Ching Shih: The Pirate Queen Who Commanded a Fleet No Empire Could Beat
She began as a worker in a Canton brothel and ended as the most powerful pirate who ever lived, commanding tens of thousands of men and hundreds of ships. Then, when three empires could not sink her, Ching Shih did the one thing almost no pirate ever managed: she negotiated her own surrender, kept her fortune, and walked away to die of old age.