Li Xiucheng, military leader of the Taiping…

Li Xiucheng, military leader of the Taiping Rebellion from 1860, tries to expand the Taiping conquests by taking the large North China trading city of Shanghai.

As a result, Western forces based in the city began to aid the Imperial government.

With Taiping forces about to take the city, Frederick Townsend Ward, a  twenty-nine-year-old American adventurer, organizes a force of foreign mercenaries and helps to save the city.

At this time, the Western powers are still attempting to maintain neutrality in the civil war, and the British arrest Ward to halt his military aid to the dynasty.

He escapes, however.