The so-called tiger marshal among the thieves is Bai Yanhu, one of the eighteen chiefs among the thieves, and the fierce author. - Zuo Zongtang
In the Ganxi Rebellion during the Tongzhi period, the leader of the Eighteenth Route Rebel Army emerged, known as the "Eighteen Battalions of Dong Zhiyuan", also known as the "Eighteen Marshals of Dong Zhiyuan". They crisscrossed Gansu and Shaanxi, fought fiercely with the Qing army for many years, and were finally wiped out by the Qing army, or surrendered to the Qing army and became the main force of Zuo Zongtang to recover Xinjiang. But there is such a person, he resolutely fought with the Qing army until the last moment, he fought the Gansu-Shaanxi Rebellion and the Xinjiang Campaign, he is the most headache of the Qing army and the most cunning rebel general Bai Yanhu.
Bai Yanhu, a native of Jingyang, Shaanxi, his father and brother are middle-level officers in the Qing army, in the eleventh year of Xianfeng (1861), Bai Yanhu joined the Qing army, it is precisely because of this experience in the Qing army that Bai Yanhu has a certain military command experience and the ability to command the army, which is also the biggest difference between Bai Yanhu and other "illiterate" rebel generals. In the first year of Tongzhi (1862), Chen Decai, the king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, marched west into Shaanxi, when most of the main forces of the Qing army fought against the Taiping army and the Twist army in the south and the Central Plains, and Shaanxi's defense was empty.
Chen Decai's westward expedition destroyed the grassroots ruling order of the Qing court in Shaanxi, and later because the Qing army attacked Tianjing (now Nanjing, the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom at that time), Hong Xiuquan ordered Chen Decai to withdraw his troops back to Tianjing, and the Taiping army did not gain a foothold in Shaanxi. After the Taiping army left, the Ganxi Rebellion broke out, Bai Yanhu saw the decline of the Qing court, so he broke away from the Qing army to join the rebels, because of the experience of the Qing army's regular army, Bai Yanhu mixed in the rebels, and even once defeated the Qing army's fierce general Shaanxi Admiral Lei Zhengwan, famous in the northwest. In the fifth year of Tongzhi (1866), the rebels from all walks of life assembled in Dong Zhiyuan and unified into the 18th battalion, and Bai Yanhu was elected as one of the marshals of the 18th battalion by virtue of his prestige in the rebels.
In the eighth year of Tongzhi (1869), the Qing army broke through Dong Zhiyuan, and Bai Yanhu and the rest of the rebel leaders led 500,000 remnants of the rebel army (including a large number of civilians) to retreat to Jinjibao in Ningxia, and joined forces with the rebel leader Ma Hualong, and the rebel forces were revived. In the winter of the ninth year of Tongzhi (1870), after more than one year of fierce battles, the Qing army captured Jinjibao, the old nest of the rebels, and most of the rebels were annihilated. Bai Yanhu once again led his troops to escape the pursuit of the Qing army, retreated to Hezhou, Gansu, and defected to Hezhou Zhuma. After the Qing army pacified Hezhou, Bai Yanhu fled to Suzhou (now Jiuquan) and joined forces with Ma Wenlu.
In the twelfth year of Tongzhi (1873), the Qing army pacified Suzhou, Ma Wenlu and more than 7,000 captured rebel backbones were shown to the public, and the Gansu-Shaanxi Rebellion that lasted for more than ten years was put down, and Bai Yanhu once again escaped the Qing army, fled into Xinjiang, and took refuge in the warlord Agubai of the Kokand State in Central Asia who invaded Xinjiang at that time. In the second year of Guangxu (1876), Zuo Zongtang launched a campaign to recover Xinjiang, the Qing army was like a bamboo, and soon advanced to the vicinity of Urumqi, Bai Yanhu was ordered by Agu Bai to lead 6,000 people to defend the ancient pasture land (now Miquan County), on June 28, the Qing army captured the ancient pasture land, and completely annihilated the enemy, but Bai Yanhu escaped again.
On April 16, the third year of Guangxu (1877), Agu Bai died violently, and the rebels fell into a struggle for power and profit. Bai Yanhu knew that he was not an opponent of the Qing army, so he dug up the water of the Duhe River as a barrier, so that "the flow was overflowing, more than 100 miles wide", and he wantonly plundered the food and materials of the local people, and fled westward to Kashgar (now Kashgar). Soon after, the Qing army besieged Kashgar, and Bai Yanhu saw that the general trend had gone, and once again "smeared oil on the soles of his feet" and fled to the territory of Tsarist Russia, which placed him in the area of Tokmak on the Chu River. After Zuo Zongtang recovered Xinjiang, he sent people to Tsarist Russia many times to negotiate and ask for the extradition of Bai Yanhu and others, but all of them were rejected by Tsarist Russia. Tsarist Russia also rearmed Bai Yanhu's department, Bai Yanhu repeatedly attacked and harassed the border areas, and the Qing court was overwhelmed and failed to punish Bai Yanhu properly, which also became Zuo Zongtang's biggest regret.