I plan on writing a TL which involves changes to the events of the Taiping Rebellion. For research I just furnished the book "The Devil Soldier" by Caleb Carr. For those who don't know it is a biography on Fredrick Townsend Ward who was an American adventurer and founder of the Chinese unit "The Ever Victorious Army". The main change that I have in mind is to prevent Ward's OTL death in 1862 so that he survives the war.
This leads to one butterfly that I'd like to analyze in this thread. After Ward's death leadership of the EVA went through several hands before being given to Charles George Gordon who is famous for his death at Kartoum. His command of the unit ended up giving him the nickname "Chinese Gordon" and as I understand it jumpstarted his military career.
Now I currently know little of Gordon's life so I'd like to learn from others how his life would have been different if he had never been given command of the EVA.
This leads to one butterfly that I'd like to analyze in this thread. After Ward's death leadership of the EVA went through several hands before being given to Charles George Gordon who is famous for his death at Kartoum. His command of the unit ended up giving him the nickname "Chinese Gordon" and as I understand it jumpstarted his military career.
Now I currently know little of Gordon's life so I'd like to learn from others how his life would have been different if he had never been given command of the EVA.