Editors Noteson “The Chinese Pirate Ching Shih Plays Go With a Hooded Opponent”: This narrative poem, structured with predominantly blank verse quintets, features Madame Ching or Ching Shih (1775–1844), a prominent pirate in middle Qing China, who terrorized the China Sea in the early 19th...
Ching Shih (1775-1844) Princess of the Chinese Seas In 1809, the Chinese government sprang a trap. They were gunning for a group who’d taken control of its southern waters, the Red Flag pirate fleet. Blockading them in a bay, the authorities laid siege to the pirates for three straight...