uish it from what followed, that it was a mercenary force of
European and Spanish half-breeds, without a single Chinese in it.

In September 1861 these two men altered their proceedings, and gave a
new turn to the whole question. As it was impossible for them to
recruit foreigners, they induced Takee and his associates to provide
the funds for a native Chinese force, which they undertook to train
and organise. In this task they made considerable progress, and with a
view to making it popular with the Chinese, and also to give the men
confidence, this new force was named, probably by Takee, the Chun Chen
Chun or Ever Victorious Army. This proud title was given long before
the claim to it was justified, but its subsequent appropriateness has
buried in oblivion the slender claim it possessed to it on its
inception.

By the end of January 1862 Ward had succeeded in training two
regiments of 1000 men each, and with these he captured Quanfuling and
200 boats in the rear of the Taeping force, which attacked Shanghai
for a third time in that month. When the English and French forces
assumed the offensive before the arrival of Sir Charles Staveley, part
of Ward's Corps accompanied them in the attack on Kachiaou. It led the
attack, and behaved extremely well, thus giving rise to very
favourable anticipations as to what a properly-trained Chinese army
might do.

In a second action at Tseedong the force maintained the reputation it
had gained. The Chinese fought with great bravery, and the difficulty,
in fact, was in keeping them back. The English general reviewed them
after this encounter, and declared himself much impressed with their
appearance. Representations were made at Peking, and on 16th March
1862 an Imperial decree gave the first public recognition of the Ever
Victorious Army.

Although reverses followed, the Corps maintained the reputation it had
gained for steadiness and discipline. Under General Staveley at
Wongkadza it acted well and lost heavily, and in all the subsequent
movements of that officer it took a prominent part. When Tsingpu was
captured, as already described, one of Ward's regiments was left in it
as a garrison, but on the evacuation of that place in consequence of
the return of Chung Wang with fresh and more numerous forces, it
narrowly escaped annihilation. It was then that the Taeping general
named them in scornful irony, "Cha-Yang-Kweitser," or "Sham Foreign
Devils," the point of the sarcasm bei