black flag

The Black Flag Army (Chinese: 黑旗軍; pinyin: HēiqíJūn; Vietnamese: Quân cờ đen, chữ Nôm: 軍旗黰) was a splinter remnant of a bandit group recruited largely from soldiers of ethnic Zhuang background, who crossed the border in 1865 from Guangxi, China into northern Vietnam, during the Nguyễn dynasty. Although brigands, they were known mainly for their fights against the invading French forces, who were then moving into Tonkin (northern Vietnam). The Black Flag Army is so named because of the preference of its commander, Liu Yongfu, for using black command flags.
The army was officially disbanded in 1885 as a result of the Treaty of Tientsin between France and China. However, remnants of the army continued to wage a guerilla war against French colonial authorities for years. With the sanction of both Vietnamese and Chinese authorities, the Black Flags joined the Vietnamese irregular forces, stemming French encroachment beyond the Red River Delta.

View More On Wikipedia.org