her ships. And she was like, pass. And she left. 0.99

00:59:11.600 And they were like, we really need her to surrender. Can we just give her what she wants? 0.90

00:59:15.940 And then eventually the emperor, I guess, was like, yeah, I think we have to. So negotiations

00:59:21.140 stalled for several weeks. And so she seized initiative by approaching unarmed, no weapons,

00:59:27.900 accompanied by a group of just women and children. So like the pirates' wives and children. 1.00

00:59:32.260 so I think she showed up in sort of like a grand symbol gesture to be like I'm just like a little

00:59:37.700 woman like don't be afraid of me and she went to the highest official in Canton to negotiate in

00:59:42.440 person and at this point they like recognized they had to just give her whatever she wanted

00:59:47.120 and she was successful which was it was decided that most of her fleets would disband only if

00:59:52.580 so she had what 80,000 crew of them only 376 would face punishment for their crimes I guess

00:59:58.400 they were just like, especially, I don't know, all the rest of the crew would be allowed to keep

01:00:02.520 all the wealth they had accumulated, including her, like she could keep all her money, all her 0.50

01:00:06.420 like millions of whatevers. And they all got a full legal pardon. Former pirates would be

01:00:12.340 allowed to pursue careers as soldiers in the military. And sort of like a pension slash

01:00:18.300 rehabilitation fund was created to help her finance the transition of her loyal crew from

01:00:23.840 a life at sea to one in the mainland. Like they created like a pension. So it's like some of the

01:00:29.580 pirates could retire. Someone could take new jobs and like none of them would have to go to jail

01:00:33.340 except for these 376 who I guess were just like real dirtbags. And she herself was given the title

01:00:39.340 lady by imperial decree. And she was cemented into the aristocracy, like in the legal

01:00:44.980 setting. So like literally she got everything she wanted. And so her husband, remember him,

01:00:52.800 Zheng Bozai, he pivoted to be a naval officer. He became a lieutenant colonel and then was able

01:00:59.780 to use his pirate knowledge to break up an illegal opium ring. He retired with the rank

01:01:05.400 of colonel, like young retirement. Like, can I just say that she retired from being a pirate age

01:01:09.880 35. Like she became the most powerful pirate in the world, ages 25 to 35. And at age 35, 0.98

01:01:16.440 She's just like, okay, early retirement.

01:01:19.460 So he died just a couple years after the retirement.

01:01:24.100 They had had a son by now, and so she returned to Canton briefly to raise their son.

01:01:29.460 During the first opium war, she acted as an advisor to the Qing government to teach how to mobilize the troops and fight at sea.

01:01:38.660 Because if you remember the opium war we talked about in the sushi episode,

01:01:41.920 that's where China was fighting against Britain and France.

01:01:46.440 which a lot of naval battles. And again, China didn't really have a really good naval apparatus.

01:01:50.980 So they were just like, Oh, we don't know how to fight at sea. They like hire her as an advisor, 0.50

01:01:55.180 like the grift of this woman. Like I'm in awe of the way that she, everything she did is just

01:02:03.180 perfection to me. Um, other stuff she did, she started a gambling house slash brothel, 1.00

01:02:10.240 ran a business. I feel like she has the skills for that for sure. She may have become involved 1.00

01:02:14.340 in opium smuggling, not sure. And she lived to age 69. Nice. She died in Macau in 1844. So the

01:02:23.960 year she died, Sushi was nine. So that's just during the time that Sushi started helping out

01:02:29.460 her family by sewing and taking on sewing projects and stuff. So I feel like a baton was passed of

01:02:35.140 girl boss to girl boss situation. Her legacy. Zheng Yi Cao was, as I said before, and now you 0.66

01:02:42.980 understand why. The most powerful pirate in history. Like not just the most powerful lady

01:02:48.300 pirate, not just the most powerful Chinese pirate, like the most powerful pirate in all of history.

01:02:55.220 And like, why is she not more famous? We all know because she was a Chinese woman at her height. 0.99

01:03:04.200 So she commanded something like 1800 ships and an estimated 70,000 men.

01:03:09.220 so in china this is interesting this is where i was looking at some of the sources from people

01:03:15.520 in china or like from china so she's not like she's becoming like more famous in a western

01:03:21.660 context there's like children's picture books about her she's listed in you know like the rebel

01:03:25.260 girls and those books like that but in china her accomplishments were or have been overshadowed by

01:03:31.580 that of her second husband jeng beozai so influential chinese writers such as the qing

01:03:36.100 official, Yang Gun, whose book is one of the very few historical sources on Chinese piracy during

01:03:41.720 this period, kind of glossed over her achievements in favor of talking about her husband, her second

01:03:46.440 husband, Zhang Baozi. And so he became better known. And I'm going to guess that this guy

01:03:52.080 writing this book was just kind of like, she was a woman. And like, we I don't like talking about 1.00

01:03:57.360 women. And surely she wasn't good at anything. And she was just a big slut or whatever. So from 1.00

01:04:03.180 there like from this these written sources and like again like not knowing a lot about this but

01:04:09.180 knowing like a bit about this a lot of Chinese history like imperial Chinese history was really

01:04:14.220 like the emperors and what were they doing like the history of kind of the not the everyday people

01:04:20.700 because she's not an everyday person but like the working class the like criminals you know like the

01:04:25.800 sex workers like that was not what was recorded by a lot of the official people recording the 0.91

01:04:29.740 history of Qing dynasty, China. So like, of course, we don't know a lot about her or hadn't

01:04:34.320 known a lot about her. Zhang Bozai appeared as a character. There's this series of films called

01:04:40.480 Once Upon a Time in China. There's like five or seven of them. He's in like the fifth one.

01:04:46.480 He shows up as the, there's sort of like Jet Li stars in them. And he plays this kind of folk

01:04:53.140 hero, kind of like a Davy Crockett type person, but Chinese. And Zhang Bozai is a villain in one 0.99

01:04:59.300 of the movies, the fifth movie. He appears as an incredibly old man because the movie is set like

01:05:04.020 when he as a human would have been like 100 years old. But he appears as a pirate turned naval

01:05:10.080 commander. There was an entire TV series about him called Captain of Destiny in 2015. And in

01:05:17.080 this series, his wife, Zheng Yi Cao, is kind of like a small role. She's just shown as to be a

01:05:23.220 kidnapped woman from a well-to-do family with little agency. And as I said, so it's in Western

01:05:28.200 media that her reputation kind of developed. So she appeared in, so the Argentinian writer

01:05:34.300 Jorge Luis Borges wrote a book in 1935 called A Universal History of Infamy, which I've not read,

01:05:41.160 but I think I will. So she appears in that as The Widow Ching. In 2007, there was a character

01:05:48.780 based strongly on her in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, Pirates of the Caribbean

01:05:54.340 at world's end from 2007 she shows up in that um although in that which i have not seen um she's

01:05:59.840 depicted as a heavily made up brothel madame and that movie is set like before she was born so 0.72

01:06:05.700 again like the time period of when she was doing her shit was kind of like not the time period of 0.57

01:06:11.940 the movies made that she's in she appeared in earlier this year in 2022 there's an episode of 0.96

01:06:19.420 Doctor Who called Legend of the Sea Devils, and she appeared in that. And that's part of

01:06:25.000 why I wanted to talk about her on the podcast, because I saw that episode of Doctor Who and I

01:06:28.780 was like, ooh, I want to, like that really, people have been suggesting her, I should learn more about

01:06:32.680 this cool Chinese pirate person. In 2020, Chinese audiences at last got a TV series devoted to

01:06:38.540 Zhang Yisao, in which she was depicted as a folk hero who rallies the pirates to protect the poor

01:06:43.240 and weak and helps to quash the opium trade, which is like, I'm not entirely sure her history

01:06:49.720 with the opium trade. Was she pro? Was she con? I, I don't know. And then I found this really

01:06:56.120 interesting. So recently there's a play, I'm not sure if it's still playing, but, um, in London,

01:07:00.760 England produced by paper gang theater called Asian pirate musical. And it was produced by

01:07:05.500 like people of Asian heritage. And it seems kind of like a six, the musical, which I'm sure you've

01:07:11.700 heard about, about Henry VIII's wives, a similar sort of thing where they're sort of interrogating

01:07:16.560 the way that Asian pirates are discussed in media. So in the show, her character kind of

01:07:22.840 criticizes the fact that she's known as Zhang Yisao. She says, first wife of Pirate Cheng.

01:07:29.500 I cannot believe that is the name that's stuck. So it sounds like a really great steps are

01:07:35.200 happening to sort of like just get people more talking about her and recognizing how cool she

01:07:39.920 was and i'm just like i'm just impressed i'm just like i love it i love i love a leader who's good

01:07:47.880 at it who's well suited for it i love the fact that just like no one can ever defeat her no one

01:07:52.540 ever did like love her so i don't know enough about either her husbands to nominate anyone for

01:07:59.040 the lady jane c memorial award for outstanding supporting performance but i do appreciate that

01:08:04.200 her husband's clearly didn't get in her way. In terms of scandalousness, like I feel like the

01:08:10.340 fact that she was, it's funny because she did so well. I almost forget that like she's a pirate

01:08:15.640 and everything she was doing was illegal. And cause I was just like cheering for her so much,

01:08:19.980 but like she was a sex worker turned pirate, which are both things that historically,

01:08:25.900 and I think almost every cultural context are seen as scandalous by like the establishment. 1.00

01:08:30.460 but like like this is a 10 for scandaliciousness she was a unstoppable pirate queen her scheminess 0.97

01:08:37.300 i would give her more than 10 if i could um again like the word schemey i think has some like 0.81

01:08:42.300 unpleasant connotations when you're talking about like asian women so please know that i mean this 1.00

01:08:46.800 in terms of just like resiliency smartness just like all the plans she the way she took over the 0.95

01:08:52.720 salt trade like she's coming up with these plans and there wasn't that a way i don't know i don't 1.00

01:08:57.800 think she ever was educated in school because like there wasn't school in China then. But like

01:09:03.120 she did this without getting an MBA program. You know, there wasn't like someone who's a mentor to

01:09:07.080 be like, why don't you diversify your portfolio? Like what? Like she just came up with all this

01:09:11.680 herself, like the scheminess out of control, 10 plus plus if I could. Her significance, I think,

01:09:18.320 frankly, is also a 10 because she was the most successful pirate there ever was. And even if she

01:09:25.280 was not well known afterwards the significance she had at the time like she amount of people

01:09:31.340 who she provided employment for the fact that when the pirate fleet woke up they all got pensions and

01:09:36.500 new careers and stuff just kind of like the ripple effects of how many people's lives she would have

01:09:40.040 affected comma and how many people she killed the effect on the salt trade it's just like she was a

01:09:47.580 hugely impactful figure in this region in this world and also she was the most successful pirate

01:09:52.080 of all time which is frankly a 10 where i think she's not getting a perfect mark so is with a

01:09:57.120 sexism bonus because like how much did the patriarchal hold her back and i feel like not at 0.99

01:10:01.900 all i feel like i mean yeah she she wouldn't have become a pirate queen unless she married the

01:10:07.680 pirate and what were the circumstances of her marrying the pirate was that something she wanted

01:10:10.960 to do i don't know and then she like took another husband so she could kind of keep control so 0.97

01:10:15.820 people wouldn't worry about her being a woman but like she did and kind of like sushi like 0.99

01:10:19.680 yeah it was this like massively patriarchal culture but she kind of saw that and was like

01:10:25.560 okay well here's the loophole I'm just gonna take to be the best person in the world and she did

01:10:31.380 so the sexism I don't think got in her way you know it's like did would she have wanted to have 1.00

01:10:37.060 been working on a flower boat if that was like clearly she had more skills than just doing that 1.00

01:10:42.020 I don't know I'm gonna give her a five for sexism just because of like had she been able to do all 1.00

01:10:48.960 this earlier maybe should have done more cool stuff but like it truly didn't get in her way 0.99

01:10:53.000 that much i don't know i'm just giving her five because i want to give her the highest mark

01:10:56.200 possible because i love her and where that puts her on the scandalish scale so she's a 35 the

01:11:03.860 same score is sushi the other chinese woman who lived just after her and i'll just give you the 0.97

01:11:09.980 breakdown i am gonna at some point on my next hiatus maybe hopefully have time to like put the

01:11:15.720 fredigand memorial scandalous scale online somewhere so you can see it but for now i'll

01:11:19.460 just relate it to you which is that just let me see the top of the top 11 nine of them are from

01:11:25.960 this season so at this point the top score anyone's ever gone is fredigand with a 38 queen margot

01:11:32.680 37.5 manuela sans 37 and ginga and harem sultan both a 36 la chevaliere d'on malinzin and queen

01:11:42.620 Min Olive a 35.5. Su Shi has a 35. Shang Yi Cao 35. And then Christina of Sweden is in 11th place

01:11:51.160 33.5. So like if anything with this international season other than just like me learning so much

01:11:58.200 interesting stuff and I'm really I love I love how my knowledge of world history has expanded 0.64

01:12:04.160 to learn about all these tits out women from all these other eras and times but I also love 1.00

01:12:08.340 that women from all these other ears and hives are just like killing it on the scandalicious scale 1.00

01:12:13.700 and again so i said like this is the season finale of season five vulgar history 0.97

01:12:20.680 vulgar history international but next week there is going to be another episode which is going to

01:12:26.980 be the third annual tits out festive holiday spectacular and it's definitely got some cameo

01:12:34.600 appearances by people who've talked about in vulgar history i think it's going to be a very

01:12:37.660 special holiday special. So that's coming up next week. And gosh, so like we're getting really close

01:12:45.680 to Hanukkah, we're getting close to Christmas at the time you're listening to this. So I hope

01:12:51.700 your holidays are not too stressful and you're finding moments of, you know, tits out, pants on

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01:13:49.080 tired to think of it that ticks out brigade i'm not sure has been very welcoming and nice and so

01:13:54.200 I'm spending more and more time there. So that's where you can find me as well. And there's the

01:13:58.240 store. I don't know. I don't know if I'm going to be adding any new merch at this point, but I will

01:14:02.820 for sure, like next year, start looking at doing some more merch as well. And I do think freelance

01:14:07.460 pirate is a strong option here or just like girl boss pirate. I don't know. Again, let me know.

01:14:12.860 Send me a message what you think would be good for a t-shirt. The merch store is at vulgarhistory.store

01:14:17.440 and you can always use promo code titsout for free shipping in the US or titsout10 for 10% off.

01:14:24.200 And then also if you go to bookshop.org slash shop slash vulgar history, I've got a list of

01:14:29.000 all the books that I've ever recommended on the show, including the biographies I use when I'm

01:14:33.340 researching, but also there's a list of historical fiction and there's a list of just like recommended

01:14:37.600 books for book giving. And if you buy stuff through that specific link from bookshop.org,

01:14:43.540 then a little money goes to support this podcast. Oh, and there's also Patreon. You can join our

01:14:48.120 patreon at patreon.com slash ann foster writer and that is where yeah so if you pledge a dollar a

01:14:54.180 month then you get early access early ad free access to all the episodes of vulgar history

01:14:59.400 and if you pledge at least two dollars a month you get the early access plus also you can vote

01:15:03.320 on polls to help me decide various things that i need help deciding if you pledge at least five

01:15:08.680 dollars a month or more then you get access to the other super special maxisodes i call them

01:15:15.700 because they're really long so there's so this asshole or i talk about men from history i've

01:15:19.720 talked about genghis khan i'm going to be talking about that guy his name escapes me at the moment

01:15:23.740 but i will know it very well after i do the episode um the one in the sushi story the guy

01:15:28.920 who like started this spiritual rebellion where he thought he was jesus's younger brother etc

01:15:35.060 we'll be talking about him and then also vulgar peace theater you get access to those episodes

01:15:40.620 for pledging or donating at least five dollars a month and that's where i talk about um costume

01:15:45.160 from history with friends of the podcast and also authors whose books would make great gifts

01:15:49.160 Alison Epstein and Lana Wood Johnson. So we did Queen Margot last month. This month we're doing

01:15:55.540 A Knight's Tale. I think that episode comes out at the time you're hearing this. It's going to

01:16:00.520 come out this upcoming Saturday. Anyway, again, like this is not goodbye forever. This is I will

01:16:07.360 talk to you again next week so um until then keep your pants on and your tits out 0.99

01:16:15.240 vulgar history is hosted written and researched by ann foster and edited by christina lumagi 0.98

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Vulgar History - December 14, 2022

International, part 39： Chinese Pirate Queen, Zheng Yi Sao

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