How did the Taiping Army enter Chile in history?

In recent years, the story of "65438+ remnants of Taiping Army helped Chile defeat Peru in South America in 1960s" began to spread on the Internet. It's probably like this: in 1862, more than 10000 people were scattered in Fujian, and the rest of the Taiping Army, belonging to Li Shixian, the former servant of the king, was transported to Iquique, Peru, South America as "indentured laborers" to dig bird droppings and saltpeter mines. Due to the extremely bad living conditions and working environment, when the "saltpeter war" broke out between Chile and Peru and Bolivia in 1866, these Taiping rebels launched an uprising in response to the Chilean army and defeated the Peruvian army many times. After the war, the Chilean government decided to cede Iquique to the rest of the Taiping rebels to establish an autonomous town, but only if they continued to help Chile attack Peru. The Taiping Army rejected the former request and was willing to choose to integrate into the local society. It is said that at present, about a quarter of Ikik natives are Chinese.

Although the story sounds exciting, it is full of loopholes and unbelievable. First of all, the rest of the Taiping Army did go into exile, but the time was not 1862, because Li Shixian was still fighting in Zhejiang at that time, and it was already 1864+00 months after the fall of Tianjing when Li Shixian was transferred to Fujian.

Secondly, the "saltpeter war" broke out in 1879 and ended in 1883, not 1866 as mentioned in the story. According to historical records, Chile not only did not go to war with Peru and Bolivia in 1866, but signed a border treaty with Bolivia, and the two countries maintained peace for 13 years.

Since there was no war in 1866, why did Taiping Army cooperate with Chile to fight Peru? In addition, most of the Chinese living in Iquique are not descendants of the Taiping Army, but new immigrants from Zhongshan, Guangdong, with more than 700 people.

The historical truth of Peru's South China University of Technology's participation in the "saltpeter war" is this:

From 1849 to 1874, about 65,438+Chinese laborers were plundered and sold to Peru, and were forced to engage in slave labor inferior to cattle and horses. Peru is "the endless hell of Chinese workers, and their blood and sweat make the river in the valley soar". 1In September, 870, China workers (note: China workers account for 6 1.4% of the local residents) in the "araya" plantation in Patty bilka Valley rose up against oppression. Chinese workers in other plantations also responded, and the number of insurgents quickly expanded from 100 to 1200 to 1500. The struggle was directed at the evil planters, and the uprising team destroyed one plantation after another and even attacked the coastal towns of Patty bilka and Barenka. However, under the repression of the ruling class in Peru, this great uprising "unprecedented in scale and intensity in Peru's coastal areas" failed.

/kloc-after the outbreak of the saltpeter war in 0/879, Chinese workers who hated Peruvian planters simply thought that "Chileans would liberate them from semi-slavery". Therefore, when the Chilean army advanced to the Peruvian capital, the vast number of Chinese workers actively assisted the former in fighting. South China University of Technology has 2000 volunteers. They have organized the Vulcan camp alone, and their leader, Jinting Draquintana, has made a name for himself in the battle.

However, after the war, the victorious Chilean military betrayed its faith, shackled Chinese workers, escorted them to the saltpeter producing areas in the border areas, and forced them to engage in slave labor. On this matter, Patricio Lynch, then commander-in-chief of the Chilean army, bluntly admitted in his memoirs that he had negotiated with the Peruvian planter and returned the fugitive workers from China to the latter. The reason is that Chile was occupying Peru militarily at that time, hoping to win the support of the country's upper class (especially the big planters) and needed to squeeze Chinese workers for materials without compensation.