The Birth of a Mercenary Force

In the sweltering summer of 1862, as the Taiping Rebellion raged across eastern China, a peculiar military unit emerged as the Qing dynasty’s unlikely hope—the “Ever-Victorious Army” (常胜军). This Sino-foreign mercenary force, led by the American adventurer Frederick Townsend Ward, represented a desperate imperial gambit to harness Western military expertise against the rebel onslaught. Ward’s ragtag band of Filipino, European, and Chinese soldiers initially drew sneers from British officers, but their unconventional tactics—including amphibious assaults using shallow-draft steamboats—soon proved devastatingly effective against Taiping forces around Shanghai.

The Ever-Victorious Army’s origins reflected China’s deepening crisis. After the 1860 fall of Suzhou to the Taiping, Western powers grew alarmed at the rebellion’s threat to treaty ports. While officially neutral, British and French officials quietly supported Qing forces defending Shanghai. Ward, a Salem-born soldier of fortune with experience in Latin American conflicts, seized this opportunity. His marriage to the daughter of Shanghai banker Yang Fang (杨坊) secured local financing, while his battlefield successes earned imperial recognition—the Qing court even granted him Chinese citizenship.

Death of a Mercenary King

The army’s meteoric rise met sudden tragedy on September 21, 1862. During operations near Ningbo, Ward took a bullet to the abdomen. As he lay dying in agony, his final words epitomized his mercenary spirit: a demand for 140,000 taels (≈$200,000) in back pay owed by Shanghai officials. The subsequent farcical journey of his corpse—transported on a Confederate-sympathizing captain’s coal-starved steamer that burned furniture and pork barrels for fuel—became a darkly comic metaphor for foreign involvement in China’s war.

Ward’s death created a leadership vacuum. His successor Henry Burgevine—a charismatic North Carolinian with a drinking problem—initially continued victories but soon clashed with Qing commanders. When Shanghai treasurer Yang Fang withheld salaries, Burgevine stormed his mansion, beating the banker and seizing 40,000 silver dollars at gunpoint. This spectacular act of insubordination ended American leadership of the Ever-Victorious Army and deepened Qing suspicions of foreign mercenaries.

The British Intervention

As American star faded, British influence waxed. London, concerned about French ambitions and seeking to stabilize trade, authorized officers to serve the Qing. The appointment of Charles “Chinese” Gordon in March 1863 marked a pivotal shift. This ascetic Royal Engineers officer—who famously wished he’d been born a eunuch—imposed discipline on the mutinous troops, reportedly executing a disobedient soldier to restore order.

Gordon’s campaigns with Qing general Li Hongzhang achieved dramatic successes. Their combined forces, utilizing steam-powered gunboats and modern artillery, cleared Taiping strongholds around Shanghai. By summer 1863, they threatened Suzhou—the rebellion’s eastern capital. Yet cultural tensions simmered beneath these victories. Gordon’s fastidious professionalism clashed with Qing commanders’ pragmatic brutality, foreshadowing coming tragedy.

The Suzhou Massacre and Its Aftermath

The December 4, 1863 surrender of Suzhou’s Taiping princes became the war’s defining atrocity. After persuading six rebel kings to betray their commander (beheading him during a banquet), Gordon guaranteed their safety. But Li Hongzhang, distrusting turncoats, had the princes executed and dismembered. A furious Gordon brandished a pistol, searching for Li to shoot him “like a dog.” The incident sparked international outrage and exposed Britain’s uncomfortable role as Qing mercenaries.

London’s political establishment recoiled. Parliament revoked permission for British officers to serve China, and The Times thundered: “We are not fighting China’s battles, but China is fighting ours.” The Ever-Victorious Army disbanded in 1864 as the Qing finally crushed the Taiping with Zeng Guofan’s Hunan Army. Gordon’s subsequent death at Khartoum (1885) cemented his legend, but his Chinese interlude remained controversial.

Legacy of Blood and Silver

The Ever-Victorious Army’s brief existence illuminated 19th-century imperialism’s contradictions. For Britain, it tested indirect rule through proxy forces—a model later refined in Egypt and Sudan. For China, it demonstrated Western military superiority while reinforcing xenophobia. The mercenaries’ eventual expendability foreshadowed the Self-Strengthening Movement’s limitations.

Financially, the adventure proved spectacularly profitable. British trade with China tripled during intervention years (1861-64), cushioning Lancashire’s cotton famine. But the human cost was staggering—the Taiping Rebellion claimed 20-30 million lives, with foreign mercenaries playing a catalytic role in its suppression.

Today, Ward’s forgotten tomb in Songjiang and Gordon’s memorial in St. Paul’s Cathedral stand as incongruous bookends to this strange episode where global empires collided, and where loyalty, like cannon smoke, dissipated with the wind.