Terminology
95
Button : The knobs used by the Manchu dynasty to indicate rank, worn on top of caps. They were either transparent or opaque and, depending on rank, red, blue, white or plain gold.
Cash: the only coin cast in Imperial China prior to modernisation in the early twentieth century; a crude copper disk each with a square hole in the centre for convenience in carrying a large quantity, hence the expression ‘strings of cash'. Cash, like taels [see below] lacked uniformity in value, and strings, normally a thousand cash, often were composed of 700 pieces or even 1100 according to the regulations prevailing in the locality at the time. Giles claimed that the name was derived from Caixa, the Moorish name for the coin found at Malacca by the Portuguese in AD 1511.
Ch'al-kuan : Orderly Officers. These were men of all ranks, risen from the lowest grades, and were the operative staff of any commander.
Chai-tzu #7: a common term for a stockade or more commonly in southern Chinese rural areas, the village outer stockade.
Chen-t'ai #✩ : General of Division and an Area Commander
Chiang-chün #: General, a rank in the Chinese Imperial army used for commanders of reasonably substantial bodies of men be they regular forces or forces recruited for a specific campaign. Mesny explained that any commander lieutenant-colonel and above was referred to as general, and provided a good example with General Hsieh, the adopted son of General Liu, a major commander in the Szechuan force in which Mesny served. Hsieh was only 22 at the time of the campaign, some four years younger than Mesny. He had been the orderly to General Liu and had been adopted by him as his son after Hsieh had carried Liu off the battlefield, saving his life. General Hsieh's command in the Kueichou campaign consisted of the Left-wing Regiment and its second battalion; he could therefore be a regimental commander equating to a full colonel or brigadier at the most in western parlance. Another example is the "solitary battalion' under command of General Ho Te-wu, the Chung-tzu Ying, with Ying being a 'force of a number of battalions' or ‘a lone battalion'.
Terminology
95
Button : The knobs used by the Manchu dynasty to indicate rank, worn on top of caps. They were either transparent or opaque and, depending on rank, red, blue white or plain gold.
Cash the only coin cast in Imperial China prior to modernisation in the early twentieth century; a crude copper disk each with a square hole in the centre for convenience in carrying a large quantity, hence the expression ‘strings of cash', Cash, like taels [see below] lacked uniformity in value, and strings, normally a thousand cash, often were composed of 700 pieces or even 1100 according to the regulations prevailing in the locality at the time. Giles claimed that the name was derived from Caixa, the Moorish name for the coin found at Malacca by the Portuguese in AD 1511.
Ch'al-kuan : Orderly Officers. These were men of all ranks, risen from the lowest grades, and were the operative staff of any commander.
Chai-tzu #7: a common term for a stockade or more commonly in southern Chinese rural areas, the village outer stockade.
Chen-t'al #✩ : General of Division and an Area Commander
Chiang-chün #: General, a rank in the Chinese Imperial army used for commanders of reasonably substantial bodies of men be they regular forces or forces recruited for a specific campaign. Mesny explained that any commander lieutenant-colonel and above was referred to as general, and provided a good example with General Hsieh, the adopted son of General Liu, a major commander in the Szechuan force in which Mesny served. Hsieh was only 22 at the time of the campaign, some four years younger than Mesny. He had been the orderly to General Liu and had been adopted by him as his son after Hsieh had carried Liu off the battlefield, saving his life. General Hsieh's command in the Kueichou campaign consisted of the Left-wing Regiment and its second battalion; he could therefore be a regimental commander equating to a full colonel or brigadier at the most in western parlance. Another example is the "solitary battalion' under command of General Ho Te-wu, the Chung- tzu Ying, with Ying being a 'force of a number of battalions' or ‘a lone battalion'.
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