Except Ching Shih was anything but your standard pirate. For starters, she was a woman, a former sex worker who married into the pirate life but turned out to be really, really good at piracy.

Many of us have seen the movie franchise Pirates of the Caribbean, though few probably realize the character of Mistress Chen represents the greatest pirate of all time; Zhen Yi Sao, or Ching Shih ...