29 Facts About Liu Yongfu

Liu Yongfu was a Chinese warlord, second president of the Republic of Formosa and commander of the celebrated Black Flag Army.

Liu Yongfu succeeded Tang as the second and last president of the short-lived Republic of Formosa.

Liu Yongfu was born on 10 October 1837, in the town of Qinzhou in southern China, close to the Vietnamese border.

The ancestral home of Liu Yongfu's family was the village of Popai in Guangxi province, and when he was eight his parents moved to Shangsizhou in Guangxi.

In 1857, Liu Yongfu joined a local militia force commanded by Wu Yuanqing, who claimed to hold a commission from the Taipings.

Liu Yongfu struck first and defeated a far stronger army of montagnards in a surprise attack.

The short conflict enabled Liu Yongfu to come to an early arrangement with the Vietnamese authorities, who had observed the performance of the Black Flag Army with great interest.

Liu Yongfu's band was allied with the Yellow Flag Army, a force established by Huang Chongying on the model of the Black Flag Army and about three times its size.

In 1869, having conciliated the Vietnamese, Liu Yongfu won favour with the Chinese authorities by committing the Black Flag Army to a Chinese punitive campaign against the Yellow Flags, which gave him the opportunity to cripple this rival bandit army.

The profits that accrued from this extortion were so great that Liu Yongfu's army swelled in numbers during the 1870s, attracting to its ranks adventurers from all over the world.

Liu Yongfu commanded 7,000 black flag soldiers from Guangdong and Guangxi around Tonkin.

On 10 May 1883 Liu Yongfu challenged the French to battle in a taunting message widely placarded on the walls of Hanoi:.

Liu Yongfu makes this proclamation to the French bandits: Everyone knows you are thieves.

Liu Yongfu had now taken the scalps of two French naval commanders in remarkably similar circumstances.

Liu Yongfu began an unconventional campaign against the French, with success.

Liu Yongfu fought two further actions against the French in the autumn of 1883, the Battle of Phu Hoai and the Battle of Palan.

In December 1883 Liu Yongfu suffered a major defeat at the hands of Admiral Amedee Courbet in the Son Tay Campaign.

Liu Yongfu was now in a position to retreat into China if the French pursued him.

Liu Yongfu's fortunes were transformed by the outbreak of the Sino-French War in August 1884.

Liu Yongfu crossed into China with some of his most loyal followers, but the bulk of the Black Flag Army was disbanded on Tonkinese soil in the summer of 1885.

Tang became president of the new republic, and Liu Yongfu was made a brigadier general and given command of resistance forces in southern Taiwan.

Ten days after declaring independence Tang Jingsong fled to Mainland China, and Liu Yongfu replaced him as head of government.

On 20 October 1895 Liu Yongfu fled to the mainland aboard the British-flagged merchant ship SS Thales with the Japanese cruiser Yaeyama in close pursuit.

Yaeyama caught Thales in international waters outside of Amoy, but her boarding party was unable to apprehend Liu Yongfu, who was disguised as a coolie.

Liu Yongfu outlived the Qing dynasty and survived into the second decade of the twentieth century, his reputation growing with the passing years:.

Liu Yongfu continued until the closing years of the dynasty in the employment of the Kwangtung provincial administration, and is said to have been a notable suppressor of bandits and a pacifier of clan feuds, those twin curses of the south China countryside.

Liu Yongfu would take out Garnier's watch and show the picture of the young wife inside the cover.

Liu Yongfu would tell of his challenge to Riviere and describe the battle at Paper Bridge.

Liu Yongfu's published memoirs, for his reminiscences were reverently taken down in writing, have as their main theme the story of this interminable vendetta between expatriate Chinese.