A QUICK QUIZ for all you movie buffs: What do you get when you cross Captain Jack Sparrow with Mulan? Answer: Cheng Yisao.

Who? you ask. A Chinese woman is not the image most people have in mind when it comes seafaring bandits. But Cheng Yisao was a bona fide swashbuckler and a real femme fatale—an ex-prostitute from Guangdong who worked on a floating brothel during the mid-Qing Dynasty. Not only that, she was perhaps the most powerful pirate captain of all time, commanding 70,000 buccaneers on 400 ships at the height of her power.

A shrewd strategist, cunning businesswoman, and respected leader, she held the Guangdong economy captive and outwitted countless imperial plans to defeat her in battle.

Cheng Yisao’s own story begins not long after Jack Sparrow’s, at the turn of the 19th century. According to Chinese historian Dian Murray, Cheng got into piracy the old-fashioned way—through marriage. She decided that piracy promised far more opportunities for career advancement than prostitution so she married a rising pirate star named Cheng Yi, whose family had terrorized the Chinese for nearly 100 years. Together, the newlyweds began to unify and organize the pirates in the region.

When their Vietnamese sponsors were overthrown in 1802, they led the buccaneers into Chinese coastal waters. They transformed what had hitherto been a loose pirate association into a massive confederation that brought together tens of thousands of men and hundreds of junks by 1804.

A vacancy suddenly opened up in Pirates, Inc., when Cheng Yi died in 1907. Cheng Yisao, already an adept leader, moved swiftly to legitimate herself as supreme commander. But, being a pirate, she did this in a rather unique way: First she chose as her second-in-command Chang Pao, whom her late husband had adopted as his son (after putting him through a sexual initiation reminiscent of Rush Week). Soon she began sleeping with him herself, and eventually they married.

It’s not easy to keep 70,000 opium-smoking, saber-rattling brigands in line, so Cheng Yisao created a strict pirate code that helped maintain order and solidify her command. Unlike the “pirate code” in Pirates of the Caribbean, this was not a set of suggested guidelines that one could flout without punishment. Pirates who took private shore leave, pilfered stolen plunder, or debauched captive women (without permission) faced death, says historian Phillip Gosse. Anyone who broke the rules was punished with incredible efficiency.

Cheng Yisao also increased her power by handling all business matters herself. Any pirate wishing to commence an operation required her approval, and needed to render her not only a cut, but the entire haul. Cheng Yisao would subsequently examine the captured booty, accompanied by a purser or accountant, who would enter the proper records into the vessel’s ledgers. She was also a superb spin doctor: Gosse states that she prohibited the use of the term “plunder,” instead requiring that the pirates call stolen items “transhipped goods.”

Like any savvy businesswoman, Cheng Yisao eventually decided to expand the scope of her operations beyond raiding commercial ships. To guarantee profitability for her massive fleet, Murray says, she got involved in the Guangdong salt trade and soon began collaborating with secret societies (predecessors to the Hong Kong Triads) to systematically extort the local salt merchants. Every ship leaving for Canton had to purchase protection, and the pirates mercilessly burned any merchant or government vessel that refused to pony up. The fate of the merchants grew increasingly tangled with that of the pirates, and they eventually started to provide the buccaneers with supplies and weapons. However, Cheng forbade her disciplined troops from attacking ships from which they had received payment; transgressors were forced to compensate the owner of the attacked ship for any damages.

This was, argues Murray, a highly organized and systematic operation. The pirates had money lenders on their crafts and, as they gained tighter control of the Guangdong economy, they had “financial offices along the entire coast and even…a tax office in Canton.” They based their financial headquarters in Macao—which even back then was the Las Vegas of the East—where agents handled the protection racket as well as provided the pirates with arms and ammunition. These endeavors were, by any measurement, a success: Pirate flagships frequently held anywhere between $50,000 and $100,000 in hard currency at all times.

The Qing imperial rulers, however, sought desperately to defeat Cheng Yisao, but no navy commander could overcome her in battle. The Qing even begged the British East India Company to enlist the aid of the British Navy. In his 1946 classic, The History of Piracy, Gosse describes one particularly bloody and protracted clash in 1808, in which the Chinese Imperial Navy emerged as the clear loser: “The admiral of the Imperial fleet…preferring death to the disgrace of capture ‘seized hold of Paou [Chang Pao] by the hair and grinned at him,’ hoping that at this insult the pirate would kill him. But instead Mrs. Cheng’s lieutenant, who admired old Admiral Kwo-lang’s bravery, ‘spoke kindly to him and tried to soothe him.’ Kwo-lang, finding insults fail, thereupon committed suicide and expired on the deck of his ship at the feet of Mrs. Cheng.”

Cheng Yisao’s pirate confederation began to face a number of seemingly insurmountable challenges. The Jiaqing Emperor authorized Bai Ling, a powerful official (not the exhibitionist movie star), to set up a coastal blockade and use local militias against the pirates. Moreover, factionalism within the confederation threatened its stability.

Eventually, Cheng Yisao realized she needed to act quickly in order to protect her retirement fund. She entered into negotiations with Bai Ling, confident in the knowledge that she held the more powerful bargaining position, despite the internal fissures in her confederation. On April 20, 1810, after Bai Ling acquiesced to her demands, Cheng Yisao and her fleet (17,318 pirates on 226 vessels, with 1,315 cannons and 2,798 other weapons) formally surrendered.

The Chinese government promoted Chang Pao to the rank of lieutenant, let him keep 20 or 30 vessels for his personal use, and paid him a great deal of money to establish his fellow pirates on the mainland. (After a lifetime sailing under the Jolly Roger, these pirates had nary a quaint cottage or rice terrace to call their own. Some enlisted in the Chinese army.)

Cheng Yisao, however, was incorrigible, and refused to slip into easy retirement. She ruthlessly promoted her son/husband’s career and successfully lobbied the Chinese government to bestow a proper rank upon her as well, despite the fact that Qing law forbade awarding titles to remarried widows.