Region
Pearl River Delta
2 pirates in the codex documented as operating here.
The Pearl River Delta, the river system that connects Guangzhou to the open South China Sea, was the operational hub of the Cantonese pirate confederation of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The delta’s combination of dense maritime traffic (legitimate trade, salt junks, and the foreign trade at Macau and Whampoa) with countless distributary creeks and islands gave the confederation both its targets and its concealment. The 1810 amnesty negotiations were conducted at Guangzhou itself.
Pirates of this region
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Zheng Yi Sao
c. 1775 – 1844Cantonese pirate confederation leader who commanded the largest pirate fleet in history — by contemporary Qing estimates, between 50,000 and 70,000 sailors across some 1,800 vessels — at her peak in 1808–1810, before negotiating a general amnesty with the Qing dynasty.
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Cheung Po Tsai
1783 – 1822Cantonese pirate; adopted son and later second husband of Zheng Yi Sao; operational commander of the Red Flag Fleet, the largest squadron in the confederation, 1807–1810. After the amnesty he served as a Qing imperial naval officer.
