MILITARY EDUCATION IN CHINA, 1842-1895
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special kind of society of its own, and men who had not experienced from the outset the hardships of military life were unable to handle the common soldiers.
The question remains: What kind of training was available to military men in traditional Chinese armies? All the evidence suggests that by the beginning of the nineteenth century, and in fact well before, military education in China was woefully inadequate by almost any standard. Officers were unacquainted with even the rudiments of warfare, and the rank and file received only the most perfunctory drill. As early as the mid-eighteenth century, an investigation ordered by the Ch'ien-lung emperor revealed the lack of basic training in Banner forces everywhere in China Proper. The situation was no better for the degenerate Army of the Green Standard. Yet prior to the twin challenges of internal rebellion and external aggression in the mid-nineteenth century, there was comparatively little incentive for military men to engage in serious professional study, and even less incentive for most Ch'ing scholars to concern themselves with military affairs. As the redoubtable scholar-general Hu Lin-i remarked in the Hsien-feng period: "Under the established system of the dynasty, the military is controlled by the civil, but the civil often disesteems the military." The late Ch'ing period was perhaps the highwater mark of what Lei Hai-tsung describes as China's “a-military culture" (wu-ping ti wen-hua),
The Opium War jolted at least some Ch'ing officials out of their complacency and ignorance. Unfortunately, however, many of those individuals who knew most about the Western military challenge and China's need to reform were least free to speak with complete candor. Lin Tse-hsü is, of course, the best-known example. One official who did speak his mind openly was Ch'i-shan's ill-fated and little-known successor as governor-general of Liang-kuang, Ch'i Kung. In 1842, Ch'i Kung memorialized the throne, suggesting that if China wanted the services of capable men in military affairs, it would be necessary to secure scholarly talent. The way to do this, he proposed, was to reform the traditional civil service examinations. Ch'i's plan was to test advanced candidates in five areas of military expertise: history, strategy and tactics, instrument-making and mathematics, meteorology, and geography as the final exercise (“discourses on policy,” ts'e-lun) in the three-part examination
MILITARY EDUCATION IN CHINA, 1842-1895
17
special kind of society of its own, and men who had not experienced from the outset the hardships of military life were unable to handle the common soldiers."
The question remains: What kind of training was available to military men in traditional Chinese armies? All the evidence sug- gests that by the beginning of the nineteenth century, and in fact well before, military education in China was woefully inadequate by almost any standard. Officers were unacquainted with even the rudiments of warfare, and the rank and file received only the most perfunctory drill. As early as the mid-eighteenth century, an inves- tigation ordered by the Ch'ien-lung emperor revealed the lack of basic training in Banner forces everywhere in China Proper." The situation was no better for the degenerate Army of the Green Standard." Yet prior to the twin challenges of internal rebellion and external aggression in the mid-nineteenth century, there was comparatively little incentive for military men to engage in serious professional study, and even less incentive for most Ch'ing scholars to concern themselves with military affairs. As the redoubtable scholar-general Hu Lin-i remarked in the Hsien-feng period: "Under the established system of the dynasty, the military is controlled by the civil, but the civil often disesteems the military."12 The late Ch'ing period was perhaps the highwater mark of what Lei Hai- tsung describes as China's “a-military culture" (wu-ping ti wen- hua),13
The Opium War jolted at least some Ch'ing officials out of their complacency and ignorance. Unfortunately, however, many of those individuals who knew most about the Western military challenge and China's need to reform were least free to speak with complete candor. Lin Tse-hsü is, of course, the best-known example.14 One official who did speak his mind openly was Ch'i-shan's ill-fated and little-known successor as governor-general of Liang-kuang, Ch'i Kung. In 1842, Ch'i Kung memorialized the throne, suggesting that if China wanted the services of capable men in military affairs, it would be necessary to secure scholarly talent. The way to do this, he proposed, was to reform the traditional civil service examinations. Ch'i's plan was to test advanced candidates in five areas of military expertise history, strategy and tactics, instrument-making and mathematics, meteorology, and geography as the final exercise
("discourses on policy," ts'e-lun) in the three-part examination
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