The Black Flag Army (; ,

chữ Nôm Chữ Nôm (, ) is a logographic writing system formerly used to write the Vietnamese language. It uses Chinese characters to represent Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and some native Vietnamese words, with other words represented by new characters ...

: ) was a splinter remnant of a bandit and

mercenary A mercenary is a private individual who joins an armed conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any other official military. Mercenaries fight for money or other forms of payment rather t ...

group recruited largely from soldiers of ethnic Zhuang background and former Taiping soldiers who crossed the border in 1865 from

Guangxi Guangxi,; officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam (Hà Giang Province, Hà Giang, Cao Bằn ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

into

northern Vietnam Northern Vietnam or '' Tonkin'' () is one of three geographical regions in Vietnam. It consists of three geographic sub-regions: the Northwest (Vùng Tây Bắc), the Northeast (Vùng Đông Bắc), and the Red River Delta (Đồng Bằng Sôn ...

, during the

Nguyễn dynasty The Nguyễn dynasty (, chữ Nôm: 茹阮, chữ Hán: 朝阮) was the last List of Vietnamese dynasties, Vietnamese dynasty, preceded by the Nguyễn lords and ruling unified Vietnam independently from 1802 until French protectorate in 1883 ...

, and were hired and sponsored by Vietnamese authorities to fight against other bandits and rebels. Although

brigands Brigandage is the life and practice of highway robbery and plunder. It is practiced by a brigand, a person who is typically part of a gang and lives by pillage and robbery.Oxford English Dictionary second edition, 1989. "Brigand.2" first record ...

, they were known mainly for their fights against the invading French forces, who were then moving into

Tonkin Tonkin, also spelled Tongkin, Tonquin or Tongking, is an exonym referring to the northern region of Vietnam. During the 17th and 18th centuries, this term referred to the domain '' Đàng Ngoài'' under Trịnh lords' control, including both the ...

(

). The Black Flag Army is so named because of the preference of its commander,

Liu Yongfu Liu Yongfu () (10 October 1837 – 9 January 1917) was a Chinese warlord, second president of the Republic of Formosa and commander of the celebrated Black Flag Army. Liu won fame as a Chinese patriot fighting against the French colonial empire, ...

, for using black command flags. The army was officially disbanded in 1885 as a result of the

Treaty of Tientsin The Treaty of Tientsin, also known as the Treaty of Tianjin, is a collective name for several Unequal treaty, unequal treaties signed at Tianjin (then Postal Map Romanization, romanized as Tientsin) in June 1858. The Qing Empire, Qing dynasty, ...

between

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

and

. However, remnants of the army continued to wage a guerrilla war against French colonial authorities for years. With the sanction of both Vietnamese and Chinese authorities, the Black Flags joined the Vietnamese irregular forces, stemming French encroachment beyond the

Red River Delta The Red River Delta or Hong River Delta () is the flat low-lying plain formed by the Red River and its distributaries merging with the Thái Bình River in Northern Vietnam. ''Hồng'' (紅) is a Sino-Vietnamese word for "red" or "crimson". T ...

The rise and fall of the Black Flag Army

In 1857,

, a

Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka-speaking Chinese, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas, are a southern Han Chinese subgroup whose principal settlements and ancestral homes are dispersed widely across the provinces of southern China ...

soldier of fortune, commanded a group of about 200 men within a larger Highwayman group in

province headed by Huang Sihong (Chinese:

黃 Radical 201 or radical yellow () meaning "yellow" is one of the 4 Kangxi radicals (214 radicals in total) composed of 12 strokes. In the ''Kangxi Dictionary'', there are 42 characters (out of 49,030) to be found under this radical. The ''xin ...

思宏). He allied with the Taiping forces in the region. He defected with his men to the band of Wu Yuanqing (Chinese:

吳吳 or 呉 is an East Asian character for a word or morpheme. It may refer to: *Kure, Hiroshima, a city in Japan * O (surname), a common Korean surname *Wu (surname), the pinyin transliteration of a common Chinese surname *Ng (name) Ng (pronounce ...

元 Yuan may refer to: Currency * Yuan (currency), the basic unit of currency in historic and contemporary mainland China and Taiwan ** Renminbi, the currency of modern mainland China, whose basic unit is yuan ** New Taiwan dollar, the currency used ...

清) under his own black flag. Liu organized a ceremony reminiscent of the

tiandihui The Tiandihui, the Heaven and Earth Society, also called Hongmen (the Vast Family), is a Chinese fraternal organization and historically a secretive folk religious sect in the vein of the Ming loyalist White Lotus Sect, the Tiandihu ...

(天地会) rituals and what became known as the Black Flag Army was born. The "army" operated as an independent unit under Wu Yuanqing and under his son and successor, Wu Yazhong (Chinese:

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