Pirates and Privateers
The History of Maritime
Piracy
Cindy Vallar, Editor
& Reviewer
P.O. Box 425,
Keller, TX 76244-0425
   
Merchant,
Pirate, Smuggler, Sea Lord
As students of history, we like facts:
birth year, birthplace, specific events,
et cetera. The past is rarely so
accommodating, especially for those of
humble beginnings. Our searches of
historical annals reveal early lives are
steeped in mystery or conflict and raise
more questions than they answer. This is
particularly true the further back in time
a person lives and when those records are
destroyed, either accidentally or to
eradicate the past. In the case of Zheng
Zhilong and his descendants, it is the
latter reason for the paucity because of
destruction wrought by authorities of the
Qing dynasty. Still, some traces of his
youth exist.
The first dilemma we face concerns his
name. Zheng Zhilong is how we refer to him
today, Zheng being his surname and Zhilong
his given name. (The name has also been
spelled Cheng Chi-lung in the past.) He is
also referred to as Yi-Guan, which means
“First Son,” a word that the Portuguese
wrote as Iquan. Japanese records list him
as Tei Shiryû or Tei Shiryū. Those written
by Europeans refer to him as Nicholas
Iquan, Nicolas Icoan, Nicholas Gaspard or
Jaspar, and Chinchillón.

His formal name was Zheng Zhilong, but no
record provides the name he used as a
child or young adult. When he reached the
age of twenty, he participated in a rite
of passage to mark his entry into
adulthood. In Imperial China it was rude
to call an adult by his given name unless
the speaker was of higher rank or an
elder. Instead, he would be addressed by a
courtesy (or style) name, which was deemed
a sign of respect. According to Shao
Tingcai (Shao T’ing-ts’ai), a historian
and philosopher who lived during the
seventeenth century, Zheng Zhilong’s
courtesy name was Fei Huang (Flying
Yellow), which came “from the Chinese
proverb feihuang tengda, “to make
rapid advances in one’s career.” (Antony,
Pirates, 113). Or his courtesy name
might have been Feihong (Flying Rainbow),
a name still associated with Zheng Zhilong
in 1640.
Within the pages of Taiwan
Wai zhi (also spelled Taiwan
waiji and written in the late
1660s), Jiang Risheng included the exact
date and time of Zheng Zhilong’s birth. He
was born between the hours of seven and
nine on the morning of 16 April 1604.
While many events included in this book
have been verified in other Chinese and
European documents, the writing is often a
mix of fact and fiction, much like what
Captain Johnson did in his General
History of the Pyrates in 1724.
While 1604 might be Zheng Zhilong’s true
birth year, a more probable time span
would be 1590-1610, and this might be
narrowed down further to 1592-1595.
His father was Zheng Shaozu (or Ziangyu or
Shibiao). He worked as a clerk at a grain
storehouse in the Quanzhou prefecture
(district). Ji Liuqi, who was born in 1622
and wrote about the Ming dynasty, believed
that Zheng men had worked as yamen
(government) clerks for several
generations.
Zheng Zhilong’s mother was Theyma (also
known as Lady Huang). She had two
brothers, one of whom was Huang Cheng, a
Macau trader who would play a significant
role in Zheng Zhilong’s later teenage
years.
He had three younger brothers (Bao the
Panther, Feng the Phoenix, and Hu the
Tiger) and three younger half-brothers
(Peng the Roc, Hú the Swan, and Guan the
Stork). It’s also possible that he had
some sisters as well.
Although Zheng Zhilong learned to read and
write before his seventh birthday, he was
never keen on his studies. He was
“good-looking, a skillful poet, a musician
of taste, a dancer of merit, and withal of
pleasing manners.” (Day, 27) He also liked
to box and practice martial arts. He
possessed charisma, charm, courage, and
guile. Instead of attending lessons, he
often prowled the streets, getting into
mischief or fighting, much to his father’s
chagrin. The pair had a contentious
relationship and, according to one
account, the elder Zheng harried his son
through the streets with a stick. Zheng
Zhilong’s only option was to board a ship
and sail to Macau around 1610.
The voyage took a week, but Zheng Zhilong
was not alone. Two of his brothers, Bao
and Hu, accompanied him. At the time,
Macau was one of the few places where the
Portuguese were permitted to trade with
China.
Macau
was an exotic place, a piece of
Portugal on the Chinese coast, with
plazas and priests and tolling bells.
An immense cathedral dominated the
hill in the middle of town, and
Japanese artisans were engraving its
stone façade, carving out ships,
lions, figures in long robes, winged
people playing horns. In one panel a
woman floats above a many-headed
serpent next to a caption that reads,
in Chinese, “Holy Mother stomps the
dragon head.” (Andrade, Lost, 22)

Ruins of Saint Paul's
Cathedral, built by the Jesuits from
1602 to 1640
(Source: Wikimedia
Commons, by No1lovesu)
The port was also the home of his maternal
uncle, Huang Cheng. He owned a trading
company and put his nephews to work. He
deemed education important, but felt
success and wealth were of greater value
than academic achievements. Zheng Zhilong
apparently agreed because he found his
skills more useful here than they had been
back home and he excelled at whatever he
set his hand to.
During his
time in Macau, he also met a Jesuit
priest, who befriended Zheng Zhilong and
taught him Portuguese. At some point
between 1615 and 1620, Zheng Zhilong was
baptized in the Catholic faith and became
Nicholas Iquan or Nicholas Iquan Gaspard
(or Jaspar). Whether he remained a devoted
Christian was debatable. Later in his
life, some Portuguese wrote, “[he] was so
impious, or so ignorant, that he equally
burnt incense to Jesus Christ and to his
idols.” (Andrade, Lost, 22) It was
also possible that he still attended mass
until he died. Certainly, he remained in
contact with Jesuits in his later years.
He wrote poems that he sent to Father
Francesco Sambiasi, and while living in
Beijing, he paid to have a house and
chapel built for the priests living in the
city. He also provided funds to them,
arranged for servants to work for them,
and purchased needed goods for their use.
During his final years, when he needed
help, they gave him “decem circiter
aureos,” a gift that “touched the
old man greatly and moved him to tears.” 1
(Vermote, 282)
Zheng Zhilong did many tasks for his
uncle, and when his uncle felt it was time
to test his knowledge and skills, his
uncle put him in charge of an illicit
cargo of “white sugar, calambak wood and
musk.” (Clements, 18) Zheng Zhilong
succeeded in delivering the goods to the
Japanese islands of Ryukyu. Eventually
Huang Cheng trusted Zheng Zhilong with
another important cargo, this one bound to
the port of Hirado, Japan. Here, he would
come in contact not only with the Japanese
but also men and ships from China, the
Dutch Republic, England, Portugal, and
Spain. It was also where he met pirates.
The moves to Macau and Hirado opened a
wider world for Zheng Zhilong, one in
which his charisma, charm, courage, and
guile would prove especially beneficial.
When winds of change blew across China, he
looked to the future, instead of dwelling
in the past. The path was rarely smooth
and required life skills not taught by
academic tutors. His journey of a thousand
miles permitted him to lay the foundation
upon a legacy that his son and grandson
would build.
To be continued . . .
Notes:
1. Although the Latin
words translate to ten gold coins in gold,
it is more likely that the Jesuits gave
Zheng Zhilong ten silver taels. At the
time, one of these coins would be enough
to purchase more than 166 pounds of flour.
Resources:
Andrade, Tonio. Lost
Colony: The Untold Story of China’s
First Great Victory over the West.
Princeton University, 2011.
Andrade, Tonio, and Hang Xing. "The East
Asian Maritime Realm in Global History,
1500-1700," Sea Rovers, Silver, and
Samaurai, 1500-1700 edited by
Tonio Andrade and Hang Xing. University
of Hawai'i, 2019, 1-27.
Antony,
Robert J. Like Froth Floating on the
Sea: The World of Pirates and
Seafarers in Late Imperial South China.
Institute of East Asian Studies,
University of California, 2003.
Antony,
Robert J. Pirates in the Age of Sail.
W. W. Norton & Co., 2007.
Carter, James. “China’s
Great Pirate, Zheng Zhilong, Takes on
the Dutch,” The China Project (20
October 2021).
Chinese
Names – Rules, Meanings, Taboos, and
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2005.
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Bu),” Sea Rovers, Silver, and
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Vermote, Frederick. “The
Role of Urban Real Estate in Jesuit
Finances and Networks between Europe
and China, 1612-1778.” PhD diss.,
The University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, 2013.
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Copyright ©2023 Cindy Vallar

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