General Gordon's Garden, Khartoum, Sudan, c1890. Known as 'Chinese Gordon' because of his exploits in China in the Second Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion, Charles George Gordon (1833-1885) was a British Army officer and colonial administrator. Appointed Governor-General of the Sudan in 1880, he was killed at Khartoum on 26 January 1885 when the forces of the Mahdi overwhelmed the city. Lantern slide.