THE WIDOW ZHENG: TWENTY-FOUR SHIPS

[Intro]

[Female Vocal]

Forty thousand pirates who'd rob their own mother,

Need a list. Keep it short. Read it to each other.

[Verse 1]

Rule one. Desert the fleet and we take your ears,

We walk you round the ships. Nobody volunteers.

Rule two. One fifth to the junk that took the prize,

Four fifths to the common fund. Steal from it and you die.

[Pre-Chorus]

Rule three, and this one's mine to keep,

No hand on a woman captive. Break it, and the water's deep.

[Time]

[Drop]

The common fund! Count it twice!

Zhang Bao reads the rules and I set the price.

Three rules on the fleet, forty thousand strong,

Nobody's rich alone. That's the song.

[Verse 2]

The Qing have got a navy with a thousand little laws,

We've got three and a treasurer with very steady claws.

A pirate with a budget is a dangerous thing,

We pay the men on time. Go ask the Qing.

[Bridge]

They'll say Zhang Bao wrote it. Let them. He can have the pen.

I had the fund, I had the fleet, and the fleet knew who said when.

[Outro]

Count it twice.

[Fade Out]

[End]

[Intro]

[Female Vocal]

Salt comes down the coast in a long slow line,

The Emperor says it's his. The water says it's mine.

[Verse 1]

Fifty silver dollars for a hundred pao of salt,

Buy the pass, sail through, nobody's fault.

The merchants pay up front, the paper's stamped and clean,

Cheaper than the navy, and the navy's never seen.

[Pre-Chorus]

Eighteen-oh-eight. The navy tries it twice.

General Lin Guoliang, thirty-five ships. That's the price.

[Time]

[Drop]

Fifty a pass! Salt on the tide!

Buy it or lose it. You decide.

Lin Guoliang went down at Mazhou,

Sun Quanmou next spring at Dawanshan. Who's left? You.

[Verse 2]

I've got friends in Canton, in the markets, in the courts,

The magistrates buy salt like everybody. Short reports.

Lin Fa in October, Weiyuan, the same year,

The Qing keep sending admirals. The admirals disappear.

[Bridge]

Protection is the product. Salt's the second line.

Who needs the Emperor's monopoly when the monopoly is mine.

[Outro]

Fifty a pass.

[Fade Out]

[End]

[Intro]

[Female Vocal]

Humen. The Tiger's Mouth. Boca do Tigre, if you're Portuguese.

Six ships out of Macau and a treaty in the breeze.

[Verse 1]

September, eighteen-oh-nine, we take an Englishman,

Richard Glasspoole, three months, seven thousand six hundred for the man.

He writes it all down after. Good. Someone should.

The Pearl River burns that autumn. I never said we were good.

[Pre-Chorus]

November twenty-ninth, nine hours, gun to gun,

A frigate called Unconquerable. We pulled back. Call it what you want.

[Time]

[Drop]

Tiger's Mouth! Hold the line!

Three hundred junks and fifteen hundred guns are mine.

Forty-three fireships come down on the tide,

We put out the flames and we kept the wood. Nice try.

[Verse 2]

Twenty-eighth of January, the Qing light forty-three,

Twenty-ninth of January, we're through and out to sea.

Guo Podai took the pardon two weeks back,

The black flag's a sublieutenant now. Mind your back.

[Bridge]

Alcoforado's got his brigs, Bai Ling's got his fire,

I've got the tide and twenty thousand pirates who don't tire.

[Outro]

Hold the line.

[Fade Out]

[End]

[Intro]

[Female Vocal]

Everybody wants to know how a pirate ends,

Most of them in pieces. I came in with friends.

[Verse 1]

Eighteen-ten, April, I sat down with Bai Ling,

The Viceroy of the Two Guangs, a man who likes to win.

Arriaga from Macau sits between the chairs,

I bring the numbers. He brings the prayers.

[Pre-Chorus]

Seventeen thousand three hundred eighteen pirates, then

Two hundred twenty-six ships. Say the number again.

[Time]

[Drop]

Twenty-four ships! That's what I keep!

Fourteen hundred hands, and the rest can sleep.

No chains, no block, no name on a list,

I walked in a pirate. I walked out a wife.

[Verse 2]

Zhang Bao gets a rank, lieutenant in the Qing,

A pirate with a salary, a hat, a ring.

I get to marry him on paper, the Emperor says fine,

A hundred twenty-six got the sword. Not every line was mine.

[Bridge]

Thirteen hundred cannons handed over, counted, cold,

The fund stayed where I put it. Ask the Viceroy about the gold.

[Outro]

Twenty-four ships.

[Fade Out]

[End]

[Intro]

[Female Vocal]

The house always wins. I should know. I'm the house.

Canton, a gambling room, a lantern and a ledger.

[Verse 1]

Zhang Bao made colonel, died at thirty-nine,

Penghu, eighteen twenty-two, a navy man this time.

I took our boy Yulin back home to Guangdong,

Opened up the tables and I carried on.

[Pre-Chorus]

Dice on the table, the river out the door,

Same math as the flower boat, only now I own the floor.

[Time]

[Drop]

House rules! Mine!

I ran the biggest fleet alive and now I run the line.

Eighteen-forty, I sue a man for twenty-eight thousand taels,

Lin Zexu throws it out. Even the pirate queen fails.

[Verse 2]

Sixty-nine years old, Nanhai, eighteen forty-four,

Nobody hanged me, nobody shot me, I died in a bed, not a war.

Four hundred junks, six flags, the Qing and Portugal,

And a gambling house in Canton. I think I had it all.

[Bridge]

They'll call me Ching Shih, they'll call me Zheng Yi Sao,

Shi Yang from Xinhui. Settle up. Goodnight.

[Outro]

The house always wins.

[Fade Out]

[End]