Black Flag Army
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The Black Flags (Chinese: 黑旗军) were a splinter remnant of the Taiping Rebels, largely of ethnic Zhuang background that crossed the border from Guangxi province of China into Upper Tonkin, in the Empire of Annam from Vietnam in the 1860s or 1880s. It is so named because of its triangular war flag depicting the seven stars of the Big Dipper on a black field.
Under their leader Liu Yongfu (Vietnamese Luu Vinh Phuc), a Zhuang peasant, [Liu was Hakka] they were of use to the Annamese government in suppressing the indigenous tribes that populated the hills between the Red and Black Rivers; consequently, the Annamite court bestowed official rank on Liu Yongfu. The Black Flags also harassed European shipping, mainly French, travelling up the Red River; this harassment led to the dispatch of a French expeditionary force under Commandant Henri Rivière in 1881 and precipitated the Sino-French War. The Black Flags cooperated with Chinese forces during this war, most famously besieging a battalion of the French Foreign Legion at Tuyen Quang.
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