BELLIGERENT // 0 wars
Black Flag Army
Wikidata · Q1331363
Profile
The Black Flag Army was a splinter remnant of a bandit and mercenary group recruited largely from soldiers of ethnic Zhuang background and former Taiping soldiers who crossed the border in 1865 from Guangxi, China into northern Vietnam, during the Nguyễn dynasty, and were hired and sponsored by Vietnamese authorities to fight against other bandits and rebels. Although brigands, they were known mainly for their fights against the invading French forces, who were then moving into Tonkin. The Black Flag Army is so named because of the preference of its commander, Liu Yongfu, for using black command flags.