Zheng Yi (pirate)
Zheng Yi was a powerful Chinese pirate operating from Guangdong and throughout the South China Sea in the late 1700s.
History
According to Antony, "From 1802 until his death in a typhoon in the Southern Ocean in 1807, the most formidable pirate leader in Guandong was Zheng Yi, a cousin of Zheng Qi. Both Zhengs belonged to a notorious family of professional pirates, which for nearly a century and a half were the predominant pirates in the Canton delta. They traced their beginnings to the mid-seventeenth century with Zheng Jian, who hailed from Fujian and was subordinate of Zheng Chenggong. Two descendants, the brothers Zheng Lianfu and Zheng Lianchang, carried on the family tradition as sea bandits. They in turn were followed by their sons, Zheng Qi and Zheng Yi...After the death of Zheng Qi in 1802, Zheng Yi took command of his cousin's forces."He was born Zheng Wenxian in 1765 in Xin'an County, South China. His family, including his father Zheng Lianchang and his younger brother Zheng San had been pirates for generations, he and other pirates were recruited as mercenaries by Tây Sơn dynasty up until 1801. In the year of about 1798, Zheng Yi kidnapped Cheung Po, a 15-year-old son of a Tankan fisherman and pressed him into piracy. Cheung Po's talent helped him adapt well to his new and unplanned career, as he rose swiftly through the ranks.
In 1801, he met a 26-year-old Cantonese pirate known as Shi Xianggu. Either due to infatuation with her or purely as a business move, Zheng Yi made a proposal of marriage to Shi Xianggu to consolidate power, which she is said to have agreed to under a formal contract that granted her a 50% control and share. Shi Xianggu was known as "Zheng Yi Sao" and Zheng Xiong Shi.
Around 1805, Zheng Yi rose to become the leader of a group of six Asian pirate chiefs. This coalition was a formidable force, and one of the most powerful pirate fleets in all of China. They were known as the Red Flag Fleet. Most of his fleet, which numbered over 200 ships, consisted of junks. These were sizable ships capable of holding 800 tons of cargo and armed with as many as 40 cannons. Those ships were manned by at least 20,000 sailers, and the total number of men under his leadership could have reached as many as 40,000.
The pirate coalition besieged Macau for several weeks in 1804. In September 1805, a Chinese attack consisting of 80 gunboats in Guangzhou Bay captured or destroyed only 26 pirate vessels. The general who had led the attack subsequently offered pardons to those who surrendered; perhaps 3000 accepted this offer before it was withdrawn in December 1805.
By 1806, virtually every Chinese vessel along the coast paid the pirates for ostensible protection.
One notable member of Zheng Yi’s crew was Chang Pao, the son of a fisherman, who was captured by pirates around 1801. He then appointed him as a captain of one of his Red Flag ships, and the young man eventually became both his lover and adopted son.