The terrible first modern Chinese fighting force.

 189 years ago today in 1831, the mercenary, filibuster, adventurer, and warlord, Frederick Townsend Ward, the so-called ‘White Hua’, was born.

 A largely forgotten figure today, during his lifetime Ward was best known for having raised and commanded the first modern Chinese fighting force,

known as the Ever Victorious Army, against the fanatical rebel hordes of the Taiping.

Ward hailed from the gloomy New England town of Salem, Massachusetts. Once a booming centre of commerce that had been at the heart of the old China trade, by the time Ward was born it had become clenched in decay. 

Though he grew up in a mansion and was raised by a prominent family, the Ward household, like Salem itself, had long passed the crest of its fortunes. 

It is little surprise then that in such circumstances, Ward had little regard for his native Salem and family other than a determined desire to be free of them.

 After trying and failing on a few occasions to run away from home, in 1846 he tried and failed to gain admission to the military academy at West Point. 

Had he been accepted his life would have taken a different turn entirely and most likely he would have ended up being an officer in the American Civil War. 

Instead he was forced to spend a year at Norwich University, a private military college in Vermont. 

There too he failed to graduate. When the United States went to war against Mexico in 1848 he tried to enlist in the army but was stopped by his strict father. 

Up to that point, every attempt he had made to serve his country had been met either with rejection or with failure. In 1850 he submitted to the age-old Salem profession of sailing and embarked on a voyage down to South America. 

It was during this journey that he met with the great Italian adventurer and revolutionary, Giuseppe Garibaldi, just offshore from Peru. What the veteran filibuster said to the young Ward is not known, but the brief encounter evidently left its mark on him. 

With every other avenue closed to him, Ward resolved to make his own way by joining the ranks of the filibusters – the caste of American adventurers who sought to install themselves as rulers of their own nations in Latin America. 

In 1853 he joined the so-called ‘King of the Filibusters’ and ‘Grey-Eyed Man of Destiny’, William Walker, on his crazed expedition to conquer Mexican California.

 Though the whole fiasco rather predictably ended in humiliation for Walker and his rabble of misfit conquerors, Ward learned a great deal from Walker’s mistakes, in particular regarding the limits of discipline and the value of being able to empathise with one’s men. 

Finding, as many did, that Walker was too eccentric, vain, and erratic, Ward deserted from his ranks and tried to start a scrap metal business in Mexico. When this failed he travelled all the way by mule to San Francisco where he boarded a ship to Hong Kong. 

Upon his arrival he offered his services as a filibuster to the Imperial Chinese government that was struggling to suppress the rising Taiping movement of Hong Xiuquan – who believed himself to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ.

 Turned down again, Walker returned to the West and volunteered in the French Imperial Army for the Crimean War. His time in Crimea proved to be a short one as he was forced to resign for insubordination to a superior officer. 

After the Crimea he drifted between America and China for a number of years, serving intermittently as a sailor, Texas Ranger and mercenary for the Mexican government.

 Finally, after a decade of failures and dashed dreams, in 1859 he boarded a ship for Shanghai and was determined to never set foot on American soil again.

Ward arrival in China coincided with a whirlwind of other events. Shanghai at this time was only partially Chinese, the rest was partitioned between the British, French, and other ‘Western Barbarians’.

 The Second Opium War was ongoing with British and French landing expeditions to the north to attack Beijing. 

In the south, the Taiping Rebellion had spiralled out of control and threatened to end the rule of the Qing dynasty for good.

 Though both the Westerners and the Taiping were at war with the Qing, no formal alliance existed between the two and officially at least were neutral with one another.

 In early 1860 however, the Taiping had broken free of the encirclement of their capital in Nanjing and were advancing on the treaty port of Shanghai. It was into this diplomatic mess, that Ward entered the stage. 

Fearing what the Taiping would do if they seized Shanghai, the Chinese banker, Yang Fang, and the bureaucrat Wu Xu, reached out to Ward to raise an army of filibusters and defend the city. 

After their defeat to the British in the First Opium War, the Chinese assumed that the mere sight of western soldiers would scare off the Taiping rebels. The troops which Ward hired however were no profession soldiers. 

Like Walker’s filibuster forces, it was a ragtag collection of individuals of all nationalities and backgrounds, ranging from professional soldiers and deserters to barefaced opportunists and drunkards. 

Armed with Colt revolvers and Sharp’s repeating carbines, they advanced on the strategic stronghold of Songjiang on the outskirts of Shanghai – hoping to defeat the rebel garrison before the main Taiping horde arrived.

 Ward’s illegal army got drunk before attacking the fortress town however and made such noise shouting and swearing that they woke up the sentries and were cut to pieces.

 Undeterred, Ward dispensed with the drunkards, hired some tough-as-leather Filipino “Manilamen” and bought a pair of half-ton Napoleon field guns. 

Armed with nothing more than a rattan stick, Ward led his troops through the fog of the night and stormed the fortress. After a bitter struggle at close quarters, they managed to seize the town. 

The victory proved to be only temporary however as not long afterwards they encountered a mercenary crew working for the Taiping led by an Englishman known by the name of “Savage.” Ward and his men were soundly defeated and Songjiang lost. 

As the Taiping besieged Shanghai, Ward found himself on the wrong side of the authorities who were enraged for having potentially provoked the Taiping into attacking the lightly defended Shanghai.

 Amidst the carnage and madness which followed as the international settlement fended off the Taiping horde, Ward was momentarily arrested and imprisoned aboard a British ship before launching a daring escape.

 As the Taiping armies receded from Shanghai, he raised a new army with the financial backing of Yang Fang again.

 This time the officers would be Americans and Europeans, but the soldiers themselves would be Chinese. This proved to be the beginning of the Ever Victorious Army.

Over the two years which followed, Ward acquired Chinese citizenship and led his new army from victory to victory. 

With the conquests of the Taiping thwarting trade and commerce in China, the British and French soon saw the potential of Ward and gave him their blessing to take the fight to the enemy. With his Chinese soldiers wielding the same modern weaponry of a Western army, he soon had one of the most lethal fighting forces in China at his disposal. 

Though on paper he was loyal to the Qing dynasty whose soldiers he fought alongside, in truth the Imperial government remained weary of him and were afraid that he would establish himself as a warlord in Central China once the Taiping were finished.

Fortunately for all concerned, this never came to pass as Ward was fated not to see the final defeat of the Taiping in 1864. In 1862 he was shot in the stomach at Ningbo. 

His death was a long and agonising one. True to form for a mercenary opportunist of his character, his last words were “That Yang Fang and Wu Xu owe me money.

” After his demise his army fell into disarray before being taken over by the equally colourful character of Charles Gordon.

 For all his misgivings, the Chinese had held Ward in high esteem and regard, practically deifying him as “the White Hua.

 After his death a shrine was dedicated to him in Shanghai. The shrine remained there until the Communist takeover at which was concreted over.