Shap-ng-tsaiMartin Booth. ''Opium: A History''. New York: Thomas Dunne, 1996. p. 143. () was a Chinese pirate active in the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Phil ...

from about 1845 to 1859. He was one of the two most notorious South China Sea pirates of the era, along with

Chui A-poo Chui A-poo (; died 1851) was a 19th-century Qing Dynasty, Qing China, Chinese pirate who commanded a fleet of more than 50 junk (ship), junks in the South China Sea. He was one of the two most notorious South China Sea pirates of the era, along ...

. He commanded about 70 junks stationed at

Dianbai Dianbai District, alternately romanized as Tinpak, is an urban district of the prefecture-level city of Maoming in southwestern Guangdong Province, China. History Dianbei Commandery was established in AD528 under the Liang dynasty. It and the ...

, about 180 miles west of

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

. Coastal villages and traders paid Shap-ng-tsai protection money so they would not be attacked. Chinese naval ships that pursued the pirate were captured and their officers taken captive and held for ransom. The Chinese government offered him a

pardon A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the j ...

and the rank of officer in the

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distin ...

Rogoziński, Jan. ''Pirates!: Brigands, Buccaneers, and Privateers in Fact, Fiction, and Legend''. Da Capo Press, 1996. at first he did not accept, but he eventually did so to avoid legal ramifications.

End of pirate career

Shap-ng-tsai was blamed for sinking an American ship and three British merchant ships in the spring of 1849. That September, a squadron of

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by Kingdom of England, English and Kingdom of Scotland, Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were foug ...

ships sailed to

and found 100 captured ships there held for ransom, but failed to find the main pirate fleet. Then in October, three British ships and eight Qing navy junks pursued the pirates to the islands and channels of Haiphong, Vietnam and fought the pirates for three days. Afterwards the expedition reported the destruction of fifty-eight pirate junks carrying 1,200

cannon A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder duri ...

s and 3,000 crewmen. Shap-ng-tsai escaped the battle with six smaller junks and 400 men. He later surrendered to the Chinese government and accepted the military position.

References

Chinese pirates 19th-century Chinese people Year of birth missing Year of death missing 19th-century pirates {{pirate-stub

End of pirate career

See also

References