The Taiping Rebellion occupied Nanjing in 1853. From this moment on, its pace of expansion slowed down. Britain and France also secretly negotiated with Nanjing, hoping to establish cooperative relations with this emerging regime.
However, I did not expect that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was more xenophobic than the Manchus. They closed the door to cooperation and expanded to Shanghai, gradually threatening the security of the Shanghai Concession.
The European immigrants in Shanghai rebelled and organized themselves, forming a volunteer team composed of Europeans and Chinese!
This completely Western-style armed force launched a protracted battle with the Xiaodao Society and the vanguard of the Taiping Rebellion, and the American Wall was the commander of this civilian armed force!
In the initial battle to protect the Shanghai Concession, Wall's foreign gun team actually did not have an advantage. It was the peak period of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's power. The Little Knife Society launched a fierce offensive in Shanghai, and Wall could only retreat steadily!
When the war situation was at its most critical, the Qingpu and Jiading areas of Shanghai were all captured by the Taiping Army!
Wall knew that he could not fight against the Taiping Army just by relying on the volunteers of the people. In order to reverse the situation, he asked for help from the British and French coalition forces that invaded China. The two sides hit it off immediately. The British and French armies could not spare any manpower, but the navy began to provide Wall with a lot of support!
Not only did it provide fleet fire support in the Yangtze and Huangpu Rivers, but it even sent sailors to land for coordinated operations. As for weapons and equipment, it was given priority to Wall's foreign gun team!
It was with the support of the British and French allied forces that the strength of Wall's foreign riflemen increased sharply. In 1861, its strength grew to 2,000 men, and by 1862 it exceeded 5,000 men.
The powerful foreign gun team finally blocked the Taiping Army's attack. The Qing government had to pay attention to this force. In 1862, the court named it the Ever-Victorious Army and officially incorporated it into the Qing Dynasty's army sequence!
That is, in 1862, after Gordon completed the exploration and design task of the Tianjin Concession, he was dispatched to Shanghai and officially entered the victorious army sequence as a British professional officer.
Of course, at that time, his command ranking was behind Americans Wall and Bai Qiwen, and he was the third commander!
But just after he arrived in Shanghai and joined the Ever-Victorious Army, an important battle happened that changed his life!
In the spring of 1862, Li Xiucheng, the loyal king of the Taiping Army, led 30,000 elite troops. With the cooperation of the Xiaodao Society, they invaded Shanghai and garrisoned at Bailongtan!
After Li Xiucheng arrived in Shanghai, he began to build forts, set up camp, and prepare military supplies!
At that time, the official name of the Shanghai Imperial Court was Songjiang Fucheng. This was where the Shanghai Yamen was located and where foreigners focused their attention!
Li Xiucheng gradually built a huge encirclement network outside Songjiang Prefecture, preparing to launch an offensive against Songjiang Prefecture in the summer. He built thousands of ladders alone!
At that time, the situation in Shanghai changed three times a day, and people in the city were panicked. Foreigners in the concession boarded ships and fled unless they had no choice. The tickets for leaving Shanghai to Hong Kong were tripled!
It was at this most critical moment that Gordon began to carry out anti-siege civil engineering operations against Li Xiucheng!
At his suggestion, the Ever Victorious Army continued to harass the Taiping Army and delayed their siege operations, and ruthlessly burned all the houses in the area from Caihuajing to Zhuganhui outside the city. They were all burned to the ground, blocking the Taiping Army's attack with ruins!
Wall, Bai Qiwen, and Gordon did their best to turn the tide at that time and tried their best to undermine the strategy of the loyal king Li Xiucheng. It was not until June that Li Xiucheng completed the preparations for the siege!
Chang Shengjun's harassment and destruction strategy was a huge success!
What follows is simply God helping Shanghai. The famous Thirteen Kings in history came back to Tianjing to aid Tianjing in this year, and among the Thirteen Kings was the loyal king Li Xiucheng!
It turns out that Zeng Guofan's army has approached Tianjing City, and the vanguard is none other than the famous Ninth Commander Zeng Guoquan!
Zeng Guoquan's heavy troops had approached Nanjing's Yuhuatai, and the city of Tianjing was shaken. Hong Xiuquan ordered the loyal king Li Xiucheng to return to help Tianjing three times a day!
Unable to withstand the pressure, Li Xiucheng had no choice but to abandon Shanghai and withdraw with his elite troops!
When the news came, the entire Songjiang Mansion was at peace, and the concession was filled with joy... But just when Gordon breathed a sigh of relief, something unexpected happened!
In late June, the Taiping Army took the initiative to withdraw, but Hua Er and Bai Qiwen of the Ever Victorious Army had other ideas!
As soon as the Taiping Army left, the Ever Victorious Army began to plunder and plunder on the grounds of lack of pay and silver!
They started by extorting grain from rice shops, and then extorted property from merchants all over the city. If this was not enough, in the end they even took over the treasury and looted all the official silver of the imperial court!
During the entire robbery incident, the Chang Sheng Army robbed a total of 350,000 taels of silver. Gordon was dumbfounded!
Although he was a soldier who absolutely believed in colonialism, and his hands and feet in the colonies were not clean, he had never done such a blatant robbery against the government!
After this incident, each of the five thousand soldiers of the Ever-Victorious Army received thirty taels of silver, a total of one hundred and fifty thousand taels!
The other middle-level officials took away 50,000 taels!
Then another 50,000 taels were used to repay part of the loans from foreign merchants. In the end, Wall, Bai Qiwen and Gordon shared a total of 100,000 taels of silver!
Hua Er received 40,000 taels each, and Bai Qiwen and Gordon each received 30,000 taels!
This was the first large-denomination black money Gordon had ever earned in his life. The money came so easily!
Gordon is not a gentleman. He has no psychological baggage about robbing the colonies. He just thinks that directly robbing the government is a bit too ugly!
After all, he also graduated from the British Royal Military Academy!
In the final analysis, Hua Er and Bai Qiwen are just American hooligans!
But no matter how much he struggled in his heart, he still took the money and transferred it to his account in London through the British Bank in Shanghai.
This robbery incident ended up being nothing. Hua Er and Bai Qiwen were very smart. They had become China experts!
These people know how to deal with the Chinese government and people!
First of all, they rob but do not hurt anyone, steal money but never touch women!
This brought the situation down, because in the society at that time, passing troops was like a flood, and the people had already adapted to the army's robbery!
As long as you don't hurt or kill people or insult women, isn't that just money? It's like paying an extra tax. As long as you don't take away all my principal, I will tolerate it!
Even the government treasury was plundered in vain, and local officials had many ways to find ways to collect money from the people to make up for the shortfall!
After all, this robbery is equivalent to collecting an extra tax of 350,000 taels of silver from the people of Shanghai!
It was this routine that the Ever-victorious Army played so well. During the later counterattack against the Taiping Army, the Ever-victorious Army looted every place it conquered!
Gordon was uncomfortable with it at the beginning, but gradually started to enjoy it in the end!
Wall died in battle at the end of 1862. From then on, the division of the victorious army's spoils became a private matter between Gordon and Bai Qiwen!
How come Gordon and Bai Qiwen have such a deep personal relationship?
That was the result of a robbery and robbery!
