How piracy adapted to steamship traffic

Steamship-era piracy demanded knowledge of schedules, coastal routes, and commercial practice. That did not require the elaborate pirate corporations imagined by sensational British and American newspapers. Many attackers were connected to triads, smaller gangs, local armed groups, or warlords rather than formal fleets. Some boarded as ordinary passengers while their weapons traveled aboard in crates described as cargo. Once under way, they armed themselves from the hold and seized the vessel from within. The episode is useful for separating practical criminal adaptation from the period's exoticized press mythology.