
Wang Chao was a Chinese-American black marketeer who acquired contraband for the Tongs and San Francisco Police Department during the 1870s.
Biography[]

Chao in 1878
Wang Chao was born in Qing China, and, after his parents were killed during the Taiping Rebellion, he decided to immigrate to the United States as a young man and seek his fortune. The ship captain had a different plan, sailing to Cuba and selling Wang and several other Chinese immigrants into slavery. Wang spent eleven years in Spanish slavery before escaping; years later, he lamented how his fellow immigrants were likely still enslaved in Cuba, but his experience in bondage left him motivated to seek a life greater than being a "coolie" laborer in America.
On his arrival in San Francisco, Wang Chao became a successful black marketeer in Chinatown, selling swords and knives and serving as a middleman for Chinatown's major gangs, such as the Long Zii Tong and Hop Wei Tong. He also recruited newly-arrived Chinese labor for businessmen such as Lao Ting, and he was well-known to the San Francisco Police Department due to his status as an informal go-between for Chinatown and the outside world.
In 1878, Wang Chao introduced the scrappy young immigrant Ah Sahm to Hop Wei Tong underboss Young Jun after observing him beat down several racist immigration officers at the Port of San Francisco, and he became one of Ah Sahm's closest associates. He also worked to broker a peace between Father Jun's Hop Wei Tong and Long Zii's tong, with he and Lao Ting setting up a duel between the tongs to end their war; while the duel resulted in Ah Sahm being defeated by Li Yong and being ostracized by the Hop Wei, Wang Chao offered his help with rescuing Ah Sahm from his degrading "coolie" labor, recounting his own days as a slave.
Wang Chao's shop was closed down by the police during their crackdown on the gangs at the same time as the 1878 San Francisco riots, but he was later able to reopen it, and he helped the Hop Wei scam Happy Jack with fake money. Happy Jack later persuaded Wang Chao to help him take down the policeman Richard Lee for helping the US Secret Service shut down the Hop Wei's counterfeiting operation, only for Happy Jack to kidnap both men and put them on a train to Georgia, where Happy Jack intended to claim Lee's bounty and sell Wang into slavery. Chao and Lee were forced to reconcile and team up to kill Lee's racist kin, who wanted vengeance for his murder of two relatives in revenge for their killing of his Black girlfriend. They returned to San Francisco, where Lee rejoined the United States Secret Service and warned Chao that he would have no choice but to arrest him if he remained involved with counterfeiting.

Wang Chao lying wounded
Not long after, the police arrested the counterfeiter Yan Mi, causing Ah Sahm to approach Wang Chao and ask him to keep all of his saved-up money as he attempted to see to Yan Mi's release and her escape from the city before the paranoid Young Jun could kill her. Wang Chao saw Yan Mi off at the station while Ah Sahm was held up attempting to stop the Hop Wei from killing his sister Mai Ling, but, shortly after Yan Mi's train left, Wang Chao was confronted by Zing Yuen, who stabbed him several times and left him for dead.