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Ooh! Cheng Ch’eng-kung is a great one! Cheng I Sao and the Pirate Confederacy is great too!
Cheng Ch’eng-kung (aka Koxinga) was a pretender to the throne of China during the fall of the Ming dynasty. The remaining Ming flocked to him to restore the dynasty from the Manchus. After raiding most of China, he failed to capture any large objectives, so he captured Taiwan from the Dutch and made it his pirate base! Loads of potential stories there! He became a legendary figure, symbolising Chinese resistance against the foreign oppression of the Manchus.
Cheng I, along with his wife, Cheng I Sao, created a pirate confederacy in the early 19th century, with seven fleets, 400 junks and 40 to 60,000 pirates under its control. Cheng I Sao (also known as the Pirate Widow Cheng was the main leader from 1807 onwards. She expanded its operations to include protection rackets for salt convoys and fishermen, as well as offices on the mainland for fee collection. By 1808 the pirates had almost total control over the south coast. In the end, Cheng I Sao and her second husband/adopted son were paid off with millions of dollars and lots of titles.
(I wrote an essay on Chinese Pirates last year. Want a copy?  There's lots of stories and legends about these guys out there. Even Borges wrote a story about Cheng I Sao... |
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