The Traditional Qing Military System and the Rise of the Yongying

For the first two centuries of its existence, the Qing dynasty's army was divided into two distinct branches. The first branch was the Banner Army (baqi , literally the "eight banners"), an organization of hereditary soldiers established before the Manchu penetration of the Great Wall. This army was primarily a Manchu force in that most adult male members of the Manchu tribal population were enrolled in it, but elements of it were also culled from Chinese and Mongol subject populations. After the Manchu conquest of China proper, most of the Banner Army was concentrated in garrisons around Beijing as a capital guard. Another large portion, stationed in the northeast, protected the Manchu homeland. Finally, other Banner garrisons were located at strategic points throughout the provinces and along the northern frontier.^[1] The second branch of the Qing military was the Green Standard Army (lüying ). This was a predominantly Han Chinese force, formed after the Manchu conquest, largely modeled on the military organization of the preceding Ming dynasty. Charged primarily with the maintenance of local order, Green Standard troops were scattered throughout the country in small garrisons.^[2]

One significant feature of the traditional Qing military system was its careful elaboration of checks and balances aimed at preventing the concentration of military power in a manner that might present a threat to dynastic rule. The separation of Banner and Green Standard armies was in itself an attempt to make each branch serve as a check on the other. Thus, no unified command was ever created over both of these branches, and each had its own distinct administration. Even the troop deployment of the two branches had a counterbalancing purpose. Although the Green Standard Army was over twice as large as the Banner Army, the Banner Army's larger, strategically placed garrisons served as a check upon the more fragmented Green Standard forces.^[3]

Internal divisions of authority within each of the two military

branches also hindered any concentration of military power. The Banner Army derived its name from the individual "banners," or units, of which it was composed, each identified by its own distinctive colored flag. While each banner had its own separate command structure and bureaucratic administration, Banner Army garrisons were formed not by one banner but by a combination of forces taken from a number of different banners. Thus even within the dynasty's most loyal forces, organizational divisions weakened the power of individual garrison commanders. The lines of authority in the Green Standard Army were even more intricate. Provincial commanders-in-chief (tidu ) theoretically had direct command over all the Green Standard units in any one province. However, provincial governors and governors-general also had broad supervisory powers over the Green Standard forces in their territories, and sometimes even more direct command over specific Green Standard units. At the same time, the military authority of these two offices overlapped in a way not unlike the counterbalancing of their positions in the civil administration. Finally, in major military campaigns, special expeditionary forces were formed by combining a number of different units from both Banner and Green Standard armies. The commanders of such campaigns were often appointed, not from among the officers of any of its component forces, but from the ranks of the civil bureaucracy. Thus, the traditional organization of Qing armies blurred military authority and chains of command in such a way as to hinder the accumulation of military power in the hands of any one official or any one military officer.^[4]

Beyond the division of authority between and within its two military branches, the Qing court also relied on other measures to enhance dynastic control over its armies. First, the court appointed most military officers directly, thus keeping them dependent on imperial favor. As with civil officials, Green Standard commanders were not allowed to serve in their home provinces. This "law of avoidance" hindered possible combinations of military power with local interests. At the same time, frequent rotation of military officers at all levels prevented the establishment of close ties among officers, or between officers and their men. Finally, all military units were kept financially dependent by direct funding from the central Board of Finance. By such policies the dynasty carefully guarded against the development of independent personal or local bases of power within the military.^[5]

While the complicated system of checks and balances within the Qing armed forces protected the dynasty from a military threat from below, it also reduced military effectiveness by hindering coordination

and initiative. The advantages of the traditional system might have offset its disadvantages if the quality of the troops themselves had remained high. Unfortunately for the dynasty, the fighting ability of both Banner and Green Standard forces deteriorated steadily over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The Banner Army began to decline soon after the Manchu conquest of China was completed. The quality of Banner officers suffered inasmuch as talented Manchus found better career opportunities within the dynasty's civil administration, leaving less able men in command of Banner forces. With fewer wars to fight, sedentary garrison life also quickly blunted the military skills and martial ardor that had originally characterized the frontier soldiers of the Banner Army. Banner soldiers, forbidden to leave military service for other occupations, were also demoralized by policies that kept their pay constant despite rising prices. By the mid eighteenth century the Banner Army had become an indolent force that could no longer be relied on to meet the dynasty's defensive needs.^[6]

Green Standard forces maintained their effectiveness for a longer period, but they also suffered from officers who ignored military training and lined their pockets with cuts from their men's already low pay. In order to survive, Green Standard soldiers were forced to moonlight; often they simply deserted. This only encouraged further embezzlement by officers who maintained the fiction of full-strength units. By the nineteenth century, many Green Standard units were reduced to one-half, and in extreme cases to one-sixth, of their official size.^[7] In 1851, officials responding to a call for counsel from the Xianfeng emperor recited a familiar litany of the problems besetting the dynasty's armies: underpaid and abused soldiers, corrupt officers, padded enrollments, and neglected training.^[8]

The serious consequences of the decline of the Qing army did not become fully apparent until the mid nineteenth century, when the dynasty faced a conjunction of serious external and internal military threats. The Opium War (1839–42) initiated a period of more forceful Western pressure on China to open up to foreign trade and religious proselytization. China's defeat in this war exposed the weak and demoralized condition of its armies and raised questions about the Qing dynasty's ability to provide more than minimal defense, but Western military threats were for a time blunted by treaty concessions. A more serious challenge came from a series of internal rebellions, the most significant of which was the Taiping Rebellion (1851–64). The steady defeat of both Banner and Green Standard forces by Taiping armies

endangered the very existence of the dynasty. The crisis of the Taiping Rebellion forced the dynasty to abandon some of its military traditions in order to experiment with new and more effective types of military organization.

As its armies fell back before the spread of rebellion, the court's attention was drawn to the only forces that were showing some success against the rebels, namely, militias (tuanlian ) and more highly militarized local mercenary corps (xiangyong , literally "village braves") raised by local elites for community self-defense. The dynasty conceded that its best hope for survival might lie with these local units. At the same time, it also retained ambiguous feelings about the existence of armed forces outside the more carefully controlled traditional military system. Thus while officially approving the organization of local forces, the court also sent a number of high civil officials back to their home provinces as "militia commissioners" to supervise, and ensure the loyalty of, these forces. One of these commissioners, and the most important person in the subsequent development of new military forces, was Zeng Guofan. Returning to his native Hunan in 1852, Zeng realized that purely local-level militarization would be insufficient to defeat the Taipings. While retaining the fiction that he was simply promoting militia recruitment, Zeng set about creating a new and larger military organization. By absorbing local mercenary corps and new recruits, Zeng eventually raised over 130,000 men for his Xiang (Hunan) Army. This army became the model for the formation of other similar forces, the most important of which was Li Hongzhang's Huai (Anhui) Army. These new forces, the yongying (literally "brave battalions"), provided the military power that finally defeated midcentury rebellions and restored peace to the empire.^[9]

One reason for the success of the yongying was an organizational structure that provided a degree of cohesion lacking in Banner and Green Standard forces. Departing from the depersonalized bureaucratic structure of the traditional military system, yongying leaders like Zeng and Li chose their own subordinate commanders, often from among their relatives, friends, or classmates. These commanders then selected their subordinate officers, who in turn personally supervised the recruitment of their soldiers. Reflecting this personally based organization, yongying units at the lowest level were often identified by the names of the men who both recruited and led them. Yongying units were in fact so closely identified with the men who formed them that they often had to be disbanded upon their deaths. As a further cohesive measure, individual yongying units were usually recruited from

specific localities, and the army as a whole from one particular region or province. As seen in the names of Zeng Guofan's Xiang Army and Li Hongzhang's Huai Army, the regional bases of the yongying also became one of their identifying characteristics. Yongying units were therefore bound together by a chain of consciously promoted personal loyalties and local ties. These particularistic features of yongying organization fostered better coordination among officers, closer relations between officers and men, and higher overall morale. At the same time, an uncomplicated pyramidal organizational structure permitted an efficiency of command that was impossible under the traditional military system. The formation of the yongying provides an interesting example of a situation where a search for military effectiveness led to rejection of more impersonal, bureaucratic organizational features that would normally be considered more "modern" and hence more effective.

While the organizational features of the yongying had undeniable military advantages, they also gave an unprecedented amount of power to yongying leaders. First, these leaders were largely free of the overlapping checks and balances that had limited the military authority of army commanders under the previous military system. Second, since these commanders personally controlled recruitment, appointments, and promotions in their armies, they were able to ensure a high level of personal loyalty from their subordinate officers and men. Finally, measures taken to meet the financial and administrative needs of the yongying also served to increase the powers of their commanders. The financially strapped court could not provide sufficient funds to meet the basic needs of these new military forces, let alone maintain the high pay standards needed to preserve troop morale. Therefore, following precedents established in the financing of local militias, yongying commanders gained permission to impose local commercial taxes, called lijin , for the support of their armies.^[10] These taxes provided yongying commanders with funding sources largely independent of central control. At the same time, by becoming the paymasters of their own armies these commanders again strengthened their personal control over their men. To administer the personnel, logistical, and financial needs of his army, Zeng Guofan also expanded his personal secretariat (mufu ) into a sophisticated private bureaucracy.^[11] Other yongying leaders followed Zeng's example in creating large support staffs that remained largely free of central bureaucratic control.

As the value of the yongying became clear, the Qing court pro-

moted many yongying commanders to governorships and governor-generalships, giving them further powers to marshal local resources to meet the needs of their armies. Such commanders thus extended their authority from their military commands into civil administration. Other yongying commanders and officers were also rewarded with other civil titles and appointments. As a result, in the postrebellion period a large number of high court and provincial posts were in the hands of men with yongying backgrounds. Top yongying leaders like Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang would emerge as the empire's leading statesmen. In the context of the midcentury rebellions, new forms of military power had thus become a medium for political advancement.

The principle behind the traditional system of military organization had been to prevent the concentration of power in the hands of military commanders. Military exigency in the mid nineteenth century forced the dynasty to modify this principle and allow an unprecedented aggrandizement of military, financial, and administrative powers by yongying leaders. Although these new forces may have saved the dynasty from defeat at the hands of internal rebels, the court's acceptance of these personally oriented organizations was something of a political risk. In the end, only the yongying commanders' loyalty to the Qing ensured the commitment of their armies to dynastic interests. Except for this loyalty, the personal military power of yongying leaders in many respects resembled that of warlords under the Republic. It is hardly surprising, then, that some scholars have seen the rise of yongying as a pivotal event that led inexorably both to the collapse of the Qing dynasty and to the rise of warlordism.