If the pirate's ultimate growth was not a result of external patronage or protection, might it have been owing to some internal element such as religion, ideology, or leadership that served in a special way to unify and integrate their force? For the time being I will dismiss religion and ideology as relevant factors with the promise to return to them in the conclusion and argue instead that indeed it was to the extraordinary leadership that emerged from within their ranks that the pirates owed not only their survival during the crisis of 1802, but also their subsequent success.
The one individual, more than any other, upon whose shoulders such accolades must fall, was Cheng I, a pirate whose pedigree can be traced to the sixteenth century. From the imbroglio that emerged after the death of the Tayson, Cheng I was responsible for transforming a motley crew of quarrelsome refugees interested primarily in internecine warfare and mutual slaughter into a well-ordered confederation divided into the Six Fleets of the Red, Black, White, Yellow, Blue and Green Flags.
To bring order to the confederation, each vessel was to be registered with one fleet whose banner it would subsequently fly. Because the stability of the confederation would be threatened by individual junks switching affiliation or by fleet leaders encouraging them to do so, anyone caught tampering with the identification process was subject to punishment. Provisions prohibiting pirates from fighting one another for prizes already taken or from undertaking unauthorized activities on their own sought to prevent internal conflict. Clear regulations also defined the procedure for sharing prizes while a kind of implicit territorial division characterised the cruising grounds of the various fleets.
Despite his many accomplishments, however, Cheng I's days as a pirate were short-lived, but when he died unexpectedly in 1807, his tradition of exemplary leadership was continued by his wife Cheng I Sao, who assumed his position as leader of the confederation. Just as Cheng I had been the confederation's unifier, so did Cheng I Sao become its consolidator. Realizing that an association of several thousand individuals could not live from the chance capture of a few vessels at sea, she took measures to regularize its finances through the selling of protection to seafarers, no matter who they were employed by, along the entire coast. Such was the authority of this "dragon lady" of the South China Sea that when she spoke the men rushed to obey. Under
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If the pirate's ultimate growth was not a result of external patronage or protection, might it have been owing to some internal element such as religion, ideology, or leadership that served in a special way to unify and integrate their force? For the time being 1 will dismiss religion and ideology as relevant factors with the promise to return to them in the conclusion and argue instead that indeed it was to the extraordinary leadership that emerged from within their ranks that the pirates owed not only their survival during the crisis of 1802, but also their subsequent
success,
The one individual, more than any other, upon whose shoulders such accolades must fall, was Cheng I, a pirate whose pedigree can be traced to the sixteenth century. From the imbroglio that emerged after the death of the Tayson. Cheng I was responsible for transforming a motley crew of quarrelsome refugees interested primarily in internecine warfare and mutual slaughter into a well-ordered confederation divided into the Six Fleets of the Red, Black, White, Yellow, Blue and Green Flags.
To bring order to the confederation, cach vessel was to be registered with one fleet whose banner it would subsequently fly. Because the stability of the confederation would be threatened by individual junks switching affiliation or by fleet leaders encouraging them to do so, anyone caught tampering with the identification process was subject to punishment. Provisions prohibiting pirates from fighting one another for prizes already taken or from undertaking unauthorized activities on their own sought to prevent internal conflict. Clear regulations also defined the procedure for sharing prizes while a kind of implicit territorial division characterised the cruising grounds of the various flects.
Despite his many accomplishments, however, Cheng I's days as a pirate were short-lived, but when he died unexpectedly in 1807, his tradition of exemplary leadership was continued by his wife Cheng I Sao, who assumed his position as leader of the confederation. Just as Cheng I had been the confederation's unifier, so did Cheng I Sao become its consolidator. Realizing that an association of several thousand individuals could not live from the chance capture of a few vessels at sea, she took measures to regularize its finances through the selling of protection to seafarers, no matter who they were employed by, along the entire coast. Such was the authority of this "dragon lady" of the South China Sea that when she spoke the men rushed to obey. Under
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