You're Dead to Me - Zheng Yi Sao (Radio Edit)

Episode Date: July 22, 2023

Greg Jenner, comedian Ria Lina and Prof Ronald C Po investigate one of the most successful pirates to have ever lived, Zheng Yi Sao. During the 18th century Qing dynasty, she led the most feared army of pirates the world had ever seen - all without a parrot on her shoulder.For the full-length version of this episode, please look further back in the feed.Research: Will Clayton Script: Emma Nagouse, Will Clayton and Greg Jenner Project Manager: Siefe Miyo Edit Producer: Cornelius MendezA production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4.

This is the first radio ad you can smell. The new Cinnabon pull-apart only at Wendy's. It's ooey, gooey and just five bucks for the small coffee all day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, a comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner, I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster, and I'm the chief nerd on the BBC kids show Horrible Histories. And today we are setting course for 18th century China, or the Qing Dynasty to be exact, to parlay with Zhong Yisao, the most successful

pirate of all time. And to help me do that, I'm joined by two very special crewmates. In History Corner, he's Associate Professor at the London School of Economics, an expert in late Imperial China and is a specialist in maritime and global studies. Indeed, he's the author of Blue Frontier, Maritime Vision and Power in the Qing Empire. It's Professor Ronald Poe. Ahoy, ahoy, Ron, how are you? Hi, Greg. Thanks very much for having me here today.

And in the crow's nest of Comedy Corner, she's a sensational comedian, writer, actor, and actual proper scientist with a PhD. You will have seen her on BBC Live at the Apollo, Mock the Week, Question Team, on Dave, Steph's Packed Lunch on Channel 4, plus loads of BBC radio shows. It's the brilliant Ria Lino. Welcome, Ria. Hello. Thank you so much for having me on this one.

I know very little, but I know it's going to be good. Knowing very little is fine. By the end of it, we want you to know more than little. That's the hope. Ears are open. So, what do you know? This is where I guess what listeners at home might know about today's subject. And I suspect, I think it's Pirates of the Caribbean is probably the knowledge base.

Chung Yisheo does have quite a prominence on the internet. There's quite a lot of websites about her. She is quite well known in YouTube, in children's books. Sometimes she crops up. She has a variety of names. So Chung Yi-Sau, she's also known as Chung Shue, Shue Yang, or just Cheng Yi's wife. All of those names, I'm probably mispronouncing horribly, Ron, but I'm doing my best. It's often written as Ching Shih for English speakers. That's how we probably read it.

But certainly, it's Pirates of the Caribbean at World's End, where she gets a screen cameo. So Hollywood has sort of done her, but there's a lot more to say. So let's go sail the historical high seas. Professor Ron, before we meet Ochoong YiSau, can we learn a little bit about the world that she was born into? What is life like? What is the geopolitics, the geography of the South China Seas and that part of China in the late 1700s? So the Qing Dynasty at that time, which had ruled China since 1644, was at the height of its size and power. It's the fourth largest in world history, and a bit larger than present-day China, I would say. Oh, okay. It's pretty big then.

Yeah, it's pretty big, actually. On the throne at that time was the Qianlong Emperor, who ruled already for 60 years. Okay, so this sounds quite like a stable empire. So where does piracy come into this? Well, you're right, Greg. I mean, that's China at that time. It experienced rapid population growth throughout the 18th century. It's a very stable era. But at the same time, it also created a dangerously unequal distribution of wealth and a sudden increase in the cost of living. So worsening socioeconomic conditions has spawned a series of local revolts

and rebellions across China. So to be honest, I mean, dealing with internal instability during that period of time was both time-consuming and costly. And to finance it, the government raised the taxes and import duties which hurt the merchants of Guangdong,

which is the coastal region in the south of China. And this is also the region which was home to Jiang Yisao. So she's born in Guangdong, and we think roughly 1775 is a rough birth year, give or take. But her name's not Jiang Yisao, that's her later pirate name. Do we know what she's called when she's born? Her birth name is Shi Yang. Do we know anything else about her childhood? Any other fun stories? No, not really, I'm afraid.

Okay. Definitely had one. That's what we know. She had a childhood in order to move on into adulthood. That's been confirmed. Thank you, Ria. All right. So we don't know anything about our pirate queen's youth,

but I guess I'll ask our comedian then. So Ria, did you do any pirating as a child? You know, just the usual, nothing too severe. I wasn't allowed to go too far from home and I always had to be back for dinner. So my piracy was limited to just the village pond, if I'm honest. We didn't live near the sea, so it was tricky, but I did my best. Can you tell me more about what life was like growing up in Guangdong in the maritime economy, bordering on the South China Seas? First of all, the landscape of Guangdong dictated the lives and even diets of the nearly 20 million

people who lived there. 20 million? Wow. And so Guangdong also had a huge coastline, around 25% of China's seaboard today. It was also home to Macau and Canton. Nowadays, we call it Guangzhou. Two hugely important centres of trade, terminus of the Maritime Silk Road, and also one of the entry points to the South China Sea. So most of the inhabitants may rely on the sea for living in Guangdong, whether as merchants, fishermen, water boatmen, and so forth. In the off-season,

many lower-income families turn to piracy to supplement their wages, in which I would call them part-time pirates. So you're fishing the rest of the time, but then the fish go on their holidays, so you turn to piracy. Yeah, because the fish, they will migrate. I said it as a joke. I didn't know it was true. Right. Right. Okay.

So Chung Yi-Sau has been born, although she's not called that yet. But things really start to kick off in a wider story, Ria. There's been a civil war happening in Vietnam throughout her childhood. It's called the Thai Son Rebellion. And it's been lasting for decades and quite nasty. It's ended up with two rival factions. And a lot of these Guangdong pirates get sucked into the civil war. They become freelancers to go and smuggle stuff in and help the different sides. By the time we get to 1801,

there is a lot of piracy. We now finally get to meet our famous young pirate apprentice. She's not known yet as Chong Yi Cao, but she's still Xu Yang. She's in her mid-20s, 25, 26 probably. What job do you think shetwenties, 25, 26 probably. What job do you think she is doing at this point, Ria? I don't want to say it, but it's so often the case that young women that aren't married and in those sort of port communities might be using their attributes to help other young men feel better after long times away at sea. I don't know how to say that nicely. You're right. I mean, she works as sort of a sex worker on the floating

brothel and come into contact with wealthy clients in Guangdong. She finds a way of basically charming some of the clientele, I suppose, and she gets secrets out of them. And she uses that, Ria, to trade the secrets between various people. But we then get a change in her fortunes in that we get a marriage. And not any marriage. She's marrying the most famous pirate of his age, probably, Chung Yi. Yep. So he married Shi Yang, and then Shi Yang became known as Zhang Yisao, because Zhang Yisao means the wife of Zhang Yi. This Taishan rebellion in Vietnam that I mentioned, Ria, it comes to an end,

and all of the pirates who've been freelancing – well, the part-time pirates – they come home a bit disorganised and chaotic and a bit of a rabble, and they don't know what to do with themselves. Suddenly, there's this glamorous new pirate duo who are like, well, come work for us. We're hiring, we're recruiting. We've got opportunities in the pirate business. And so we start to see them putting together a bit of a fleet. Organized piracy. This is incredible. It's kind of almost as counterintuitive to what piracy is, though, isn't it? How do you trust each other? Did they have a workers' union? You know, it's blowing my mind because you're going to tell me they got pensions next.

Zhang Yisao and Zhang Yi, they took command during the crisis and organized those part-time pirates into a single, really a unified force with a new power base in Guangdong. It was divided into six squadrons. Let's see if I can remember them all. Which are red, black, white, green, blue, and yellow. So within a couple of years, the Jiang couples had about 400 Jiangs. So Jiangs is a type of Chinese ship, very commonly used in the South China Sea area, and about 70,000 men under their command. And most of them were local fishermen and workers from Guangdong. So that's why I was attesting that they were actually part-time pirates. This is incredible. So they were just at night, they put on their netball colours, and then they'd go out again.

So we have a power couple. They also adopt a child. I mean, I say child. I mean, he's a teenage boy, really. They take on an apprentice to learn the business, but they adopt him as well. He's called Chang Bao. Is that right? Chang Bao Zai, Ron? Yeah, Chang Bao or Chang Bao Zai. He's the son of a fisherman, but they've adopted him as their own son. But in 1807, tragedy strikes. Pirate King, Chong Yi, he dies. He dies in 1807, tragedy strikes, pirate king, Chung-Hee, he dies. He dies in quite a piratey way, in fairness, Rie. I'm assuming he wasn't made to walk his own plank. As far as we can tell, he either drowns in a huge typhoon or is killed by a cannonball.

Or the cannonball pushed him overboard into the typhoon. That could be it. Either way, he had the wind knocked out of his sails. No! I don't know. Chung-Hee, she's now without a husband. So Rhea, if you were in this situation, how would you now make a bid for solo power? Well, you need to command loyalty, don't you? It usually comes down to money and maps with Xs on them. Or she's like, well, who else is going to do it? You're going to go with Jim from red team? Or do you want to go with like Bob from white team?

So she probably just set all the different teams against each other and just went, well, it's got to be me, doesn't it? Because you're all busy bickering. So I think that's a pretty good guess, Ron. Is Rhea close with that? Yeah, she is. She's pretty close. What happens exactly at that time is that according to the historical records,

Zhang Yisao secured the support of Zhang's two leading chieftains at that time. One of them is called... Jim and Bob, she got them to work together! Oh, she's so good! She's so good! And to replace her husband as the head of the Red Squadrons, which is the most powerful of them, all with 340 Zhangs, I mean, and between 20 and 40,000 men, Zhang, between 20,000 and 40,000 men under the red flag, she needed reliable and trustworthy figures. And so she chose her adopted son, Zhang Baozai, who served as her protégé. But more than that, she marries him, her son. Yeah, but do you know what? The Egyptians have been doing that for years to consolidate power. So again, we can't hold it against her and they're not related. She has a political marriage with her own adopted son. He's in

charge of the Red Fleet. But really, she's now kind of top dog. I mean, she's certainly in charge of HR. Zhang Paozhai was a warrior. He was brave. He was like a military man, but he knows that he doesn't really have those DNA with managing the company. So he also needs to rely on Zhang Yisao. I mean, we have now a pirate queen, but she now enforces some pretty strict law codes to keep the discipline. Do you want to guess what they were? No more moonlighting as fishermen. Ron?

Zhang Yisao did introduce a very strict set of law codes where men could be immediately killed for disobeying a superior, for example, or having their ear cut off for an authorised absence. Most importantly, the law codes replaced the man's loyalty to specific captains with a pledge of loyalty to an overarching system, which is like all under the control of Zhang Yisao and Zhang Baozhai. Zhang Yisao also assert control over all financial and operational activities. There was also a strict division of wealth. 20% of the captured goods were allotted to those involved in seizing them while the reminders went into the communal treasury. You could be killed for stealing your share of the loot. It's sort of like a high-tax socialist. It's like Scandinavia at sea.

Do they get dental though? Do they get dental, Greg? I'm assuming they probably didn't. Ria, I mean, I have to ask, if you were a pirate queen and you had to keep order, what rules would you enforce? All I can think of as a mother is how would I take care of my boys, you know, and their wives as they joined us one by one. You do have to rule with an iron fist. And 20% was obviously what she determined was enough to keep them looting and keep them happy and keep them working. It's kind of like pocket money, wasn't it, really? She's just sort of going, well done, here's your pocket money,

but the rest goes into savings for your university fund. And that brings us on to the secondary business model. As well as piracy, Chung Yi-Sau, she diversifies. She is an entrepreneur. She spots the secondary income. So her secondary revenue stream is salt, which I guess is really important in Guangdong. In the 18th century, there were 22 saltans where salt was produced, mostly located in the southwest of the Guangdong province. Four times a year, huge salt fleets would embark from the largest saltan, Tianpai, on a 400-mile journey up the coast to the port of Canton. The pirates simply assumed control of the imperial supply lines and forced the salt merchants to carry

the goods in on their terms. That's not piracy anymore. That's a hostile corporate takeover. She also introduces a passport system to regulate the salt industry. Who needs a salt passport to say whether you've... How do you even test that? Do you like... What do you do? Lick their face? Know you're salty enough?

What? I can't understand what we're... What are we passporting? The people, the ships, the salt? Ron, what are we passporting? Yeah, what are we passporting, Ron? Passport system, it meant that salt merchants purchased a certificate of safe passage from the pirates before setting out on their journey.

So soon the passport system extended to all types of merchants and fishing vessels. But even the British East Indian Company, I mean, at that time, it was the world's most powerful corporations. They paid Zhang Yisao fees for protections. I bet her husband's really annoyed though. He's there. He's got all his muscles, all of his weaponry. He's like, I want to go and pirate someone. And she went, there's no one left. They're all paying the passports. She's turned 70,000 pirates into financial clerks.

Early in the episode, we talked about how sophisticated and stable China was in the 18th century. And the emperor was this great man who had ruled for 60 years and retired. But surely the new emperor in the Qing dynasty, he must be going, how do we stop this woman? She's stolen the entire salt industry. She's intercepting every ship that comes in. Is there an effort by the navy to stop her? Can they stop her? Of course, the Navy would really want to try to stop her, but the thing is they rarely dare

to challenge her. Because the pirates ultimately rely on superior military powers to enforce their authority. So by 1805, it has been estimated that they outnumbered the Imperial Navy in Guangdong coast by three to one. But if we go back, you said there were 20 million people in China at that point. You've got this great wealth divide that you were talking about. Surely the Imperial power should have just done some kind of forced conscription? But the thing is, because the Qing Empire at that time, they were also suffering from lots of internal and external problems.

It cost them a lot to maintain a navy. But compared to Zhang Yisao's financial operations, the Qing Empire lacked the money, they lacked the resources to support, not just the navy, to be honest, but also some of their local armies. You have to wonder how the Imperial Navy ended up recruiting anybody. Who would go, yeah, yeah, I'll sign up for that. I would abandon ship and go work for her. All right.

So we have an enormous fleet of 70,000 men, 400 ships. Ron, can you tell me about some of the military tactics? What weapons are the pirates using? How do they storm someone else's ship? Well, it was probably an unpleasant experience. Okay. someone else's ship? Well, it was probably an unpleasant experience. Okay, all right. They frequently attack boats using grappling hooks, or when the ship's size were too high, it would swim across and climb a broad deck undetected. And the pirates,

their favourite weapon was a weapon called jingao, which is a huge eight-foot-long musket-like device, which required two men to fire it as it rests upon the shoulder of a third. So to add to the intimidations and noise, the pirates would also swim towards the target ships, brandishing 15 or 30-foot poles tipped with razor-sharp machete. Okay. or 30-foot poles tipped with razor-sharp machete. And they also favoured the Asian-Greek tactics of the fire ships. So they're filling old boats with dry straws before sending them towards the enemy. At closer range, they also developed the use of handmade grenade using clay pots filled with gunpowder and gin. So, Ron, the obvious question is, what happens when the pirates attack your ship and you get

defeated? They capture you. Do they ransom you? Do they kill you? Well, if they blow up your ship, I mean, you don't have much choice, right? But if you were being caught by them, and if you were a merchant, I mean, captured by Guangdong pirates, I mean, you would probably be okay. I mean, maybe with the exception of perhaps a finger or two. As long as you pay your ransom and gave up your booty, you should probably be okay. But if you were in the service of the Imperial Navy, however, you were likely to be nailed by your feet to the decking of the ship.

Ow! And then chopped it up into little pieces and then thrown overboard to feed the sharks. Except your feet, because they're nailed to the deck. Yes, they have a fortepoel. Probably the shark doesn't like it. I think we get the sense here that pirates were pretty nasty when they had to be. Chung Yi-Sau, she's basically running the show.

She's running this enormous salt industry. But after a while, does she start to go after cities? I mean, does she become an inland pirate? She did, actually. The pirates led by Chung Yi-Sau, I mean, they had effectively destroyed the Imperial Navy in the sea. So they basically dominated most parts of the ocean. And then they began to launch more ambitious attacks on ports and inland targets, such as Canton, Macau. In 1809, Zhang Yizhou's pirates sent the city of Canton into panic when they politely posted a notice on their notice board saying that, well, we are going to attack you. It's a kind of strategy, isn't it? To scare people, to make them panic. Did she cut the bottom of strategies isn't it to scare people to make you panic

did she cut the bottom of the notice up into little strips just like on tuesday i'll be attacking prepare to remember did it work though i think that's the question did she attack kantong with success yes she did and then a few weeks later she goes for mac Macau. And while attacking Macau, she captures five American ships. She steals a ship belonging to the Portuguese governor of Timor, and she blockades the Thai diplomatic mission. So she's now taking on nation states. That's incredibly ambitious.

That's a rough start for the Americans. They've only been a country for about 30 years at that point, haven't they? So just they're going, what? Man, what do you do? Leave us alone. We're just figuring things out. This is a proper cushy situation, really, for Chung Hee-Sau and for Chung Bao-Zai. They're making a lot of good money, but

she's angering nation-states and imperial western powers. Do we now suddenly see that actually, maybe the tide is turning? So after years of refusing trade with foreigners, the Cantonese officials finally opened negotiations with the British and Portuguese to solicit their aid in tackling piracy, in tackling Zhang Yisao. But it didn't work. It didn't work.

And the East Indian Company also stepped in and caved in when the pirates strangled their trade of opium and tin. The Portuguese failed to defeat them over several battles, despite having better cannons. The Portuguese, the Americans, the British are being brought into it, and she's still defeating them. So what do you think she does at this point, Ria? We have here a woman so powerful that even nation-states are struggling. What do you think Chung Yi-Sau does? This is tricky, right? Because she's a smart woman. And a smart woman would retire at this point with her millions and just buy an estate and pass it on. I'm glad to say your first instinct was right.

She's a clever girl. I'm so proud. I'm so proud. She knows when to stop. She sees the writing on the wall and goes, you know what? I've had a lot of fun. I've made a lot of money. It's time to do a deal. She basically just walks into a government building and says, hello, I'm the pirate queen. You know, the one you're terrified of. I'm happy to give it all up.

And they say you're a lot shorter in real life than we thought you were. Where's the machete on a pole? Did you swim here? Would you like a towel? Is this true? Does she literally walk into a building? No, that's true. Eventually, according to the Qing legal records,

by 1810, the Qing government changed their strategies. They decided to approach a couple of other squadrons individually and offer them a comfortable retirement. Divide and conquer. Exactly. And it worked. Zhang Yisao also noticed it. Therefore, she decided to get ahead of the curve and negotiate a deal while she still had the upper hand. But although the talks commenced cordially, the Governor General's insistence that Zhang Yisao and her team has to entirely relinquish control of their ships, she wouldn't buy this idea.

So the negotiations stalled for several weeks until once more Zhang Yisao seized the initiative. So she approached the office once again, and this time even more dramatic because she was unarmed and accompanied only by a group of pirates' wives and children. And she went to the highest official in Canton to negotiate in person. And then the government grants amnesty to thousands of pirates. Many of the pirates were offered bureaucratic and military commissions in the Chinese army. So they were being recruited to join the Qing court. And Zhang Baozai and Zhang Yisao were allowed to retain their fleet between 20 and 30 ships. And Zhang Yisao was also allowed to keep much of the booty they collected. So it seems like a happy ending.

Ria, she walks away with the money. And some ships and some men. All the bloodlusty pirates, they go over to the Imperial Army and they continue over there. Although who they're fighting, I don't know, because if she retires, there's no one left, right? The women and the children was an interesting one. They all just kind of did a day trip or something. Like, is this, it's like, you know, like ultimate homeschooling where they go, today we're going to go on a field trip and learn about local government.

By my calculation, she's 35 at this point. Yeah, I think that's about right. Born 1775. This is sort of 1810. I did not expect by the end of this podcast to feel so underachieved at my age, given what she's achieved. As far as we can tell, there's still a sort of life of slight crime in terms of her retirement. Oh yeah, that slight crime. After 1822, when Zhang Bao Zai died…

She's outlived two husbands! Yeah, yeah, yeah. And one of them she raised! But what we know is that she returned to Canton briefly to raise her young son. So we know that actually Zhang Baozi and her may have one little son. And as far as we can tell, she's doing consultancy work? During the First Opium War, even though we're not entirely sure, but there are actually some records mean she acted as an advisor to the Qing Viceries. Lin Zixu, who was actually the key general who fought against the British during the First Opium War.

And then after the First Opium War, she started up a notorious illegal gambling house. And she may have been involved in the rampant opium smuggling. I mean, that carried on unabated after the Pirates' Confederation was dissolved. By the end of her life, she is notorious. She's got her own casino. She's advising governors. she's one of the greatest pirates the world has ever known and she dies age 69 in macau having basically beat the house she you know she took on the navy and won and then she said all right hand me my billions i'm i'm gonna go and retire so a phenomenal life. The Nuance Window! This is where Ria and I take a little break. We go and have our feet nailed to the deck.

But our ears are yours. Yes, our ears are sliced off and handed to Ron so he can tell us something we need to know. So Professor Ron, can we have the Nuance Window? So after talking about Zhang Yisao today, I think we all agree that piracy is so interesting that continues to fascinate people of all ages. But pirates are not only interesting, but also significant for what they can tell us about Chinese history, the lives of ordinary people who came from the discontented underclass of laboring poor sailors and fishermen,

including men and women. And they would provide us a picture of China, which is very different from the one that was constructed or colored by those educated scholar officials or intellectuals. And the culture of pirates, I mean, as we can see it from the story of Zhang Yisao, did not share the dominant Confucian values of honesty, regality, and hard work. Pirates would have to devise their own lifestyles, habits, and standard of behavior in order to survive. And for many pirates, including Zhang Yizhou of course, piracy was a rational and even legitimate means of maintaining their living. So as a result, their sociocultural world was significant because it was not identical to the traditional

Confucius model in China that we used to know. So that's what I want to share with our listener today. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ron. That's fascinating. All that's left for me is to say a huge thank you to our guests. In History Corner, we've had the fantastic Professor Ronald Poe from LSE. Thank you, Ron. Oh, thank you so much. It was so fun. And in Comedy Corner, we had the dazzling Ria Lina. Thank you, Ria. Pleasure. Thank you so much. Lovely listeners, join me next time as we set sail for another historical expedition with two

different landlubbers. But for now, I'm off to go and corner the lucrative salt market and maybe turn myself into the new salt bae. Bye! Hi, Greg. Hi, Greg. Hi, Greg. Hi, Slice Bread team. I wonder if you can help me. I'm Greg Foot, and my podcast, Slice Bread, is back to run a whole new batch of promising-sounding wonder products

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