Yong Ying (Chinese:
Tuanlian history
editTuanlian (Chinese:
During the Jiaqing reign, with the corrupt and ineffective official military establishment of the Eight Banners and Green Standard Army incapable of curbing the White Lotus Rebellion, the Qing court began to order local gentry and landowners in all ten provinces to organise tuanlian for self-defense, with both funding and control in the hands of local gentry and landowners.[1]
Yong
editYong (Chinese:
The Xiang Army, a "Yung-ying" army in Qing dynasty China, was separate from the Manchu Eight Banners and Green Standard Army. It used modern weapons and the officers were never rotated, so relationships formed between officers and the troops, unlike in the Green Standard and Banner forces.[2]
It was recorded that
Although rations came from public funds, the yung-ying troops were nevertheless grateful to the officers of the battalion for selecting them to be put on the rolls, as if they had received personal favours from the officers. Since in ordinary times there existed [between the officers and the troops] relations of kindness as well as mutual confidence, in battle it could be expected that they would see each other through hardship and adversity.[3]
The soldiers of the Yong ying militias were often poorly equipped with Jingals, swords, spears and antiquated firearms though they did possess modern firearms it was not the norm. They were often poorly housed in barracks and left idle with many becoming addicted to opium and gambling. The commanders of these militias however gained vast power becoming appointed to the positions of governor-generals and governors between 1861 and 1890 of the 44 governor-generals appointed 20 were militia commanders and of the 117 governors appointed in the same time period over 52 were militia commanders with 25% of the governors not possessing the 2 highest grades of the imperial civil service exam[4]
List of Yong Ying Armies
editSee also
editReferences
edit- ^ 谭伯
牛 . "In Chinese:团练之 弊 谭伯牛 ". Book.sina.com.cn. Archived from the original on July 7, 2011. Retrieved 2008-12-21. - ^ Liu, Kwang-ching; Smith, Richard J. (1980). John King Fairbank; Kwang-Ching Liu; Denis Crispin Twitchett (eds.). The Military Challenge: The North-west and the Coast. The Cambridge History of China Series (Part Two: Late Ch'ing, 1800-1911). Vol. 11 (illustrated ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 202. ISBN 0-521-22029-7. Retrieved 2012-01-18.
By the end of the Nien War in 1868, a new kind of military force had emerged as the Ch'ing dynasty's chief bulwark of security. Often referred to by historians as regional armies, these forces were generally described at the time as yung-ying (lit. 'brave battalions').
- ^ John King Fairbank; Kwang-Ching Liu; Denis Crispin Twitchett, eds. (1980). Late Ch'ing, 1800-1911. Vol. 11, Part 2 of The Cambridge History of China Series (illustrated ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 203. ISBN 0-521-22029-7. Retrieved 2012-01-18.
The merit of the yung-ying had lain in the close personal ties between officers and men. Army commanders (t'ung-ling) personally chose the commanders of the various battalions under them. Each battalion commander (ying-kuan) responsible for some 550 men would personally choose his company officers (shao-kuan) who would in turn choose their platoon officers (shih-chang).
- ^ Powell, Ralph (1955). Rise of Chinese military power 1895-1912. Princeton University Press. pp. 31–33.
External links
edit- Yong Ying (Brave Camps) at archive.today (archived 2013-04-18)