For the next two years, Ching's fleets fought their way through the enemy forces, still gaining power and loot despite the ships arrayed against them.

But the writing was on the wall. The dangerous business would come to an end sooner or later, and Ching wanted her and her pirates well prepared for that day. A conflict between the Red and Black Fleets may have also encouraged Ching's future actions.

The emperor offered an amnesty to draw away many of the pirates working in his territory, and Ching herself took him up on it. But, like when she married Zheng, she required a few additional incentives.

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First, nearly all of her workers, from the pirates who engaged in combat to the farmers who supplied them, were to get off without punishment. Second, the government had to provide money to help the pirates transition to shore life.

Third, Ching would be recognized as the wife of her adopted son, who would be given a key bureaucratic position within the Chinese government.

The government caved, and Ching got every item on her list. At the young age of 35, only nine years after escaping a brothel in Canton, Ching was forgiven all her crimes and allowed to keep her ill-gotten fortune. She opened a gambling house and brothel in China and settled into a semi-quiet retirement.

Chang, meanwhile, wanted to keep his life on the seas and got command of 20 government ships in the deal.

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