In the 16th year of Daoguang, In Xixiang, Hefei, Anhui, a peasant family surnamed Liu gave birth to his 6th child, named Liu Mingchuan.
Due to the poor family, the family's physical condition is not very good, and Liu Mingchuan has to live smallpox at a very young age. When he was 11 years old, his father died, then his two brothers died one after another, and then he was older, and the remaining brothers started a family.
Since then, he has been dependent on his mother Zhou Shi, Liu Mingchuan knows the importance of making a living, he sold salt at a young age, and because he loved to make friends, he had a high prestige among the local youth.
A little older, Liu Ming's family life became more and more difficult, and once there was a conflict with the local powerful, and the other party threatened. Liu Mingchuan and the other party moved their hands, and finally drew a knife and cut off the other party's head, which caused a huge shock in the township. Liu Mingchuan knew that his hometown could not stay any longer, so he ran into the mountains with a group of like-minded young people.
In the second year of Tongzhi, because of the huge momentum of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the original Green Battalion soldiers and the Eight Banners had long been unusable. Li Hongzhang was assigned by the imperial court to return to his hometown to recruit the Huai army, and at this time Liu Mingchuan had a small amount of power, so he directly defected.
Because of the large number of his men, Li Hongzhang was regarded as a meritorious person, so he served as a battalion officer, and the unit became the Mingzi battalion, in fact, most of the brothers in the camp were liu family's sons, all of them were brothers of the same ethnic group, Liu Mingchuan did things decisively, and the generations were high, and naturally won the trust of the brothers.
After a period of reorganization, the Huai army took a small foreign steamer to Shanghai, and it was here that he experienced the first battle in his life, and the local Taiping Army defenders were invincible. So he sent people to surrender, and then Liu Mingchuan received thousands of people, organized them into eight battalions, and became his subordinates.
At the end of the month, reinforcements from the Taiping Army arrived, and Liu Mingchuan led his army to successfully defeat the other side. As a result, he was promoted to a higher rank and was rewarded, and as the war progressed, the Huai army began to advance towards southern Jiangsu, and Liu Mingchuan already had more than 3,000 people under him.
However, due to the smoothness of the previous campaign, the troops had the mood of taking the enemy lightly, and were defeated when Fukuyama encountered the elite troops of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but it was the foreign foreign gun team that helped the Huai army gain a firm foothold. Making a comeback, he captured Fukuyama and was promoted again as the defender of Wolf Mountain, and for a time Liu Mingchuan led his army to capture several counties in succession, and when he captured Jiangyin, he had become a nominal governor.
Liu Mingchuan, who continued to gain experience in the war, became more and more old,000, and then led his army to Wuxi, where he captured more than 20,000 prisoners after several days of street fighting. Subsequently, he received a new reward, at this time Liu Ming's mission had 9,000 people, with more than 4,000 artillery battalions and new fast guns, and also became a backbone of Li Hongzhang's Huai army.
In the third year of Tongzhi, the 28-year-old Liu Mingchuan once again raised his military rank and became the highest-ranking general in the Huai Army, and after the suppression of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Liu Mingchuan moved non-stop to the battlefield of the Suppression of the Twist Army. That is also the year that the monk Greenqin, who had made outstanding achievements in battle, was surrounded by the Eastern Twist army in Shandong because of his greed and courage, and as a result, he was defeated and killed.
In this battle, Liu Mingchuan had been trying to preserve his strength according to the lack of motivation of the soldiers, and after being recognized by the imperial court, he was very angry, and his immediate superiors Li Hongzhang and Zeng Guofan were reprimanded, while Liu Mingchuan himself was dismissed from his post and retained.
At the end of the same year, when the monk Greenqin broke the sand, Liu Mingchuan finally led his troops to catch up with the tail of the Twister Army, and with the help of foreign guns and cannons, he wantonly killed and injured the enemy and captured the other side's stronghold. Because of this battle, he was reinstated as an official.
After more than 200 years of Manchu rule, the restrictions on Han officials had to be relaxed, and Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang quickly grew larger, and Li Hongzhang tried to preserve his strength on the issue of suppressing the twisters. Therefore, in the face of the monk Green qing falling under siege, he deliberately let Liu Mingchuan not move, and taking advantage of the opportunity of this final decisive battle, Li Hongzhang once again expanded the Huai army under his command, and the number suddenly reached more than 70,000, especially the close confidant Liu Mingchuan was even more than enough to feed the soldiers.
At this time, the Western Twister army wanted to take Tianjin directly, and the imperial court that received the news ordered Liu Mingchuan to lead an army to block the attack, and then the two armies met in the triangle of the Yellow River, the Tujiao River and the Canal, and Liu Mingchuan smoothly surrounded the Western Twister army, and Liu Mingchuan won a great victory in this battle, and the Twister army was overthrown.
Subsequently, Zuo Liu Mingchuan followed Zuo Zongtang into Shaanxi and Gansu, suppressing the rebellion there.
However, after everything was accomplished, he was affected by the mutiny of the soldiers in the army, and Liu Mingchuan was immediately dismissed. He had no choice but to return to his hometown to live idly, and in the next ten years, Liu Mingchuan's thoughts were wide open, and many people with foreign affairs ideas gathered around him until the outbreak of the Sino-French War.
Liu Mingchuan, who had long been anonymous, was once again recruited by the imperial court to become the minister of Taiwan affairs and the inspector of Fujian, and then Liu Mingchuan and the French army broke out in Keelung in 1884, the French fleet suffered heavy losses, and later experienced a series of battles, all of which ended in French defeat.
In the 11th year of Guangxu, Liu Mingchuan was appointed as the governor of Taiwan, and it was precisely because he was exposed to many new ideas during his dormancy.
Therefore, various modern industries began to be opened in Taiwan, including the erection of telegraphs, the opening of coal mines, the construction of railways, and the development of postal and shipping industries.
Draft history of the Qing Dynasty: "Liu Mingchuan's talent is unmatched, and he does not live under the people, so it is easy to retreat and difficult to advance." Guarding Taiwan and governing Taiwan has its own achievements. ”
In the 16th year of Guangxu, Liu Mingchuan and the diehards in the imperial court had a fierce conflict, he resigned in anger, and then the Battle of Jiawu broke out, and the Qing army suffered a devastating blow, at this time Manchu Qingcai thought of Liu Mingchuan again, and sent a telegram asking him to re-emerge from the mountain, but at this time Liu Mingchuan was seriously ill.
In the 22nd year of Guangxu, when the news of the Treaty of Maguan came, Liu Mingchuan was indignant in his heart, and died of illness in his hometown in January of that year, and was posthumously awarded the crown prince Taibao by the Qing court. The history books commented on this person: "In the three hundred years in Taiwan, there have been many officials, and those who can rule for a long time, the two people who can rule and establish policies, the two people who are known as Chen Junjun Yonghua, and liu Inspector Fu Mingchuan, are all those who have great merit in the state. ”
Reference: Qing History