Do Go On - 267 - Ching Shih, The Pirate Queen

Episode Date: December 2, 2020

Born into relative obscurity, Ching Shih burst onto the world stage in 1801 and would quickly become the most successful pirate in history, commanding tens of thousands of pirates and ruling the South China Sea.Buy tickets to our live streamed shows, (buy a season pass to get 4 for the price of 3! You can also watch old streams, all with exclusive sections):https://sospresents.com/authors/dogoonSupport the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPodCheck out our AACTA nominated web series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2TuMQ31VXvqqEus9Bo6FZW-dDY5ukEuh Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/Submit-a-TopicTwitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasREFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-chinese-female-pirate-who-commanded-80000-outlawshttps://medium.com/history-of-yesterday/ching-shih-a-prostitute-who-became-historys-deadliest-pirate-f596f7fcff23https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/ching-shih-prostitute-pirate-lord-002582http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2012/06/the-female-prostitute-that-rose-to-become-one-of-the-most-powerful-pirates-in-history-and-whose-armada-took-on-the-chinese-british-and-portuguese-navies-and-won/http://www.cindyvallar.com/chengsao.html

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That's right, this was recorded as the second in our season of live streams on our world tour. This one, we were live from Asia. Can you believe that? I can. I was there. Oh, you were talking to them? No, I was talking to you. Okay, great. And if you'd like to watch this as well as last week's episode and the next two episodes, you can even get a season pass. You get four shows for the press of three and you can watch it any time at sospresents.com. It includes the episode and then an extra bonus show that we did just for the live stream. Alright, here's the audio.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dave Warnocky and as always I'm here with Jess Perkins and you guessed it. It's Matt Stewart. I did guess it and my name is Jess Perkins. Oh hey Jess Perkins, I'm Matt Stewart and he's Dave Warnocky for you. Thank you. If you hadn't met him as yet. How wonderful and he's Dave Hornicky. Thank you. If you hadn't met him as yet. How wonderful. It's great to be here. Yes. It is.

So good to be here. We're doing a world tour on live streaming and it is so good to be here in Asia this week. That's where we are. So we're doing these live at an appropriate time for different regions of the world and it is prime time 7pm ish in Asia It's a bit of a China right now, I do believe so You know they've probably turned neighbors off. They've probably switched off the Simpsons repeat

Wagon, you know what we got a live stream straight in from the stupid old studios in Shanghai. They're choosing us over Simpsons Rear Runs. Wow. I find that hard to come with. Well, I've just checked the fuel ship here and the entire country is tuning around. Now, there is over a billion people watching the studio. And I still don't have 10,000 followers on Instagram. You're joking.

Sorry about that. You are joking. I believe some of their websites are geo-block, so let are about that. You are joking. I believe some of their websites are geo-blocked, so let's play that. Let's play that. If they could, they would. Exactly. If they could, they could.

If they could, you'd have over a billion followers. Whoa, that's too much responsibility. Yeah. I don't want that. I hope somebody's listening to this in the future and they're like, what are you talking about? She has like 20,000, you know what I mean? 20 billion.

Yeah. Every person on earth is just creative. Three accounts each. Just to follow you. That'd be sick. You some sort of global dictator? Yes. But like a fun one.

Yeah. It's about time someone brought the fun back to fundamentalism. I could not agree more. The fun police, but the actual fun police. Yeah. Hey Matt, what is this show? Well, I would love to explain it, but unfortunately my

job's been taken by someone else this week. Dave put the call out a while ago to ask for 60s style jingles to explain the show. Because we're no good at explaining it five years in. It's so hard. It's really hard. And then, yeah, put the call out. We had our first one last week from Puerto Rico. And it was an absolute banger. I loved it. It was great. But, yeah, they've continued to come in.

And I believe Matt has organized to play one now. Yeah, so we've got one. This one, I believe, is coming from Australia only because they reference Triple M. Okay. So this is from Jason Harrison. He says it's not really a 60s TV theme, more of an American late night show across with triple M. Okay. But this is my submission for a silly intro theme. So yeah, this one will explain everything. Go ahead.

Hit it! Come and act here from Stupid Old Studios in Melbourne, Australia. This is the show where one of them does a report on the topic and the other two sit quietly and listen. This is Jess, Matt and Dave and this show is called Do Go On! Woo! Oh, oh, oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! That was so succinct. Jason, that was fantastic. Why have we struggled so much? Do you reckon he scripted it or he thought it was his off the cuff?

I don't know, it made me feel happy. Was that a sambar? Yeah. I mean, that was nearly Jimmy Barnes. He's got piano in his email address, so I reckon he probably played it. That's sick. And, yeah, that felt real good. That was awesome. Thank you so much for that. Yes, thank you so much. Do you think he's any relation to George? I can only assume yes. Yeah. I mean how common a name is Harrison.

I've never heard of it before. So yeah. It's probably his nephew or some shit. Yeah, how awesome. How could that? Probably is sand. Whoa. It's probably George Harrison. Could it be? Yeah. Yeah. So. That's quite an honor. It's huge. I mean, it is anyway, even if you're not.

But even more so if you're a real... Even more so if you're a real... Obviously, I mean, come on. Even more so if you're the dead, the beetle who died before we saw this podcast. That would be a real honor. That would be pretty crazy. So now that we know how this show works.

So we always start with the question and it is my turn to do the report that Jason spoke about there. And the question to get us onto topic is, who is the most successful pirate in history? Bluebeard, Blackbeard. We already did, Blackbeard. Redbeard. I've got a clue here, clue, it ain't Blackbeard and it ain't Long John already did. Redbeard. I've got a clue here.

Clue, it ain't blackbeard. And it ain't long John Silver, or even Captain Feather Sword. Is it a lady pirate? It is a lady pirate. Oh. There's been... Seen this in the hat. I'm not gonna put it up for a vote.

I think I might of as well. And the name completely escapes me now. Okay, so the subtitle might be the Chinese pirate queen and we are talking about Ching-Shi. Ah, yes. This has been suggested by a few people, if I... Yep, what? A few people have suggested. I put it up for a Patreon vote.

I put up three topics all set in Eastern Asia and this was the clear winner. So thanks everyone that voted. And thanks to all the people that have suggested it over the years, going honestly years back. So first of all, listen, that we used to speak to a lot. Cecil suggested it way back. Jacob Buckler, get ready for this name.

Bernard and Tonyo Vera McCaffery. Fuck yes, Bernard. All one name. Johnny Dawson, Brielle Strobel, Abbey Garland, Josh Wan, Dassy Williamson, Rice Richards, and Kelly Tray. Oh, damn some good names in there. Thank you so much, everybody. Great batch of names.

Awesome. So I've put it maybe you put up for the vote before. She's come second, I think. Yeah. You guys have done a similar thing. I think so, yeah. I think I've must have put it up to the vote at some point. And I haven't, you know, sometimes when you're going through the hat and you're looking

for things to maybe put to the vote, you do like a quick preliminary check to go, is there any information on this story? Absolutely. So maybe sometimes you do like a very quick one paragraph rate. I don't even, I can't remember anything. I don't know if I've read much, if anything about this topic. So I'm very excited about this. Awesome. Well, there's actually not too much info on there out there, but what I have found is

quite interesting. Let us begin. Very little is known about the early life of the woman that would become known as Qing Shee. She basically pops up in the history books as an adult in 1801. Xi. She basically pops up in the history books as an adult in 1801. This was during the Qing dynasty, which was the last Imperial dynasty of China, lasting from 1644 to 1912. And Qing Xi was probably born somewhere around the Guangdong Province of China, in about 1775, meaning that when she pops up, she's probably 25 or 26. Yeah, okay. She was then working as a sex worker in a floating brothel in the city of Canton, floating brothel.

Yeah, never even thought of that. Of course. International waters? Yeah, is that what they were just trying to get off the land laws? It makes everything better, international waters. Yeah. Forget a water bed, obviously that's helpful in the trade.

Have a water body, hold boat. Have a water boat. Water boat. Get yourself a water bed obviously that's helpful in the trade have a water buddy whole boat have a waterboat Get yourself a waterboat. Yeah, first of all I used to have a regular boat So I got a waterboat. Yeah, and now everything's growing honestly. I sleep so well now On my waterboat so according to medium.com, which has an article about Ching-Chi Quote these boats would sail along the nearby coasts with a customer on board. Back then, the Chinese perceived that the rocking of the boat added an entirely new dimension to sexual pleasures

and enhanced the overall experience. At that time in history, did they not know you could move during the next very, very stationary? Honestly, when the boat moves, it actually kind of makes it better. Otherwise, it used to take days. Just like very slow. Bit emotional there.

Oh! Well, we're both having a good time before neither of us were. Oh, we're done in three minutes. We've got four days back up the sleeve now. Well, it's pretty choppy out. So during the late 1700s in China and Vietnam, land was annexed and chopped up and redistributed by many parties and many displaced farmers and fishermen turned to a life of piracy to survive. They lost their jobs.

Yep. We got to do something. Piracy. Piracy, that makes sense. The bush rangers of the sea, I like to call them. There you go. The bush rangers of the sea. I like to call them. There you go. Bush Rangers of the sea. Yeah.

So a rebellion broke out on the Vietnam China border and one of the rebels provided money to pirates to take revenge on China. Okay. So basically he won the war and then China and him eventually made up, but he never forgave them. So to secretly fuck up that shit, he started giving money to pirates. Being like, you'll work this out for me. And I this meant that in the 1790s, piracy in the South China and the South China coast rapidly increased.

Right. Because there's more money in piracy now. It was in 1801 that today's main character, Ching-Shi, married notorious pirate, Chiang Yee, also known as Zeng Yee, who was the leader of the Red Flag fleet of pirates. Okay. It's a pretty bad ass name. Oh, Red Flag. It's not the scariest gang name. Okay. I'd like to hear a scary one. Fire skulls. Yeah, okay. That's pretty good. Diamond. Yeah. You try. I mean, no pressure only if you want to. Boggy boys. Boggy boys. That's scarier than red flag. Yeah. What's the gang symbol for the boggy boys. It's a four wheel drive and the back two tyres

are like half covered in mud. But they are bogged. They're all in the out. Well, they're thumbs up, because they're not fast. Yeah, and a few of them are doing this. They're doing some shuckers, because they're the boggy boys. Yeah, we're bogged, but we're not bummed. We're happy to be here.

We love to be bogged. It's when we're the happiest. Wet boat is bold. So yeah, anyway, okay, scary pirates, red flag gang. And so she's married Cheng. His family had been pirates for generations, very famous pirate family. He had managed to unite many rival Chinese pirate organizations. And because of this, he exerted a lot of power in China and in Vietnam. OK.

So he was a bad boy. All right. In 1798, he kidnapped a 15-year-old boy named Chong Posae, who was the son of a fisherman. Cheng took Chong, which Cheng Posae, which translates to Cheng Poh the kid, under his wing and treated him like a son. Chungpo was a talented pirate being smart, brave, and a good fighter, and Chung eventually adopted the teenager as he's own.

Ah, okay. So he kidnapped him. Yeah, he stole from his family. Then he child him out. Yeah. Yeah. Who went, oh, this kid's got what it takes. He passed a few par at tests

What then that to go into like the council offices? Yeah fill out some forms. Yeah, make it official That what do you tell me that's what that's exactly what I do yeah, right? These are everything about the book. That's one thing that's very important. I respect that I Love rules. So he's yeah, okay, so. So he's kidnapped a kid, he's gone, oh, maybe you could be useful to me, I'll adopt you. Maybe you could be the heir to my throne. Yeah, to help you want to know your own throne. I want to take out my water throne.

Ah, my water closet. No, that's different. So on one day this water closet will be yours. Really? Thank you. That's what they call closets day this water closet will be yours. Really? Thank you. That's what they call closets and boats. Water closets. Yeah, that's what it came from. Yeah, it's water everything. A king once accidentally shot in his boat's closet and he said, no, I meant to. Water closets are for shitting in. And that's how I got its name. Yeah, that is true. It always comes back to kings. It does. Kings could do anything. If they stuff something up, they've got the power to be like, no, meant to be. You're doing it wrong. To a some sort of king related administrative era.

Good on kings. Good on kings. That had too hard for too long. Yeah, poor kings. Give them a bloody go. So it's unclear how Cheng, Cheng Yi first met the 25 year old sex worker that would become his wife. Some sources say that he was infatuated with Cheng Xi and ordered his men to bring her to him when they ransacked the brothel. Others say that he just asked at a marium. Either way, a beautiful romantic story. Orgous, gorgeous, epic girl dream. Don't know if it's an either way scenario that day. I think one of those more romantic than the other. Which one? I'm not gonna say, I'm not here.

I'm not here to be telling people what isn't romantic. I'm just saying definitively, one of those isn't, one of those isn't. Do you reckon that romance is quite subjective? No. Good grief, no. Okay, yes, I'll ask a stupid question there. What's the most romantic thing?

What's the most romantic thing? What's the only romantic thing? Yeah, universally accepted as most romantic thing. Thing, like object. Yeah. Oh, that's obviously a big piece of metal and rubber out of coating. Right, like some sort of aluminium baseball bat. Mate, you are making my heart sing right now.

Just to be able to do it. I love you this much. I'm learning so much from you. Yeah, yeah. I'm learning so much about you. You just hit my love out of the park. Wow. This ain't no foul at all. My love.

Hey, my heart bases are loaded. And we're on the second strike. Four balls. You're losing with second strike. Four balls. You're losing with an allergy. Come on. Just let to say today, that you're going on. Just tell Dave to do go on.

Crabs full. You're my baby Ruth. They're all watching us. You've just pointed to the stand. Then to my dick. You knocked it out of the park. Knocked the dick out of the park. Oh my God. Are you? They out of the park. Oh my god.

You're the only romantic thing. Did it, a hospital? Your dick just got knocked out of the park. With love. Oh. Okay, if it's with love, that's alright. That's right then. So we're not sure how they got together.

But either way, the woman, so the moment this woman pops up in history, we realized that she must have commanded some sort of real presence because she married Chang, this famous pirate guy. And she was immediately granted a 50% control and share of his pirate crew. As it should be. Mm.

You know? Should have got it a son of brain up. What's your own mind? Put it on a son of brain up. So yeah. So she's like quite suddenly very powerful. Exactly. Really moved up in the world. Yeah

Diane H. Murray in Pirates of the South China coast book on this era she says Cheing participated fully in her husband's piracy, so she wasn't just to buy stand that she was straight in there Walk in planks. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, testing planks. Testing planks. Robin the poop decks. Swabin them. Sharpening swords. Oh, yeah. She, yeah, top to bottom. She was involved in every inch of the business. Loading cannons. Invoicings. Yeah, yeah. Inventory. But also, killing counties. She did that. Oh, yeah. That was their favorite thing. But she counts, then go kill 100 people. Yeah, and then like put it in order for more toilet paper. Yeah, yeah. To mop up the

blood of her enemies. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. That's what I'm reminded of. She used the last bit to mop up blood. Bloody hell. Oh, god. I got some new bowl grills. I could get a mop, but that's not how we do things around you. No. For some reason taught me a bit of mother blood and we use mobs to wipe our asses. That's what history. OK? We have some past, you know? Some of their customs might seem a little strange to us in the future.

But a word for them. So she's granted 50% of the business. She was also granted 50% of his son, because she formally adopted the now 18-year year old chung po as her own son. Okay, but he's 18. He's 18. Does he need to be adopted now? Well, it's really just more like a...

Which half-shirking she took... Bottom. She took the bottom off for legs. Yeah. Yeah, I think as a... In the part, game, they're the ones you want. Spear legs. Yeah.

Because they're... They're often taken wood. Yeah. Pigs. Pigs. But if you've got two two spare legs ready to go. Yeah, that's my eye I thought top half was my first thing that's a top half very yummy very yummy legs can't not very laggy. No I was also a bit like why do you adopt an 18-year old? According to Atlas Obscure, which has another article on this, unlike in the West, adult adoption was often practiced in China in order to establish a kinship basis for further interaction,

particularly of a business type. So, he was in line, basically, to the throne of this pirate kingdom. Yeah, right. So, she's like, yeah, well, it'll adopt you formally, but really, he was more of a protégé. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But is she not mid-20s? So she's only slightly older than him?

Yeah. Okay. But she did make him call her mum. Yeah, fair enough. I make most people call me mum to be fair. Yeah, as you know. Yes, mum. It feels weird every time, but you insist.

I'm two days older than you. You call me mum. That's the rule. But there were now a fully functioning pirate family unit that began to run the pirate fleet together. Oh, beautiful. This can't go wrong in my eyes. It can't.

And this family unit turned out to be great at piracy With Changi is wife and now adopted son of the helm the red flag fleet quickly grew still think it could use the name change red flag fleet We're flag feet Reg flag feet. Yeah, it's tricky. I think it's gonna slip people up the RFF Yeah FF that's. The RFF? Yeah? FF. That's fun. RFF. RFF.

That is fun. That is fun. Okay, good. I'll call on that for now, if I can remember. Through a combination of violence and Ching's reputation, they were able to form an alliance with rival Cantonese fleets. In a few years, they went from 200 chips

to more than 600 chips. Whoa. Eventually peaking at an estimated 17 to 1800 chips. Get out of town. What would you name them all? They've all got names. One, two. Yeah, that's the only easy way.

Bill. Yeah, oh no, Dave. The system has really lost one. One, one number two. Two, two. Bill, two, two. Bill, the second. One, one number two. Two, two. Bill, two, two. Bill, two. Bill, the second.

One, the bill. It sounds complicated, but once you memorize it, it's very easy. One bill two. One bill two, one. One bill two bill. All the way between 1800. That's so many boats.

What yearish was this again? Early 1800s now, all late 1790s. These ships were junk ships, which is a type of sailing ship. The word junk comes from a translation of a Javanese word for ship, John, which the Portuguese translated as Junco, and then in English it developed into junk. Junk ships. Okay. It's like in every house there's a junk draw.

Exactly. You know, it's where like scissors and ribbons and... Second or third draw, there's a ship in there and that's what they... Gotcha. You think of scissors as junk? To be fair, that's always where the left hand and scissors were.

Oh, they're their junk. Left hand and scissors. They have no... I can't think of one use. The normal scissors, like, you know, with pins. They're joking. Oh my goodness. They have no, I can't think of one use. The normal scissors, be out like, you know, with pens. They're like on display. Yeah, they're having fun. They're having now with their friends.

They're living their lives. They're cool, they're popular. And there's like two or three pens. Pins are in the streets. Cause they're used to often they get worn out. Yeah, so used by everyone. Yeah, everyone loves them. Yeah, yeah, no, it is good, isn't it?

I love scissors The fleet ended up being so large that they had to color code them. Ah, that makes my sense that one bill two bill Yeah, I mean it's not a perfect system, but the least the the weasers system Yeah, that's right. The blue album black we though are calling them album Yeah, they get 1700 different colors though. Oh, you just have to be creative. You got a juulux.com How to do it. Yeah, they could do it. Yeah, how do they do it? Sian, yeah, magenta. Yes, crimson. Oh Yes, crimson

Claret oh bill What's Claret red? It's one of the reds. Yeah cool. Don't know that one now. I've learned something again I learned so much from you. Yeah, thank you. I'm a font of wisdom Fanta wisdom The fleet the lead fleet where we found a ching and ching that was red so they're the red flag. Okay. The other colors were black, white, blue, yellow and green. Okay. And it says here font. Ah. Ah. Perfect. That's so fun. It's just what Matt was saying. Thank you. Wow. I'm certainly, uh, all good things must come to an end. It is so early for an all good things must come to an end.

Wait, wait, no. Well, the name we all know are now in history. Ching-she. That actually translates as Cheng's widow. Oh. And she got that name because Cheng died. It wasn't like a funny nickname and then he died. Suddenly they're like, Jesus, it's a bit awkward.

Oh, God. Oh, boy. We've been calling you, yeah. It wasn't like a funny nickname and then he died and suddenly they're like Jesus a bit awkward We've been calling you like yeah, we've been called him dead man walking as a joke and now he's dead That is amazing that her name what you've been calling her is her ex husband Widow yeah, yeah That's what she's known as history It's they're not even that sure what her name was at 25 when she was in history. She became... I've got a quick theory.

Yeah, she just hit the scene of sudden he dies and she takes over. He's been very generous giving her everything. I reckon it's like an Adam Sandler scenario where the same guy's playing both characters. Mrs. Doutfire. She's gone, she's like, oh, where's Cheh? And I was getting too much. She was having to come back to the poop deck. So I go, oh, you want my husband, Cheh?

Well, sorry, I'm Cheh Cheh. So right, and she looks in the mirror, and then she runs off and she also get a man hair on she comes back Yeah, and it got so tiring she's like I'm killing off the man cap. Yeah, yeah, it was fun for a bit But I've established myself now and then you also get a bit of the sympathy as well, right? It sort of helps you. Yeah. I love sympathy Do it's creepy. I love it gear to me

So Sadly, hey, you'll be all right. You little trooper just go Oh, yeah, that's the good shit. That's all you want it? Look at it happen That's that's the good shit So sadly Chang has died. He's death and Vietnam at the age of 39 Six years into their marriage was quite unexpected. So six years of her to an emphroage. That's a lot of it That's so much time to to doubt fire. Yeah. Oh Good commitment to the bit. I mean, there's only so many cream pies in China. Yeah

I have it on girl authority. She did speak like that. So do you know how he died? No, there's many, many theories. Some say he died and it's like a typhoon. Other people say that he might have been poisoned. There's many. What do you reckon? I don't think he, um, died of a broken heart. Yeah. heart. But they were still married. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Matt, do you think he's... I mean, six years ago, there's a long time.

They've said Typhoon, he said poison. I think one of both. Typhoon poison. Typhoid. Typhoid. Typhoid. Did I say Typhoon poison? Yeah.

I did not mean to. That almost makes sense. I thought it was going to be funny. Yeah, I was like, God, he's really on tonight. I thought that was very good. That was one of the points that you just, yeah, I was thinking that that was the wittiest thing you've ever said. No, I've looked my brain took over there, but it won't,

that won't be happening again. Even when you misspeak, it's hilarious. God, I can't miss. What is it like being you? A genius. It's the only way I've ever known. Yeah, I guess you wouldn't know any different. It's true.

God, geez. So with her husband, Qing-Shi needed to act quickly if she was going to consolidate power. Okay. She didn't want to return to her old life. Their adopted son, Chun-Pao was next in line to the leadership.

So she had to maneuver quickly if she was going to hang on to the power. So Qing-Shi took her own own stepson, Ching-Pow, as her lover, and the two eventually married. So she stayed on as leader. So she married her adopted son. I don't love that. Yeah.

In fact, I don't like that. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's, yeah. Well, Dave Asano's basically business earlier. He was already an adult. Yeah, and you even went out there about the same age gap Not that big and by this time he's 25 and she's 30 or something Yeah, I mean the objects aren't great. Yeah, I still don't like it And that's my opinion I mean, okay, but yeah, I see that it's yeah, it's a it's a palmo

Yeah, she marries the next leader. Yeah, they can rule together basically and it all April Yeah, whoo it also probably helped that she rounded up some traders and had them publicly executed So nothing like locking off a few heads to assert your dominance Absolutely. Yeah, that's what I do a Female part leaders were not common at this time, at this point, and a part historian, Dan H. Murray writes of only one other, Mrs. Honcho Low, who was actually even Hong Kong in the first half of the 20th century. Wow. So yeah. She's very rare. Yeah, she is obviously a

bit of a presence. If she can hang onto the power. And as leader, Ching-She was an absolute badass. He took no shit from no one. She had a strict set of rules, serious pirate code that she expected everyone to live by. Why, if you feed at the door? That's right. The door of the ship. The door of the ship.

Ships have doors, Dave. How do you get into them otherwise? Helicopter. Which helicopters do have doors? Well, some of them. One of those open ones without doors. Yeah. And then you have to jump from that. Yeah, roll. On to the top of a ship. Yeah.

So, to you, ships are only the top part of a ship. There's no underneath or... They're like a floating platform. Okay. A barge. A barge. platform. Okay. A barge. A barge. A barge. A barge.

Yes, a barge. Yeah. Yeah. Was that one of our rules? Yeah, that was no one of our rules was. Any loot and orplunder that was seized had to be first presented to the fleet and registered. After this, it was distributed, but the ship captured, that captured it keeping 20% of

the value. While the remaining 80% was placed into the fleet's collective fund. Oh, okay. Where did you get the tip? Was the phrase loot and plunder in there? So are you quoting Captain Plannet? I did quote Captain Plannet. I knew you did.

You're saying loot and plunder. You all pay for this Captain Plannet? Yeah, I put that in there. So you keep 20% 80% goes to the business. Imagine they need some pirate accountants on staff. God damn track of it all. Which she was already doing. She did it all deputize a little bit. Yeah, I mean a big part of leadership is delegating. So I hope she is, you know, sort of handing that out and taking some time for herself. So when you're a perfectionist,

you wanna get everything done just right. You're a dilemma. And I think she probably was. But in time she's a... You know, Daly Parton looks over her own accounts? Yeah, perfectionist. She does her own accounting. She has accountants, but then she like she'll have a look over

herself. She does what she asks. Yeah. So she's really good on Excel. Yeah. Amazing. She knows how to like do all the sums and shit. That really take the pressure off if you're a county like, oh, she's just gonna fix it. Anyway, no worries. I'll be freaking out that she'd be, what's that Warren? He's like, oh no. Oh no, I don't know. I don't know anymore.

What's that tax? What does that mean? Oh. Do we pay that here? It should be noted that anyone caught disabeing the pirate code and stealing a hoarding treasure was immediately executed by having their head removed from their body.

Okay, and how would they do that? Are you very big sword? Oh, they were just twists and dull. Maybe, yeah, yeah. They locked it. They're locked enough. Yeah, right. Classic Lop.

This wasn't the only rule implemented by Ching Shi. Pirates who gave unauthorized orders, or those who refused to follow orders from a commander, were also executed on the spot. OK. This sounds like the car in a system where people start to die maybe when they don't deserve who refused to follow orders from a commander were also executed on the spot. Okay. This sounds like the car in a system where people start to die maybe when they don't deserve to. Hmm.

You might be right. You might be right. Look, if you said that, you'd have your head shut off. Yeah. And it's like, we've had stories like this in the past, like the witch hunt and stuff, where it would be like like all the sudden people who are settling scores with friends. They're hoarding treasure. She kissed the guy I liked.

And she's hoarding treasure. Off with her head. No one was distilled from the public fund or any villages that supplied the pirates. Many villages were captured and supplying pirates became the whole town's job. Supplying them with just like anything they needed. Yeah, food, drinks, souvenirs. Oh yeah, magnets. Everyone gets a magnet. That was another rule. I want to be a pirate. For a small second, I thought you said Magnum and I was more excited. The ice cream. Yeah. Everyone gets a magnet, but check your magnet, ego at the door. Yeah. The ice cream. Yeah.

Everyone gets a magnet, but check your magnet and ego at the door. Oh, FEMA prisoners. Where did you be? Ah. Ah. Ah. Unfortunately, ships don't have doors.

So that doesn't work. There's one of the dumbest things anyone's ever said. Check your magnet and ego at the door. Look, if I could, I'd have you had dropped off right now for that, that inspawness. Dave, can we get a magnet on the way home? Oh my god, we're going to get magnet. I'm driving just home after this.

We're going to get magnets on the way home, aren't we? Uh, yeah. Wow. But, man, check your magnet. I'm going to be talking about that. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, best holiday gifts for everyone you love, all in one place. You'll find beauty favorites, cozy presents, fun ideas under 100 and more. Like festive dressing for you in your home. Experience the magic at your favorite store.

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Quote today at Progressive.com. Progressive casualty and trans company and affiliates, national average 12 month savings of $744 by new customer surveyed who saved with progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discount is not available in all safe and situations. So back to the rules, female prisoners were to be treated much more respectfully than other parts of the world at the time. Rape was treated as an extremely serious offense and any offenders were immediately executed.

Yeah. Loved? Loved. So that sounds good, but in the case of consensual, premarital sex, both the offenders were executed. So no banging on company time Even if the the the boat is rocking. Yeah, so sorry that was premarital Well, they've married I guess that would make sense pirate weddings Yeah, what do they like that's funny the pirates, but we do not do premarital sex yeah

Yeah, and if we do not do premarital sex. Yeah, and if we do, we get killed apparently. It's not, it's really not worth it then, is it? No. Well, not from my experience. Not how you do. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Attractive ones were freed as soon as possible. Yes. Which would be hard to know how to take that. Yeah. It would be like, I want to be freed, but also, what a way to find that.

I would tell myself I'm weak, not unattractive, just weak. You know? I'm a double threat. I'm weak and I'm a true. Oh mate. To the club. All right. The hot ones were held back for ransom.

What about the average ones? right line ball call you'd be like you get a second opinion What are you talking about this one? Oh? Free him free him they're like oh piss off come on. I'm having a bad day. I've got I've got a pimple But I've got a shiny forehead okay, usually I walk down my face and I look great because I'm certainly not weak I'm an absolute tank. But I don't think I'm gonna be gathering much rents of money, you know what I mean? So I think they should let me go.

Yeah, right. But not because I'm weak. No, because you're ugly. Yeah. Is that what you say? Am I falling there looking? Yeah. I would like that clip just taken out, out of context, and then I can just use that

against Matt. Yeah, remember that time that you were putting just down? Remember that time you called me, I was like, yes, you might be ugly, but that is not your value. I love you, I do the power every time they announce whether you be afraid or capture that, look, you can have to go home, but not your value. Yeah, not in this case it is your value in terms of how much we're going to put on. But honestly, it's a good resonate, it means can have to go home but not your value. In this case it is your value in terms of how much we're gonna. But honestly it's a good reason it is means you get to go home.

You get to go home. Yeah and you probably won't die. So basically meant that the villages left behind, they were in Thai villages full of ugly people. Yeah right, because they kept all the bodies. And that would have like, that's probably serving effect today. Yeah.

There be villages in the area of ugly people. Outgones. Outgones. And week out effect today. Yeah. There be villages in the area of ugly people. Ugly. Ugly. And weak. Yeah. But there'd be part villages for the only hot people. Imagine the amount of jars in those weak, ugly villages that go unopened. Most of them stopped.

Yeah. Everything was in jar form, but there was all just smashed jars in the ground. People died from eating glass. Pirates could marry these hot captives, but only if they agreed to it. I think the Pirates agreed. Only if the women were like, yeah, I'll marry you. Oh, that's kind of nice. And you're setting yourself up again for some brutal reality checks when you go, hey, if you marry me, you can be free. No.

No. I'll stay at prison, I think. They closed the game. Thank you, though. Thank you. You're all of their sales themselves. That's all right. Don't worry, the key.

That's fine. Thank you. Happy to rot. Thanks. I'll swap, please. I'm waiting for a better pirate offer. Yeah. Yeah.

Finally, anyone who tried to dessert was captured and had their ears cut off. Other punishments included flogging, quartering, and clapping the offenders in ions. Oh, okay. When clapping sounded good, it was only in ions. Yeah, that's nice. That's good. It's just a huge applause. What is quartering?

You would be chopped into four bits. Okay, so it's as it sounds. And you probably don't. is quartering. You would be chopped into four bits. Okay, so it's as it sounds. And you probably die. Hung drawn and quartered. I'd heard that a lot and I never knew what it meant. You probably don't really survive that, do you? Ben quartered. No.

No, but it's a horrible way to go because they hang you till you nearly die. Yeah. And then the drawing part is when they like, they cut you open, rip your intestines and stuff out. I mean, then they chop you in four. That feels unnecessary. I think that's starting to reflect poorly on the pirates.

If they're behaving in that way. They've got a bit far ahead. Yeah, let's just make it quick. Yeah. Just behead me. Just behead you. Hop it off. Hop it.

Come on. Imagine being like, I'd really prefer to just lop my head off if you don't mind. I mean, it'll save you time. I'd rather have my head lopped thanks very much. So it was a pretty brutal world, but because of this Ching Shee's gang was extremely loyal and fierce and attack, even went outnumbered. If you're going to die for giving up anyway, you might as well fight on because you've got a chance.

Yeah, yeah. So they were like, backst against the wall stuff. Yeah, stuff is like, well, they were right away, they'll kill me. But if I keep fighting, I'm, we might have to go back and get the chance to fight. Yeah, I'm going to go back and get the chance to fight. Yeah, okay. So they were like, back against the wall stuff. Yeah, stuff is like, well, they were run away. They'll kill me.

But if I keep fighting, we might win, even if we're outnumbered, so they were very loyal. Wow. They made money by looting and capturing entire towns, taxing and collecting this cash, and supplies from its inhabitants. It's been said that her dominance was so absolute, that not a single ship moved in the whole South China Sea without the knowledge of Ching-Shi's army.

Wow. If any ship wanted to cross the South China Sea, which is massive, they had to pay a fee or they'd be plundered and possibly sunk along the way. Wow. Again, sinking, not great. No, you don't want to do that. You don't want to do that. They're quartering the boats. Yeah. The same rules for people're quartering the boats. Yeah. Yeah. The same rules for people actually do apply to boats as well.

We'll chop you ears off the first time. No pre-marital boat sex. That's right, we catch you. Bumper nougat. Bum, boom, boom. Bum, boom. Bum, boom, boom. That's hot.

Yeah, that's beautiful. That's our little tugbirds get named. Aww. Oh, ho, ho. I love tugbugs. Yeah. It's so little and so strong. Do you see yourself in them, don't you?

Yes. Because I'm very small and dirty, but so strong. Wow. What do you got in those legs, Iron? Yes. A very strong motor. Yeah. So not surprisingly Chinese monarchy did not like it and neither did the other global superpowers at the time

but the her crew evaded capture and anyone that went after her regretted it Chinese Portuguese and British naval ships were all lost to Ching-Shi's fleet so like entire armies they'd be like we we're not going to pay the fee. Where the army? Where the Brits? We've conquered half the known world, we'll be right, and then they'd get halfway across and then they'd get attacked. Wow. In January 1808, the Chinese Ching dynasty really went after her and had a series of battles, but Ching She was able to gain the upper hand and captured many of the government ships. She did this by offering anyone who defected their life and a place in her army. Embarrassingly for the Emperor, lots of his subjects and a large portion of his navy defected.

This only increased her power. Whoa! It said that the choice for the defeated enemy was either you have your feet nailed to the deck of your boat and then you get beaten to death, or you can jump a ship and join us and you even get to celebrate the victory. I think I know what I'll be picking. Yeah, I do have to marry that guy though. Nailed the fate.

Yeah. He's like, oh come on. What's this keep happening? I just want to sign words. I'll just add it to the very end, like she's going, oh, you can come and live your lives with us, live on fault with us, we have your nail, your feet nailed down, you go down to shit.

And you have to marry me. Well, no deal. Oh God. Bring out the nails. Yeah, that's all right. In fact, I'll just do it myself if you're like, making eye contact with him. No, this is because I don't want to marry you.

Oh. No. So she thwarted attempts by the Chinese Emperor and did the same thing to the Portuguese Navy and the powerful East India Company. Again, quoting from Atlas Obscura, an East India Company employee named Richard Glass Paul was captured by Ching She's Pirates in September 1809 and held until December of that year.

In his account of the Ordeal, he estimated that there were some 80,000 pirates under Ching She's Command and some 1,000 large junks and 800 smaller junks and robots. So just for comparison our main man, Black Beer, that we've done the web series episode on the Just Reporter on, he commanded four ships and had 300 pirates. And he's the most famous pirate. She's crazy. She would've knocked him over in about 30 seconds. Yeah. Sounds like that would be one of the strongest armies in the world.

Right. Yeah, absolutely. Wow. It should be noted that the most count about 17,000 male pirates directly under her control and the rest of the 80,000 other pirate groups who agreed to work for her fleet. But still, it was huge. Yeah. 300 for Blackbeard.

She's got at least 17,000. She's delegating. That's exactly. That's what Blackbeard wasn't good at. He was all about his reputation, you know? And just whizzling beard. He was all theater. He was all about, yes, he was.

He was just an actor. She's a fucking commander. Yeah, he tried the boards. She walked the plate. Yeah. And she the boards, she walked the plate. Yeah. And she's, she was in the ocean. Well, no, I've done this wrong. I meant to make a more plank.

You know, she's swimming around. Trying to be cool. No, I meant to. No, I meant to. That's how her whole empire comes crashing down. I make them walk up. Yeah, bad, bad, bad to one. Fuck, I did it every time.

People would be the pork. So over in the west of this time, we were seen as bad luck for a woman to even be on a ship. I can. But in the China Sea during this time, the largest pirate arm in history was being led by a woman. Bad luck for who? The woman, the ship.

Just in general. Yeah. Bad luck for who? For the ship. OK, for a woman to be on it. OK, that's baffling. I think she's maybe proven a few people wrong here. Yeah.

Well, apparently it really pissed off the male emperor at the time that it was a lady. He gave these like, but it's bad luck. Yeah, bad luck for you, Emperor. Yeah, it's funny. I think, yeah, superstitions have never made a lot of sense. Yeah. I do love a man upset that a woman is capable of something.

That is fun. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Steam coming at you. Yeah, that's always fun. Learning from she herself and how she was able to lure defectors to her side, the emperor offered an amnesty to all pirates

of the red flag fleet that would give themselves up, hoping to usurp Ching Shee's monopoly of the sea. So he was like, oh, you can walk away. Scott free, if you give up now, trying to break her power. Yeah. It's fun. I love that kind of power play from the weaker party. Hey, we'll let you quit now while you're way ahead.

You heard the phrase, quit while you're ahead. Can you do that? Please. It really helped me out. Yeah. Because I've got no moves left. And I reckon in a few weeks, I'll probably have to give up. I mean, what? It'll go easy on your own. Yeah, that's what you do.

It'll help you out a lot. It was like this time the Portuguese were getting fed up too. So they launched an attack on the red flag fleet for constantly taking their ships. The fleet had previously defeated the Portuguese, but this time they sent in their biggest and best warships and the red flag fleet. the RFF, was severely outgunned. Over a series of battles called the Battles of the Tigers' Mouth, which is so cool. That is badass. That is badass. The Battles of the Tigers' Mouth.

Even like the Tiger Mouth fleet is better than red flag. That's cool. The Tiger Mouth mouth fleet like that. And then everyone has an animal, the little is a lion, a tiger. The beaver. They're like, what the fuck? There's a wall where it's there.

There's a platypus and everyone's like, what the fuck is that? What do you like? Trust me. You'll find out. It's one of only two monotrains, so. Pretty cool. It's a pretty big deal.

The plural is platypie. Everyone's like, fuck off, Gavin. Stop talking about him. Where in the middle of a battle? And you're making up animals. The Gavin's like, well, if someone would marry me, I'd have nothing to do. Poor Gavin. I'm very lonely. He sucks. The males have venomous spurs. Gavin. I'm not Gavin. Honestly, you don't get to participate in this battle today. But very lonely. The males have venomous spurs. Gov. Honestly, you don't get to participate in this battle today. I've got a tattoo.

I mean, I mean. We've all seen you tattooing. No one cares. So this is the Battle of the Tigers mouth. The Portuguese continually defeated the pirates near Macau. Leading the fleet was Ching She's son-sl slush husband, Trung-Po-Sai. Despite the huge Chinese numbers, the pirate fleet had in fact

greater difficulties maneuvering around the small Portuguese fleet without blocking each other or getting in the line of fire. There was actually too many of them. Yeah, right. To actually go anywhere, they were like, oh, no, you're in the, oh, no, oh, no. So the Portuguese gunners on the other hand could accurately fire explosive rounds

on the concentrated mass of enemy junks so they just massacred them basically wow eventually the junkships retreated up a river with a large portuguese ships couldn't follow but the Portuguese counted by blockading them out of the river trapping the pirates inside the The pirates, including their leader, Qingxi decided at this point to take advantage of the Chinese Emperor's offer of clemency. The entire crew of the Red Flag Fleet, thousands of them, were forced to surrender in 1810. Amazingly, they were even allowed to keep their loot. Oh, what's up there? I was wondering if they were going to actually come through on the deal. That's how desperate the government was to stop them.

They were like, well, yeah, cool, cool. Stop. But it's funny. And they're like, yeah, we're not absolutely about to get up and ready to buy the Portuguese. So, yeah, I don't know why I haven't said it because it's not happening. This is how cool. We've all had a chat about it. We just want to do the right thing. Yeah, we just wanted to have a quiet life, you know what I mean? That's nuts, wow! So according to Cindy Valor's history of maritime piracy, less than 400 pirates suffered any form of punishment. Sixty were banished for two years, 150 on exile and 126 were executed, but the remaining

17,318 parrots just surrendered their weapons, and they got to keep their loot. Some of them were even offered jobs in the Chinese Navy, including Xingxin's husband's last son, Chong Po, who received the rank of lieutenant and took command of a private fleet of 20 junks. That's amazing. So that is crazy.

It's earlier, he was like public enemy number one or two and then they were like, have a sleep. You'll be pretty good actually. And what about Cheng Shi? Oh, Cheng Shi and Chongpo eventually had children of their own, making Chong both their father and big brother. Oh, that is so awesome. Hasn't he, Shully's rolling-quished one of those roles, right?

Yeah. Shully, the sun thing is not still, is he still gonna hang out and I'm your son too? Babe. Babe, slash mom. I reckon they probably dropped that bit. Yeah, it's probably just, but you're really stuck with it.

Making us all feel weird. Because it's fun. It's fun to point out that he was their brother and their dad. That is weird and fun. That is fun. Probably also a cousin somehow. Somehow. Chungpo would later die at sea leaving Ching-Chi widowed for a second time.

After this, she moved the family to Macau, where she opened a gambling house and was also involved in the salt trade. And she was a very, very wealthy woman. She is not! All up she'd only been in charge for three years but had amassed the largest pirate fleet in history and taking command of the entire Chinese Sea all by the age of 35. Pretty awesome. Fuck! Pretty amazing she and she only appeared in the history books at 25 before that we don't even know. Yeah, who knows what she was doing then? She died in her bed surrounded by her family at the age of 69.

Nice. It's a rare peaceful end for someone involved in piracy. Yeah. Nearly every other pirate dies a horrible, horrible death. Yeah, I was expecting that. Yeah, I thought that's what the book is. No, she retired at 35, kept all the money, invested well in gambling and salt.

And that was and lived another, that was heart-like, half-life. Yes, a whole second half of her life. And I just died surrounded by loved ones. Amazing life. Wow. Character is based on Xingqshi, who have appeared in TV, film, and graphic novels.

And even the children's book came out a couple of years ago. Some of our listeners might know that a character that is loosely based on Qingxi have appeared in TV, film and graphic novels and even the children's book came out a couple of years ago. Some of our listeners might know that a character that is loosely based on her appears in the 2007 classic film, Pirates of the Caribbean, At World's End, the third one, the franchise. The character is called Mistress Qing and is portrayed by American actor, Takao Fisher. She is one of the nine pirate lords of the brethren court, the powerful leader of the pirate confederation of China. I was so into the first parts of the Caribbean movie. The first one is a lot of fun, isn't it?

I was like obsessed with it, watched it a lot. Got an eye patch. Got an eye patch. Got a bird. I did have a bird around that time. What kind of bird? I had a budgie, it wasn't quite like a macaul, but you know, it's not in my shoulder.

It's pretty cool. But how many of those movies are there? Because I don't remember that one at all. That's only number three. Yeah, maybe five. Yeah, there's too many of them. Yeah, and reading this will keep you here for the film. At the time was the most expensive movie ever, May. They're really invested in it. I don't remember it. But there you go. That's because I was

going to say it's crazy that that's not as well known as story, but it's probably also just maybe not super well known in our part of the world. And it seems like it has been told in stories and feelings. Yeah, for sure. And there is a lot of things that I was reading that I hadn't heard of on. I clicked on there where sort of things in China and countries around that area of the world that have adapted here in graphic novels, TV shows and movies. But that was the most famous sort of Western example that I could find. That is epic.

What a life. Yeah, Ching-Chi. Absolutely amazing. Thanks to everyone that suggested that topic It's been the had a long time because you see what people you can suggest a topic at any time If you go to our website, there's a little link you click and you can tell us why we should do it and a lot of them say Hey, she's the most badass successful pirate in history. Yeah, so you're like, okay. I want to look into this person Yeah, we've done a few done a few stories about pirates or You know adventures on the high seas They always go down well. They're fun. It's a wild time. Yeah, it seems like a real lawless

Wild time and it just doesn't happen anymore Do you know what I mean? Yeah, they're still pirates Yeah, I think so. But not like this. Not with big casers of treasure buried under an axe. Like they definitely did back then. Yeah, now it's all maps. That's more DVDs and other obsolete technology.

You want to take that. Imagine playing that to them. Yeah, of course I would don't run here Trouble in your car on from watching this part of DVD on the DVD player in the stolen Mercedes Dave that was a fantastic report. Thank you so much. Oh, well that pesky report out of the way now It's time for everybody's favorite section of the show the fact quote or question and I'm afraid Matt has had to go because he's a big showbiz guy to go film something. Oh, Lady Duh, I've got to go. I'm a big movie actor. Oh, okay, super star. I got Tom Cruise on speed

Duh. Okay, can I talk to him please? Put me on. You never put this on. He never does. But because Matt's here, not here, I'm going to be doing the fact-quaddle question, which I believe just has a little jingle. Fact-quaddle question. B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b- of doing it a few months ago and definitely felt immense pressure. I do feel a bit of pressure because I like Matt, I haven't read these until I read them now, so I could definitely stuff it up. But if you're not familiar, this section of the show, this is part of our Patreon section. People support the show on the Sydney Sharnberg Deluxe package at Messing Recipes, of course, patreon.com slash do go on pod, as well as all the other tiers, which gets three bonus episodes, access to the Facebook group, pre-sale stuff,

a newsletter once a week that you put together, Jess and we all sort of give us an update of what we're doing, a bit of behind the scene stuff. Lots of rewards, but this one, you get to be part of the fact, quote, a question, which means you give us a fact, quote, or a question, and you also give yourselves a title. Yeah lots of creative titles too. And we've got four this week and first up we have Nathan Damon. Damon. We know Nathan Damon. Who has given himself the title of apprentice chisel sharpener for the do-go-on Mount Rushmore construction project.

Ah, yes, that's an important job. I love that. I'm assuming that the Mount Rushmore is the three of us, plus either Sydney Sharmell himself Ornick Mason, what do you reckon? It's probably Mason. Probably Mason, yeah, the fourth beetle. The fourth beetle, Mason, so. And just got a better look in head.

Yeah. Than Shionberg, I can't get it. Much better. Good beard. Yeah, it's probably easier for them to construct too, because meisos got a real look. Yeah, I reckon beads must be easier than chins, hey. Yeah.

Chins are hard. Jaws, oh. Yuck. Difficult. Especially their chiseled like owls. Exactly. But thanks to Nathan for especially their chiseled like else. Exactly. But thanks to Nathan for keeping the chiseled sharp. And he's given us a quote this week.

And that is, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try. And that is from Homer J. Simpson. And Nathan's written, just in case you didn't manage to get a Simpson's reference in this episode. And I don't think we did that. I'm not sure that we did that thing. I think you might have saved us there. Wow, what a perfectly timed quote.

Yeah, thank you so much and just in case, can I just say, skin is as the teacher saw crack any minute, purple monkey diswashed. There we go. Thank you so much Nathan, for really picking up the slack there. Yeah. I feel like I've really let everyone down by not giving one. No, hey, Nathan, really picking up the slack there. Yeah. I feel like I've really let everyone down by not giving one. No, hey, no, it's not just on you. It's mostly on you, but it's not just your responsibility.

That's right. Well actually, when we look at this, a Jacob Lane, one of our Patreon supporters famously does a here of a Simpson's audit every week where he writes down the references that we make and then whatever so they come from. And what he does, it's not always just me, there's plenty from you too, so we do. Not plenty from me, but it's always a delight when I get on the board.

It's probably also a delight for Jacob to get to the end and go, I don't have to worry about this week. Yeah, exactly, but sucked in, Jacob. Sucked in, you're gonna have to credit one too, Nathan Damon. Next up, we have Jessica English who says, their title is Council of Maritime Law, exclusively working on getting the pod into

international waters. Your dream definitely. But what fitting for today's topic too? Yes and a lot of contract work would have to be done. So I appreciate the great work from Jessica English who's given us a question. The question is, how do you not get paralyzed with indecision? I'm not speaking well with indecision. Indecision. This Matt really doesn't read this before he reads this. He does a great job. How do you not get paralyzed with indecision when trying to pick a topic from the hat or even a

couple to put up for the vote. Thank you all for being all the joy you bring. It has been a real big assist this year looking forward to the world tour. Yeah, which we're halfway through, so I hope you're enjoying it. That is a fantastic question and the answer is we do get paralyzed with indecision. It's not in decision, especially when you sort of trying to find a few that you can put up to the hat, I'll put up to the vote, I mean,

but sometimes I would spend hours trying to find a topic that either I'm into grossed my attention, or I'm totally with you often, because we usually put up three for the vote. I don't know if you find this, you find two, two you got to find a third one that's worthy. Yeah You spent another hour going going through because there are over five thousand suggestions Oh even more than that now. I think it's like close to seven thousand. Wow. So it is a obviously Quite a lot of suggestions. It's so much and I generally would often put up four

Topics as well. Oh good for you. Yeah, just to give heaves of options. Well, I have found that I had to put up because we're doing geographic specific ones for the world tour for this topic, finding three Asian topics, having something to look for, that made it easier. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. And especially when you're like, I've got to do a Patreon bonus episode. I'll look for, because that's one of the options. Yeah, Patreon. People mark them as, this would be a good many one, yeah.

Or a Christmas one, or that can be really helpful. But yeah, especially when you don't really have a specific theme you're looking for, so you're just like, it could be anything, it could be a serial killer or a biography, or just a fun World War II story or something. Yeah. There's so many that it can be, it can be a very long process of just pulling ones out to then put up to the vote and then you start researching once.

Yeah, that's right. Because you gotta do that like I think you were saying on this episode, you do it a little bit of like a new search to make sure that the topic is enough. Yeah. So you gotta do that three or four times. Yeah.

And then just the ones that get picked. So yeah, now it can be hard. But often I've got to say the ones that stick out of the ones where people have pitched it really well. Yeah, that's true. Or given good resources, then you can sort of just click on that link and go, oh, okay, I can read a bit about this. Yeah, there's a story here. But there's definitely some as well that I go, oh, what's this? And I Google it and go, oh, that's fucked. I won't do that. Or are there's barely any information on it? If it doesn't even have a decent Wikipedia page, you're like, oh, there's probably not

going to be a lot of info on this. Yeah, that means because there's no other sources to make that, absolutely. Now, thanks for your question, Jessica English. Great question. Next up now is Katie Murphy. Thanks so much for your support, Katie, who's given herself the title title sticking with podcast head of

Ethno Musicology. That's a great title. I wouldn't you stick with that. Exactly. You're doing great work and Katie's giving giving us a quote this week and That is even the Prima and proper Judy Garland was not one to use Profanity very often but Liza and Ellie shared an anecdote from a time they were confronted by a particularly frustrating fan, a drunkard woman in a public restroom. She knocked on the bathroom stall Judy was in, slurring her praises and urged her to quote, never forget the rainbow Judy, over and over again, to which Garland scathingly replied, quote, how can I forget the rainbow? I've got rainbows up my ass.

Nice. I've got rainbows up my ass. Oh my God. That sort of reminds me, it's like a panicked kind of comeback where it doesn't fully make sense. It's like when we were in Mexico, when I was eight years old,

and that we were walking through like markets and people were trying to sell us stuff and this guy had all he had his entire arm he had necklaces all up his arm trying to sell necklaces and he was like you know any of these the real gold my mum meant to say yeah real gold my ass but what she said was as real as my ass. And we're all like, what? Does my mother say, but? It's like, you could just say no thanks, my mom, it's all right. But she's just like, she's just been hassled too many times.

I know the feeling. Sometimes you just go, you just get overwhelmed. I don't want it and you're in my face and as real as my ass, very funny. Rainbows up my ass. That's great. I'm a 2D girl and swearing at you. You would not forget that. Yeah. Thanks so much, Katie. And finally, the main man Gary J from the UK has given us a fact, but his title is Mr. UK 1984. What a claim. Great stuff. I cannot dispute it. That's great. The fact from Gary J is John Lithgow turned down the role of Dr. Frazier Crane in Cheers. His reasoning being

he said TV acting was below him and he saw himself as a movie star. He regretted that choice and starred in such shows as. He just left that there. Dot, dot, dot. Third rock from the side, I'm thinking. Yeah. The crown. Oh yeah, he's in the crown. He was the greatest.

He was really good. So this goes great. He is very, very good. It's so funny that he's like TV is so below me, but a whole generation of his fans and I owe him from third rock. Yeah, absolutely. And he was fantastic in third rock. It was so good. So manic and crazy and Dick Solomon. And I recently watched

speaking of his movie career, Cliff Hanger, the Sylvester Stallone film for the first time last week from the 90s. John Luth go is the bad guy and he does make a good suck. But yeah, he's big work, of course, third rock. Yeah, that's a great fact, Gary, well done. Thanks, Gary, Jay. Well that brings us to everyone's other favorite part of the show, equal favorites, where we shout out, give some thanks to the people who do support us over on patreon.com, forward slash, do go on pod. And if you are on the associate producer or above level of patron, then you get one of these shout outs.

And some of these people have been waiting for a long time. And now's their time to shine. Well, it's definitely worth the wait because Jesse always comes up with a game with a way that we can show that to them in the theme of the episode. Yeah, and I can't stop thinking about the red flag fleet. First of all, so hard to say. It's a bit clunky. Second of all, it's not at all intimidating.

Yeah. It doesn't. I wouldn't be proud to be in the red flag fleet. It's so hard to say it is I'm hoping that maybe the original Cantonese or something was oh yeah, maybe that's it rolled off the tongue a bit better And now clunky translation, but still you think about it the red flag fleet just the overall imagery is not really there You say it so much easier than me Red flag fleet. I hate it. Anyway, so I was thinking maybe we could give them

a much cooler gang tie. Oh yeah. Fleet gang posse, whatever you want it to be. But you know, we could just give them like a, a bit of a street cred. All right, what are you reckon? I love it. Okay.

Good, I'm proud of us. Shall I start? Please. I would love to thank from Missoula MT. I just looked it up because I had to be sure there's so many M's. Yeah. Montana. I want to know. Yes. Missoula Montana. I would love to thank Anna Milheim. Anna Milheim. That's a fantastic name. Yeah, that is good. Milheim is good. Anna is good. Anna Milheim. That's a fantastic name. Yeah, that is good. Milheim is good. Anna is good. Anna Milheim.

Oof. Fantastic. Okay. What do we know about Montana, anything? I say that to you. I don't know anything. There's that book in school that I studied Montana in 1948.

Hannah Montana. Oh, okay, great. Okay, great. Here we go. Okay. Maybe something like Miley Cyrus, like a Cyrus. Oh, great. Here we go. Okay. Okay. Maybe something like Miley Cyrus like a Cyrus. Oh, Cyrus the virus. The nickname of John Markowitz character in Connay, one of my all-time favorite action movies.

Cyrus the virus. I like that. Yeah. And they're obviously a gang that hijacks playing. Yeah, awesome. Oh, very cool. Yeah, they're the coolest. Thank you, and I thanks for your support. I would also love to thank, from Hampshire, in Great Britain, I would love to thank Phil Ellis. Phil Ellis. Phil Ellis.

Phil Ellis, how about the dirty harpoons? Holy shit, that's good. Not sure where it came from, but. I love it, the dirty harpoons. Because if they that's good. Not sure what it came from, but. I love it. The dirty harpoons. Because if they're gonna, you'd be worried if they hit you with a harpoon, you're gonna get an infection.

Totally. Yeah, like, oh, they haven't cleaned their harpoons. Yeah, I cleaned it. Oh my God. Clean harpoons, please. They're like, nah. Nucks with dirty harpoons. They're dirty harpoons.

They spit on their harpoon before they throw it at you. Yeah, and they get a brand new one. They dirty it up first. Yeah. It's Yeah, and they get a brand new one, they duty it up first. Yeah. It's honestly, it wastes a lot of time, but they're very committed to it. Yeah. So thank you Phil. Thanks Phil.

Fuck, we're doing so well, I'm so proud of us. And I'd also love to thank, from Pimpama, Pimpama in Queensland. Amazing, I've never heard of that. Pimpama, just in case. I would love to thank Joel Broome. Joel Broome. Sweep, something's sweep. The Sweep?

Yes, the clean sweep, that's great. Get it, broome. That, yeah, that sounds like, that's a good bowling team. Yeah, the clean sweeps, and they are just like 300. Every fucking game, baby. Ah, strike, strike, strike. Very cool. Spare, still pretty good.

Still pretty good, I'd be happy with that. Yeah, I'd be too. Do you want to thank some people? Thanks Joel Brum, I would like to thank yes from Ostle in Georgia in America. Caroline Stoltz. Caroline Stoltz. Hmm.

I mean I always go sweet Caroline. Of course, Yeah, and I'm sure Caroline gets that so often Okay, what about even politely? Okay, so how about I set you up okay the sour Pusses I like it you had to know that was gonna happen the sweet Yeah You had to know that was gonna happen. The sweet. Yeah, the sweet-pusses. The sour pusses. Yeah.

And they're just kinda like, they're just sorta like the bad girls. Yeah. They're the popular girls, but they kinda bitchy. But everyone still wants to be them. Of course. Yeah. Every guy wants to be with them.

Every girl wants to be them. You know what I mean? Yeah, I know. I know what it's like. So sorry Caroline. Thanks Caroline Stolz and Sjellpusses. Going back to Montana again, from Bozeman in Montana, I would like to thank Anita Matthews.

Anita Matthews. Anita Matthews. Okay. Alright, I'll set you up. Okay. The... I didn't have anything to sit you up. The Whistling Firebreakers. Oh Yeah, yeah, okay, there you go. They're a circus troupe. Yeah, but again the bad boys are the circus troupe

Oh, they will fuck you up the firebreakers are the bad boys of the circus. Big Oh, they will fuck you up. The firebriards are the bad boys in the circus. Big time, surely. Yeah. Or the strong men, there was a bit like, well, you'll start. Yeah, yeah, that's it. You know what I mean? Yeah. God, I want to do Trapeze.

I want to do Trapeze so badly. Really? Do you think you'd be scared? No. I'm not sure I have the core strength though. I need to work on that and then I want to do Trapeze. I love the idea of going to a PT. So what do you want to get out of this?

I want to do Trapeze. What do you want to get out of this? I want to do for peas. I want to have enough core strength to be able to lift my feet up and put them over a bar and then let a nice strong man catch me. What do you think? They're like, great. It doesn't. Here's your 11 week plan. Yeah, exactly.

And finally for me, I would like to thank from B-Dale or B-Dale North Yorkshire, Ian Hays. Ian Hays. Thank you, Ian Hays. Ian Hays, okay, from North Yorkshire. Ummm, the light. The light Moths the light moths Yes, yeah light noths. They're only out at nighttime. Mm-hmm and people flock to them. Yeah Yes We are so good at this. We are so good at naming badass pirate crews. Incredible. Ian Hayes, the Light Moths.

Thank you so much to Ian and Anita, Caroline Joel, Phil and Anna. You're all absolute legends. You complete us. There's just one more thing that we need to do, Dave. Do you want to explain what the trip ditch club is? While I find the trip ditch club. Yes, please. People.

So we've given a few people a shout out there, but the shout outs don't just end there. Because our people that have been on that level for the shout out for three consecutive years without dropping off, which is a huge feat to commemorate that. That's it. We've come up with a thing called the trip ditch club, which is, you know, special little lounge. Yeah, little lounge, less bar, less club, whatever you want it to be, basically.

We lift up the Velvet Rope each week the welcome a few people in as life members to the Triptage Club. It's usually a musical act that I book, you organize some or derves, you really drink. Yep. Have you got any ideas? Well, I'd so handy that I went out for a very nice lunch today for a friend's birthday because then I have ideas in my head of foods other than just the same three takeaways

I've been ordering quite frequently in lockdown. So, or dervys wise, we've got some pumpkin, Aaron Cheney. Oh, I love pumpkin Aaron Cheney, you've got it. I love Aaron Cheney in general. Yeah. So, yum. And we also had, I mean, in the TripTits Club,

we have an assortment of wood fire pizzas. I'm sorry, are you this guy? You're leftovers that you've just driven in to the club? I wish there was leftovers. Yeah, yeah. And drinks wise, mahitos. Oh, I love mahitos.

So refreshing. Few different flavors. And we also have espresso martinis. If refreshing. A few different flavors. And we also have espresso martinis if you need a little pick out. Wow. We're going all out this week. And they're really nice ones too. They're really good. So yeah, there's that.

And who's playing this week? Well, to celebrate our time in Asia, I've actually been able to ink a contract with the Asia's hottest act right now, the Korean band BTS. No way. Can you believe it? I can't. They're huge. All six, seven or eight members I can't remember.

I can't remember either, but that is, I know that's a big deal. Yeah, light me up like dynamite if I am just quite one of the songs I believe. Wow. This is, this is probably one of our biggest gets. Yeah, for sure, they are so hot right now. They are so hot. So hot, hot right now. They are so hot. So hot, hot, hot.

And Dave, you'll be very happy to know that we only have two people to welcome into the trip to Club this week because it is your job to sort of hype them up. And it's like, it's something that you're very good at, but that you also find quite stressful now. Yes, I freeze in the moment. It became a thing where I would hype people up sort of as I definitely did it as a joke. And then now it's expected. Yeah, and so the pressure is on, but then that's where I came in to then hype you up. Yeah.

Which is going to be kind of hard today because I also have to take the role of Matt and Reader. Yeah, you're basically like emceeing the guest list. I'm hyping them up then you're my hype man. Yeah, I feel like I can do it. So welcoming into the TripDitch Club, from Manchester and Great Britain, it's Jack Marsland.

Woo, taking you straight to Marsland. Yeah. Woo. And also from Mount Glorious in Queensland. Timothy Barry. And also from Mount Glorious in Queensland. Timothy Barry. Well, things just got Mount Glorious in here tonight. Yes.

Yes. I imagine I missed that one. Yeah, that was. To be honest. Honestly, when I read Mount Glorious, I was like, oh my God. It's all over. I didn't even listen to the surname. What was it?

Timothy Barry. Barry? Well, you've won the Barry award there we go which doesn't exist anymore but it used to be the Colony Festival Best Show Award so well done to Barry Humphreys has said some pretty problematic things so we went oh let's not be able to award after him anymore yes he's very old anyway so thank you to Jack Marsland Timothy Barron, all the other patrons that we thanked and for everybody for listening to this episode. And if you enjoyed listening, you can also watch this episode. That is absolutely correct, Jesse. If you'd like to watch this episode, just go to sospresents.com because we did a live stream of it and you get to watch the

episode with extra bits that we have edited out of the audio because it didn't make sense because we were doing some visual stuff. We were a bit silly. We were mucking around my head got a little bit shiny. Yeah. And distracted me during the report. But you didn't know because I seamlessly I imagine edited that out.

And then also we did an extra like maybe 45 minute extra show that Matt's come up with called Who knew it with Matt Stewart? He was taking us through some crazy facts about Asia. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. And those streams, we get, well, at the time of recording, we've got a couple more to do. And they'll be available on swestpresents.com for ever, essentially.

So if you're listening to this three months down the track, a year down the track and you think, oh, dammit, I missed it. No, you didn't. Yeah, just go there and you get a season pass, you get all four of the season for the price of three. And you can do that with also the two previous seasons. This was actually the tenth one we've done this year. Just crazy. We've been very lucky to be able to do that during COVID. We're very pleased with that. So yeah, yeah, you can go check that out. That would be very nice of you.

How do we get, how do we boot this home? We just say thanks everyone, and go to dogoonpod.com for all the links to our Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, our YouTube channel, and our Gmail, if you'd like to email us. And follow me on Instagram, please, Jess Perkins. She's very close to 10,000. I need this. You000. I need this.

You do. I need this. Your self-esteem is on the line. Yeah. It's an all-time low. But if I just get to 10,000, maybe then I'll feel good about myself. Yeah. I reckon that's a guarantee.

Yeah. So thanks again for listening. We'll be back next week with another episode. But until then, also thank you and goodbye! Writers, bye! Had to do both, but I think I did very well. Very well. But until then also thank you and goodbye Bye Had to do both but I think I did very well very well This podcast is part of the planet broadcasting network visit planet broadcasting dot com for more podcasts from our great mates I mean if you want

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