In the 23rd year of Guangxu (1897), Germany sent troops to Jiaozhou Bay for Juye religious case. Li Bingheng thought that "the land should not be lost" and sent troops to contend with it, so he was deposed as the governor of Sichuan, but he was dismissed because of German pressure before he took office. In the 26th year of Guangxu (1900), he served as Minister of the Yangtze River Navy. After Eight-Nation Alliance captured Dagu Lake, Li Bingheng listed Zhang Zhidong and Liu Kunyi as the southeast mutual insurance advocated by two governors, but then urged them to recruit soldiers to join Weijingshi, and strived for them when Empress Dowager Cixi summoned them. So he led four armies to battle, suffered a crushing defeat in Yangcun (now Wuqing County), retreated to Tongzhou (now Tongzhou District of Beijing) and committed suicide by taking poison. At the beginning of the Loyalty Festival, the Allies later listed Li Bingheng as the chief culprit of the incident and demanded severe punishment. The Qing government refused to be punished for Bingheng's death first, but ordered to seize all official positions and revoke the T-shirt code.