In James Clavell's novel Tai-Pan there is a large pirate fleet with Europeans in it that operates from Formosa under a family dynasty of Chinese Pirates, Was there anything like this in the real world?

by SeeBoar

Is this historically accurate at all?

zhemao

I'm not sure whether there was ever an actual pirate group that was exactly like that, but it seems like a conglomeration of different.

The large pirate flee run by a family dynasty of pirates could refer to Zheng Yi and Zheng Shi's pirate fleet, which had 300 ships. Zheng Yi was a pirate during the Qing dynasty who was descended from a long line of successful pirates. Zheng Shi was his wife, who took over leadership of the fleet after her husband died. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ching_Shih

The Pirates on Formosa is probably a reference to Zheng Chenggong aka Koxinga, a loyalist Ming admiral who attacked Qing forces from his base in Taiwan.