It's November 28th, 1809.

The South China Sea is a flame.

The smell of burning wood and the screams of panic sailors cross the warm, tranquil waters of the Tongchung Bay.

The pirates of Zhongyi's house fleet, Mochana, Chia.

The pirate queen, as she's known, stands proudly at the stern of her ship. On a boat nearby stands her adopted son and lover, Zhang Bao.

They share a victorious look.

On the opposing side across the bay, the governor general of Canton holds his head in his hands and sobs.

He had been tasked with bringing the pirates of the South China Sea under the heel of the Chinese Emperor.

After months, years, in hot pursuit, the governor general thought that he had them in his grasp.

He traveled here to Tongchung all the way from the mainland to witness the pirates' final defeat, but instead his forces have been vanquished.

Now he wonders how he will explain this disaster to his boss, the Emperor.

Because Zhongyi's owl and her pirate fleet have won a remarkable victory. As battle raged in the bay, the Emperor's forces unleashed a fleet of special-made vessels.

Vessels purposely set ablaze.

The idea was to direct these fireships towards the pirate queen and her allies, and thus to burn them to a crisp.

But watching on the governor general's gliots swiftly turned to cold fear.

In a surreptitious turn of events, the winds changed and blew the fireships back towards the lines of the Imperial Chinese Navy.

Now instead of the pirate ships being set alight, the Chinese Navy's own vessels are on fire.

Welcome to short history of.

In this episode we'll take a trip to Imperial China at the turn of the 19th century.

And meet a woman who at the peak of her powers commanded a pirate fleet of some 1800 ships.

She is by most measurements the most successful pirate of all time, a bonafide criminal mastermind who turned piracy from a side hustle into a dizzying, lucrative profession.

Zhongyi Zhao, sometimes known as Qing Shi, controlled a sprawling criminal empire to match that of any mafia laws, robbing and racketeering while the Lord tried and failed to bring her down.

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