Through history textbooks, we know that the vigorous Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement was finally suppressed by the Qing rulers and western powers, and finally failed, and this foreign army that helped the Qing army to suppress the Taiping Army was called the Foreign Gun Brigade.
The Yankees were founded in 1860. At that time, Li Xiucheng, the loyal king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, led an army to occupy a large area in southern Jiangsu, and together with Hong Rengui led an army to attack Shanghai.
At this time, officials and wealthy households in Shanghai were frightened and asked for help from foreign embassies. At that time, the Second Opium War had just ended, and the Western powers were not willing to intervene in the war between the Qing Dynasty and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. At this time, an American hooligan named Wahl saw the business opportunity, so he recruited more than two hundred hooligans and formed a foreign gun team.
The soldiers of the yankee team were all foreigners at first, but most of them were replaced by Chinese, and the officers were composed of British, American, French and other personnel, and the money for the purchase of weapons and ammunition was sponsored by the Qing Dynasty government and the wealthy families in Shanghai.
Before coming to China, these foreigners could not mix in their own country, and they could be said to be foreign hooligans. For example, Wahl, who was an American, had fought in the Mexican, French and other countries, participated in the Crimean War, and later served as a first mate on the qing naval artillery ships.
Wahl's deputy, Bai Qiwen, had similar experiences to Wahl, as an American, he also participated in the French Army, experienced the Crimean War, traveled to Australia, India and other countries, and was keen to take risks.
Of course, these people formed a foreign gun team not to defend their homeland, but only to legally rob. Therefore, sometimes not only the civilians are robbed, but even the rich families of the local government dare to rob.
At that time, the policy was that if you wanted to become the leader of the foreign gun brigade, you must join the Chinese nationality and marry a Chinese woman, so Huaer joined the Chinese nationality, and Yang Fang, a Qing Dynasty official and rich merchant who fully supported Huaer, even married his daughter to Huaer. After Hua'er's death, Bai Qiwen also took the initiative to join the Chinese nationality and marry a Chinese woman in order to compete for the position of leader of the foreign gun team.
Death of Wahl
When the foreign gun team was first established, its combat effectiveness was weak, and it was defeated by the Taiping Army many times in Songjiang and Qingpu, and Hua'er was shot seven times and almost killed. Later, the Qing government increased its investment in the foreign gun team, recruited personnel, and deployed weapons, and the combat effectiveness of the foreign gun team was also enhanced. When the Taiping Army attacked Shanghai for the second time, it was successfully repelled.
In 1862, the Yankee Corps was renamed changshengjun, and its number also increased dramatically, reaching 5,000 people, and its combat effectiveness continued to increase. After Jiading and Qingpu were occupied by the Taiping Army, they were successively retaken by the Changsheng Army.
In the same year, Wahl was killed while fighting the Taiping Army in Cixi. The Qing government greatly deplored Hua'er's death, buried him and erected a shrine to commemorate him.
Death of Bai Qiwen
After Wahl's death, Britain and the United States competed for the leadership of the Changsheng Army, and Li Hongzhang, the leader of the Huai Army, also competed with the Shanghai magistrates Wu Xu and Yang Fang for the command of the Changsheng Army. In the end, Bai Qiwen, who was supported by Wu Xu and others, successfully took over.
Bai Qiwen was originally Hua'er's deputy, but his ability was far inferior to Huaer's, but he was untamed, which made the Western powers and the Qing government dissatisfied. In the winter of the same year, Li Xiucheng and the Thirteenth King led an army of 400,000 to attack Yuhuatai outside Tianjing City, and Li Hongzhang sent Changsheng's army to assist in the battle. Bai Qiwen did not receive military pay, was reluctant to leave, and constantly urged Yang Fang and Wu Xu to pay, and later personally took people to Yang Fang's home in Shanghai, beat him up, and robbed him of forty thousand taels of silver.
Li Hongzhang had long seen that Bai Qiwen was not pleasing to the eye, and in the name of robbing and beating officials, he played a book to the imperial court, and the Qing Dynasty ordered the arrest of Bai Qiwen. Bai Qiwen ran to Beijing, asked the British and French envoys for help, and then ran back to Shanghai, proposing to Li Hongzhang that he should continue to be the leader of the Changsheng Army, but Li Hongzhang drove him out.
Bai Qiwen was angry, grabbed a boat, took a group of his men, and ran to Suzhou to join Tan Shaoguang, the King of Mu of the Taiping Army.
However, after spending several months in the Taiping Army, Bai Qiwen could not stand it anymore and returned to Changsheng Army and was sent back to Japan by the US consulate. In 1865, after the defeat of the Taiping Army, Li Shixian, the prince of the imperial army, turned to the Fujian coast, and Bai Qiwen came to his aid and was captured in the Battle of Zhangzhou.
The Americans originally wanted to save Bai Qiwen's life, but the Qing Dynasty sent people to escort him to Suzhou, and on the way he fell into the water in Lanxi, Zhejiang Province, and died, and posterity suspected that Li Hongzhang sent someone to drown him.
Gordon's death
After Bai Qiwen surrendered to the Taiping Army, the Changsheng Army was led by the British Gordon. Gordon was a professional soldier who participated in the Second Opium War and ruled the army more strictly, which was in stark contrast to the burning and looting of Wahl and Bai Qiwen. The Changsheng army led by Gordon had coordinated with Li Hongzhang's Huai army to attack Taicang, Changzhou, Shanghai and other places, and because of its strong combat effectiveness and fierce firepower, it became the vanguard of suppressing the Taiping Army. Gordon was also granted the post of Viceroy by the Tongzhi Emperor, and the official was congyi Yipin.
Gordon also had a sense of justice, and when he attacked Suzhou, he vouched for the Taiping Army and promoted the surrender of the Eight Kings of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. But later, the Eight Kings and tens of thousands of Taiping troops were slaughtered by Li Hongzhang, and Gordon was furious and went to Li Hongzhang with a gun to settle the account.
After the fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Changsheng Army was disbanded, and Gordon returned to England and was sent to fight in Africa as governor. In 1884, Gordon was besieged by local rebels in Khartoum, and eventually the city was destroyed, and Gordon was stabbed to death with a spear by the local natives.
Summary: The foreign gun team contributed more in the war to suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but the three leaders died in succession, which can also be regarded as evil and evil retribution.