The Guangdong Pirate Confederation was an alliance of pirate fleets active in late-18th- and early-19th-century China, around the Pearl River Delta. At its height, the confederation had an estimated 4
Cheung Po Tsai's pirates fighting the Chinese ships at the battle off Ladrone Islands c. 1808
Pearl River estuary
Macau in the 19th century
The Portuguese Navy fighting pirates in the Pearl River Delta
Lingchi
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Lingchi, usually translated "slow slicing" or "death by a thousand cuts", is a form of torture and execution that was used in China from c. 900 until it was banned in 1905. It was also used in Vietnam
Guangdong Pirate Confederation
…pirates and especially repeat offenders could expect the death penalty, one of the most popular methods of execution employed by the Chinese state being death by slicing. Death by slicing was reserved for those involved in the killing of soldiers or officials, plundering of foreign merchant ships and the murder of three…
An 1858 illustration from the French newspaper Le Monde illustré, of the lingchi execution of a French missionary, Auguste Chapdelaine, in China
Execution of Joseph Marchand in Vietnam, 1835
Lingchi execution in Beijing c. April 1905, apparently of Fou-Tchou-Li