Gong Deshu besieged Huoqiu in March 1857 and annihilated more than 800 Qing troops. Xuan and Su Tianfu were ordered to meet the Taiping army of Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng who went north from Lu'an, and the two armies met at the junction of Huoqiu and Lu'an. Soon after, he and the Taiping army once shared Shucheng and Taozhen, and then withdrew. In November, he led his troops to defeat Li Mengqun, the political envoy of Anhui, in Dushan Town, Lu'an.

In the spring of 1857, Li Xiucheng and Chen Yucheng defeated the three divisions of the Qing army, went north to Lu'an and Huoqiu, and joined the Twist army, and the troops pointed directly at Hubei.

In the spring of the seventh year of Xianfeng (1857), Hou Shiwei stayed in Pheasant River and united with the Yellow Banner Zhang Minxing. Hongqi and Huangqi once went on expeditions to Shandong and other places with Li Cheng and Zhao Haoran, and assisted Zhang Minxing in operating Zhuwei in the north of Hubei. Su Tianfu and Zhang Lexing's two armies jointly crossed the Huai River, captured the important commercial town of Sanhejian, and joined forces with Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to join Huoqiu and Zhengyangguan. From then on, Zhang Lexing and other twisted troops accepted the leadership of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and cooperated with the Taiping Army on the condition of listening to the division and not listening to the call, but did not accept the adaptation. Accepting the title and leadership of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, changing the banner of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Zhang Lexing was named the chief general of the expedition to the north, and later changed the title of King Wo. Hong Xiuquan enshrined Su Tianfu as the "Marquis of Heaven". Fighting side by side with the Taiping army, the Qing Zhengfu panicked, and successively sent Shengbao, Yuan Jiasan and others to suppress the Twist Army. After that, Su Tianfu's troops and the Taiping army fought together in the Jianghuai region for five years, and strongly supported the Taiping Rebellion. He successively conquered Huoqiu, Dingyuan and other county seats, defeated the Qing army in a row, accumulated merit and was named a general, and Jin Jue swept the king of the north. Soon, the Taiping army withdrew, and Zhang Lexing had no choice but to lead his army north and control the middle reaches of the Huai River. In the summer of the following year, he cooperated with the Taiping army to capture Dingyuan, continuously expanded the occupied area, and attacked Henan, northern Jiangsu, and Shandong to annihilate the Qing army.

In 1857, on March 3 of the seventh year of Xianfeng, Sun Kuixin besieged Huoqiu, and joined forces with Li Xiucheng and Chen Yucheng, generals of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, outside Huoqiu City to accept its leadership. In October of that year, Zhang Lexing was trapped in Zhengyang Pass, Sun Kuixin, Gong Deshu and Li Zhaoshou were reinforced, and Zhang Lexing was able to break through to Lu'an. However, due to the loose organization, poor weapons, and lack of training, after the Qing army participating in the battle changed from few to many, and the twisted army changed from offensive to defensive, only a few main forces such as Zhang Lexing blocked the Qing army head-on, and the rest defended the village for self-protection, resulting in the Pheasant River base area being captured by the Qing army. In the spring of 1857, Zhang Lexing led the Twist Army to cross the Huai River to the south, joined forces with the Taiping Army Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng who went north, accepted the leadership of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and fought jointly with the Taiping Army to resist the siege of the Qing army on both sides of the Huai River, and once invaded Hubei.

In early March, they joined forces with the Taiping army in the border area of Huoqiu and Lu'an. The meeting of the two armies in Huainan was inseparable from the situation at that time. Because the Twist Army was under heavy pressure from the Qing army, it had to enlist the help of the Taiping army; Due to the Tenkyo Rebellion in 1856, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was greatly weakened, and it was urgent to unite friendly forces against the enemy. A common struggle binds them together. Zhang Lexing realized this and took the initiative to send Gong Deshu, Su Tianfu and others to greet the Taiping Army; The Taiping Army, Yutianhou Chen Yucheng, Hetianhou Li Xiucheng and others also led their troops north to join the army. Through this meeting, the Twist Army accepted the leadership of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to a certain extent. The two armies marched together to launch a powerful offensive against the enemy, occupying Zhengyang Pass and Huoqiu in Anhui Province, and achieving the first results.

After the end of the Second Duck Slice War, the Qing Zhengfu transferred the monk Greenqin to lead the troops from Zhili to the south. The Twist Army successively defeated the Qing army in Juye Yangshanji, Heze Lijiazhuang, and Wenshang Yangliuji.

On July 16, 1857, the Qing army first captured Jurong, and on December 27, it captured Zhenjiang and Guazhou.

In September, Hong Xiuquan was forced to send an envoy to invite Shi Dakai to return to Beijing, and Shi Dakai said that he would not return to Beijing, but would transfer Chen Yucheng, Li Xiucheng, Wei Jun and other generals to return to help, and continue to fight for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom as the "chief general of the Tong Army". Hong Xiuquan approved this plan, and the Tianjing officials recognized Shi Dakai's subsequent operations as an expedition of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. After that, Shi Dakai successively fought in Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and other provinces on the periphery of Tianjing, containing a large number of Qing troops and relieving the military pressure on Tianjing and Anhui.

At the end of 1857, there was a disagreement within the Twist Army led by Zhang Lexing, and part of the Twist Army led by the Blue Banner general Liu Hungry Wolf (Liu Yongjing) insisted on returning to Huaibei and was killed by Zhang Lexing and others. The Twist Army then split, and most of the banner owners returned to Huaibei, only Zhang Lexing, Gong De and a few others remained in Huainan and maintained a close relationship with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. There are also some such as Sun Kuixin, Zhang Zongyu, etc., who moved to the north and south, and went deep into Henan and Shandong, promoting the local people to revolt against the Qing Dynasty in various forms. In northern Anhui and northern Jiangsu, the Twist Army either cooperated with the Taiping Army or fought independently, and repeatedly broke the Qing Army.