[ { "id": 206525, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1972", "page_number": 73, "title": "RAS-1972", "content_text": "SIR JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART\n\n67\n\nthe charge of the North Division magistrate, who was also Secretary to Government. The Secretary held a dormant commission to administer the affairs of the Territory in the Commissioner's absence. The South Division contained all the rest of the leased Territory, i.e., seventeen out of the twenty-six districts, and it was presided over by the South Division Magistrate, who also acted as District Officer. This gentleman controlled a diminutive police force of a sergeant and seven men, all Chinese; all his other staff were Chinese. Apart from the District Officer, there was only one other European official resident in the South Division, which contained 231 out of the 315 villages of the Territory.\n\nUntil 1906, however, Lockhart as Commissioner could call upon the services of the Chinese Regiment in any emergency which the police were unable to cope with. This Regiment was raised in early 1899 and owed its origin to a suggestion made by Field-Marshal Sir Garnet Wolseley, the Commander-in-Chief, that Chinese troops could be organised at Weihaiwei for use in other places. According to R.F. Johnston: 'They did good service in promptly suppressing an attempted rising in the leased Territory, and on being sent to the front to take part in the operations against the Boxers in 1900, they behaved exceedingly well, both during the attack on Tientsin, and on the march to Peking.' Johnston, it seems, over-praised their contribution for between 1899 and 1901 over 800 deserted and many of them moved straight into Chinese service after having passed through what came to be known as \"the Wei Hai Wei Military School\". As the India Office pointed out, Great Britain was in effect furnishing a \"steady annual supply of trained soldiers\" to China. At its greatest strength the Chinese Regiment numbered 1,300 officers and men but in 1906, the year the Regiment was disbanded, their numbers had fallen to about 600. A few picked men were retained as a permanent police force, and three European non-commissioned officers were provided with appointments on the civil establishment as police inspectors. In 1910, therefore, the entire Territory was policed by only fifty-six Chinese constables and three inspectors. There was no permanent garrison of British troops.\n\nWeihaiwei was officially designated not as a Colony but as a Territory, which meant that Lockhart as Commissioner was head of the local government and subject only to the control of His Majesty exercised through the Secretary of State for the Colonies in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1972.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/gm80qf99h", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 207642, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1976", "page_number": 30, "title": "RAS-1976", "content_text": "STUDY OF MODERNIZATION IN CHINA & JAPAN\n\n15\n\nThe modernizing activities of Li and others were never coordinated by the central government. Nor were any efforts made to integrate the \"regional\" armies of these leaders into the dynasty's \"regular\" military system. At the time of the Sino-Japanese War, the Ch'ing army was little more than a motley collection of diverse armies at various stages of development. There was no standardization in arms, dress or training, no unity in command, and only the most rudimentary commissariat, transport, medical and other services.17 China's two small, uncoordinated provincial military academies did little to improve the situation. China had no draft system and no General Staff. Funding for most modernizing projects (including the armies of Li and others) was irregular and unpredictable. Meanwhile, the \"regular\" military forces of the empire—some of which had undergone cosmetic surgery to become \"re-trained troops\" (lien-chün) or members of the Peking Field Force (shen-chi ying)—continued to consume about two-thirds of the national \"budget.\"t\n\nChina's failure to reform her military institutions in the nineteenth century prevented the emergence of a modern, Western-trained Chinese officer corps. In the eyes of most foreign observers in China, this was the key deficiency of the Chinese army.19 Lacking sufficient numbers of competent Chinese officers, individual Ch'ing officials found it necessary to continue employing foreigners not only to instruct and drill Chinese troops, but also occasionally to lead them.20 The presence of these individuals in Chinese armies often produced or exacerbated anti-foreign feelings, encouraged foreign interference, and created security problems.21 The existence of neutrality laws and other legal obstacles complicated the problem of employing foreigners in a military capacity after the breakdown of the \"Cooperative Policy,\" and the absence of central government guidelines for the employment of foreign nationals encouraged rivalry and intrigue among the Western powers for heightened influence in Chinese military affairs.22 In all, the experience of using foreign military assistance was humiliating, expensive and frustrating.\n\nThe contrast with Japan is striking. Although no less anxious than the Chinese to maintain control over foreign military employees, and to avoid surrendering administrative authority to them, the Japanese treated foreigners far more regularly, rationally, and regally.23 Extremely careful in its centrally-supervised hiring\n\nPage 30\n\nPage 31", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1976.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208312, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1978", "page_number": 36, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "20 \n\nRICHARD J. SMITH \n\ntingents such as the Ever-Victorious Army (Ch'ang-sheng chün) brought Western drill and tactics to literally thousands of Chinese soldiers. Officers from these forces not only instructed their own men, but also trained large numbers of troops for Chinese officials, most notably Li Hung-chang.23 At about the same time, foreign-training programs arose in several port areas, including Tientsin, Shanghai, Ningpo, Foochow and Canton. A number of Green Standard forces at the capital (and eventually elsewhere) were transformed into Western-armed \"retrained armies\" (lien-chün) on the yung-ying model, and several thousand Bannermen were molded into the famous Peking Field Force (Shen-chi ying), established by Wen-hsiang and others.24 \n\nThe Peking Field Force was an especially interesting experiment. Until the late 1860's, selected members of the force were drilled by foreign instructors using English words of command but thereafter, Western-trained Bannermen carried on instruction independently in Manchu. Nominally 20,000 strong throughout most of the late nineteenth century, the Peking Field Force usually numbered closer to half that amount. According to Major A. E. J. Cavendish, a British military attaché in China, the force as late as 1894 was considered to be an elite organization with \"higher pay and quicker promotion\" than in any other Banner units at the capital. Officers in the force were described as \"the pick of the Banners,\" and posts in it were \"eagerly sought after.\" Yet Cavendish formed a decidedly negative opinion of the force, which he described as poorly armed and superficially trained, with emphasis on form rather than content. One can imagine the shape of the rest of the traditional Ch'ing military establishment.25 \n\nA major deficiency in all of the early foreign-training efforts was lack of centralized direction and support. In the absence of adequate central government guidelines, drill procedures, arms, and even the language of instruction varied widely from force to force and area to area. There was virtually no effort on the part of the Ch'ing government to co-ordinate its military programs, or to expand foreign-training in a systematic way.26 In fact, the Manchus seem to have been intent on compartmentalizing Western military knowledge as much as possible—presumably for reasons of internal control. In 1863, for example, the Tsungli Yamen stated explicitly that in the provinces only Bannermen should learn to make", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 208313, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1978", "page_number": 37, "title": "RAS-1978", "content_text": "MILITARY EDUCATION IN CHINA, 1842-1895\n\n21\n\nWestern-style weapons, since they lived in designated garrisons that were \"comparatively easy to guard.\" This early attempt to confine knowledge of foreign weapons to Banner forces, although ultimately unsuccessful, is nonetheless suggestive. As alien conquerors, the Manchus remained somewhat paranoid.28\n\nAnother serious problem with foreign-training programs in the 1860's and 70's was that they were not designed specifically as officer-training schools. Although the Tientsin program did train officers for the Peking Field Force and some Green Standard units as well, it trained the rank and file at the same time, in the same basic way. The emphasis was on military drill rather than on modern officer-education, and immediate military needs were always paramount. As long as rebellion raged, there were compelling reasons to continue producing Western-armed, Western-trained Chinese officers and men, despite the many difficulties involved in employing foreigners. But as the internal threat in a given area subsided, so did enthusiasm for reform; and as it did, the foreign-training programs quickly withered away.29 What remained was a certain number of Western-drilled troops and some low-ranking instructors, but very few officers with a real grasp of Western military knowledge. Again, there was little premium on acquiring it.\n\nBy the mid-1870's, the major rebellions in China had been suppressed, lulling the dynasty into a false sense of security. But it was far less Western-style military education and tactics than a new-found acquaintance with Western-style weapons that brought victory to the Ch'ing forces.30 With superior arms, traditional Chinese strategy and tactics usually sufficed against internal rebels, but such techniques were much less effective against rapidly modernizing external enemies.31 After 1875, the rise of foreign aggression on China's land and maritime frontiers complicated the dynasty's military choices, and made recourse to foreign military assistance all the more difficult.32 Yet in the absence of sufficient numbers of qualified Chinese military personnel for Western-style training, reform-minded Chinese officials continued to look to the West for aid.\n\nPerhaps the most prominent and powerful of these officials was Li Hung-chang, who, with substantial foreign assistance dating from the early 1860's, had by the 1870's built his Anhwei Army into the finest military force in the empire. An examination of", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1978.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212778, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 87, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "72\n\nbasic elements of the social network and were such obvious facts of life that Chinese took them for granted and did not think of them as in any way unusual.\n\nThe Army of the Hsiang was an important Field Force raised in Hunan, especially in the area of the Hsiang River, a sort of counter-balance to the Huai River Army, raised about the same time for the suppression of the Taiping rebellion in the valley of the Yangtze and elsewhere. The Marquis Tseng Kuo-fan was the C-in-C of the Hsiang-chün consisting of Hunan troops which had at first been designated as the Ch'u-chün or Army of Ch'u, a name derived from the ancient state of Ch'u, which comprised the provinces of Hunan and Hupei, as well as other provinces including the whole or part of Anhui and Honan. The Ch'u-chün was commanded by Tso Tsung-t'ang. The Hsiang Army was divided into several army corps or divisions, each numbering from ten to twenty, or even thirty battalions each of five hundred men. Each corps had a distinct designation or appellation, derived from the locality where it was actually organised or from the name or part of the name of the commander of the particular corps. One corps however, the principal one, was styled the Hsiang-ying from its having been organised in the prefecture of Changsha Fu on the banks of the Hsiang River. When more corps were required, however, the name Hsiang-chün was brought into use as with the Huai-chün, to represent all the corps of each army.”\n\nAlthough Mesny obliquely mentioned a higher command, the Ministry of War in Peking, regrettably he did not offer any information which would explain the subordination and chain of command other than telling us that the commander of the Szechuan Force, General T'ang, took his orders from the Viceroy of Szechuan and obtained supplies and funding, when they were forthcoming, from the Szechuanese provincial authorities in Ch'eng-tu.\n\nThe plan now was for the main body of the Ko-i Brigade to advance and occupy the city of Chung-an [Szu] on the Chung-an River by way of Ta-ngai and Chung-pai (later renamed Chung-sheng), whilst another element of the brigade would advance and occupy Huang-p'ing Hsin-chou [New Town].\n\nThe advance began on 18 March 1869. Several days later Chung-an had been occupied and fortified, as had Huang-p'ing New Town. Chung-an was overlooked by hills and mountains occupied by", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 212783, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1992", "page_number": 92, "title": "RAS-1992", "content_text": "77\n\narmy in itself, especially organised to meet the requirements of its own territorial demands or necessities. The various provincial army corps [chün] consisted of two or more territorial divisions called chen besides several [from 3-10] territorial brigades called hsieh. The divisions consisted of several regiments and battalions, both of which were called ying; the regiments were commanded by ts'an-chiang [colonels] or yu-chi [lieutenant-colonels], and battalions by tu-ssu [majors]. Most regiments and battalions were divided into two or more companies, shao; however, a few regiments and battalions were not divided at all, with the officers in each regiment or battalion holding common authority over all portions of the regiment or brigade.\n\nMesny frequently referred to individuals as holding the rank of lieutenant-colonel in one context whilst elsewhere describing them as generals. This was finally clarified in a throwaway line buried in other text when he wrote, 'In China Brigadier-Generals, Colonels and Lieutenant-Colonels in command were all considered to be General officers, that is Chiang-Chün.' General officers, chiang-kuan, in the territorial army were those brigadiers, colonels and lieutenant colonels in command. In field forces the commanders of battalions were also so styled by courtesy irrespective of rank. The same courtesy was extended to the chief of battalion, ying-kuan, in field forces where many of them had only permission to wear a button sometimes of the lowest civil rank and degree.\n\nMesny summarised the order of battle including the Chinese naval forces, with two provinces, Kuangtung and Fukien each having a naval force, and another stationed on the Yangtze. Finally, with the northern steam fleet of iron-clads there was a total of twenty-one army corps, i.e. provincial forces, and four naval corps for the whole Chinese empire. To these had to be added the Tartar Banner forces forming the garrisons of several important towns, Canton, Foochou, Hangchou, Cha-pu, Chinkiang, Nanking, Peking and elsewhere. Also the numerous regular field troops denominated Yung or Lien-chün which had been kept under arms in various parts of the empire since the Taiping Rebellion (which, he added, were a great deal more formidable in numbers as well as effectiveness than the whole of the sedentary garrisons or ordinary chün or army).\n\nIt was not until, literally, the latter days of the first campaign that an overall commander was appointed, with the Szechuan Force commander", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1992.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qf85tx75x", "rank": 0 } ]