80 + broken up in 1871 on the change of command, there was scarcely a man left in the Force who did not bear one or more scars about his head or face, and it was customary to designate the men in familiar conversation as 'the decorated ones', tai-hua ti Æ9, on account of their wounds. They all received double pay, and deserved it too. Many soldiers served until they were sixty without getting beyond the step of veteran leader of a squad, not even getting the rank of an NCO. When a private soldier desired to get married he received a sum of money varying from two to four taels, and when he died, a similar sum of money was allowed to his relations to bury him with.
A typical example of one of the number of items on military matters published by Mesny in his Miscellany was the system of recruitment for the Chinese Territorial Army of the Green Standard [Lu-ying]. It was, wrote Mesny, by voluntary enlistment. In every garrison town there were a number of young men styled Yu-ting or novices, on probation as it were, for vacancies in the lowest rank of soldiery. These novices received neither pay nor pension but generally got odd jobs about the garrison for which they were given rations and some pittance as a reward. They did however attend all drills and exhibited their skill in handling weapons in the presence of the drill instructors and drill inspectors and obtained certain marks of approbation if considered deserving of such as an encouragement to perseverance in the prosecution of their exercises. When a vacancy in the lowest rank of the soldiery, second class private soldier, occurred these novices were summoned to pass an examination, and the most expert in his exercises and the manliest in appearance usually got the appointment which was that of a garrison soldier, shou-ping, and entered on the pay and ration roll, and were immediately available for active service in garrison or field force units, and would then receive both pay and rations accordingly.
Other items included descriptions of the secretariat, orderly officers, and quartermasters. In every battalion brigade and division or corps of field troops there were always a few officers known as ch'ai-kuan or orderly officers, most of them men of experience risen from the ranks with ranging from a general down to the lowest, the lieutenant. These form the staff of the commander under whose orders they are.
Viceroys and governors of provinces and commanders of divisions of field troops had one or more officers, each and a military secretariat usually of the civil rank of tao-t’ai, styled as Ying-wu Ch'u, established