After the Opium War, foreigners became the "Emperor Taishang" of the Qing government, and they could not move or fight against them, and they had to offer their courtesy and please them. Because once foreigners had accidents in China, they would always be caught by the great powers, and it was another invasion of China, which frightened the Qing government. However, as an official of the Qing Dynasty, Li Hongzhang once quietly drowned a foreigner.
Li Hongzhang we are all more familiar with, so this article mainly introduces this unlucky foreigner, his name is Bai Qiwen. Bai Zivin was an American who had joined the French Army in the Crimean War. He was an adventurous man who traveled the world, reaching Australia, India and other places, before reaching Shanghai, China.
At that time, China was in the midst of a war between the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Qing government, but the Qing army lost one after another. In order to defeat the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Qing government decided to form a "foreign gun team" composed of foreigners, and Bai Qiwen joined this mercenary army because of his combat experience and became an adjutant general in the army. This is the "victorious army" led by Wahl.
In a battle with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the leader of the Changsheng Army, Hua'er, was unfortunately killed, and Bai Qiwen took over Hua'er's position. Bai Qiwen always looked down on the troops and officials of the Qing Dynasty, believing that they were backward and incompetent, so they were very arrogant. Once the Qing government failed to pay them in time, Bai Qiwen injured the Qing officials and stole 40,000 taels of silver from the warehouse. This bad incident made Li Hongzhang particularly angry and dismissed Bai Qiwen from his post.
Bai Qiwen repeatedly asked for reinstatement, but was rejected by Li Hongzhang. Enraged, Bai Qiwen snatched the supplies of the Changsheng Army, purchased a large amount of ammunition, and went to defect to the Taiping Army. In the Taiping Army, he gathered some old troops and helped the Taiping Army train troops. He had thought that Hong Xiuquan would give him a large army to command, but in the end there were only a handful of people. When the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was about to collapse, Bai Qiwen surrendered to the Changsheng Army.
However, Li Hongzhang did not intend to let him go and capture Bai Qiwen. Of course, the US minister would not let his own nationals be arrested and immediately ask Li Hongzhang for someone. Li Hongzhang knew that once Bai Qiwen returned to the hands of the American minister, he could regain his freedom, so on the way to escort, he secretly ordered him to drown, disguised as an accident that accidentally fell into the water.
Because there was no evidence, the US minister could only eat Huang Lian dumbly, and could not pursue Li Hongzhang's fault, so that the matter passed.