Late Qing: From Huai Army Sentry Captain to Pillar of the Beiyang

He woke up as a low-ranking militiaman newly recruited by the Huai Army outside Shanghai in 1862. Above him was Li Hongzhang, leading the Huai Army against the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Nian Rebellion, foreign gunmen, and the warships of the great powers: this was the worst hand in the late Qing Dynasty. Fortunately, he remembered how every battle had been lost. This time, he would not lose a single one. From commanding a squad in the defense of Shanghai to Korea, Zhennanguan, and the Beiyang Fleet, he would turn around every defeat of the late Qing, one battle at a time. In the year of the First Sino-Japanese War, a Japanese officer asked, “What makes you think you can win?” He pointed to the ironclads behind him. “This.”