Why did Filipinos form the guards of the Ever Victorious Army?

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The Filipinos sailors were employed by R. Sidney Gough formerly of Charlestown, SC who provided protection for the shipments of Shanghai's Ningpo Silk Guild. First Frederick Townsend Ward and then Henry Andreas Burgevine briefly served in Gough's "navy" on the steamers Confucius, Pluto, and Paoshan. When the Taiping Rebellion threatened Shanghai, its Tautai Wu Hsu and the Guild's Takee (aka Yang Fang) hired Ward and Burgevine to recover one of the region's strategic cities, Songjiang (or Sungkiang) which the rebels had just overrun. Gough and his Filipinos assisted Ward and Burgevine to expel the Taiping from the city. Since the rewards for recapturing Songjiang exceeded the wages Gough paid, some Filipinos opted to remain with Ward and Burgevine's land force (later called the Ever Victorious Army). Westerners from various nations joined as officers who trained the force's Chinese Braves. The most prominent Filipino was Vicente Macanaya.

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