RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 MILITARY EDUCATION IN CHINA, 1842-1895 33 The major stumbling block to more pervasive reform was simply the lack of sufficient central government incentive to change, and above all, a fear of upsetting vested interests at all levels of the military. Li Hung-chang himself had such fears, but they might easily have been overcome had the throne given wholehearted support to military reform through financial assistance and other forms of official encouragement, including adequate institutional rewards for the acquisition of new military skills.122 It is true, of course, that state revenues were extremely meager, and that Peking's fears over the threat of foreign interference in Chinese military affairs were not wholly unwarranted.123 But it is also evident that the Manchus, as alien rulers, had no desire to establish a systematic, centralized program of modern military education in China-particularly when it became apparent that Western arms and training could not be confined to the traditional Banner and Green Standard forces. Ironically, had the Manchus undertaken meaningful, centralized reform during the late 1860's and early 1870's, when anti-Manchu sentiment was no longer a political problem and imperialist pressure was minimal, the dynasty might have been able to build a Meiji-style system of military education and dispense with foreign instructors by the early-1890's, as did Japan.124 Instead, the Ch'ing government by stages alienated patriotic Chinese and disappointed the foreign powers by its failure to build a modern, Western-style military force capable of doing more than simply keeping a lid on internal rebellion. Most ironic of all, in seeking foreign talent after the Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese turned to the one-time "dwarf bandits" of Japan, who now began training large numbers of Chinese soldiers in modern military methods both at home and abroad. This new education, and the nationalism that inspired it, had revolutionary consequences. NOTES Abbreviations: CJCC - Chung-Jih chan-cheng CWCK - Ch'ou Wu-chuang-kung i-shu FRUS - Foreign Relations of the United States IWSM - Ch'ou-pan i-wu shih-mo LWCK - Li Wen-chung-kung ch'üan-chi NCH - North-China Herald YWYT - Yang-wu yün-tung ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 MILITARY EDUCATION IN CHINA, 1842-1895 59 Ibid. (Wang), 8. 37 60 Ibid. Wang notes that branch schools of the Tientsin Military Academy were established at Shan-hai-kuan and Wei-hai-wei. 61 Ibid., citing LWCK, Memorials, 74: 25. 62 Ibid., 8-9. 63 Ibid., 7. On Li's financial difficulties, consult Wang, Hual-chin, 275-290; Spector, chapter 7. 64 Wang, "Pei-yang wu-pei hsüeh-t'ang," 9-12. The major problems, according to Wang, were: (1) The administrators of the academy were not well suited to their tasks (non-specialists); (2) the foreign instructors were arrogant, overpaid, unappreciative, and remiss in their teaching responsibilities; (3) heavy reliance on interpreters was inefficient and confusing; and (4) both academic and practical training tended to degenerate into formalism. Other problems included capricious grading, reports of cheating, and shortages and lack of standardization in equipment. For problems in China's other military and naval schools, consult Ayers, 108-113, 179-180, and John Rawlinson, China's Struggle for Naval Development (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), passim. 65 Rawlinson, 163, 169; Ernst Presseisen, Before Aggression (Tucson, 1965), 140-141; NCH, September 21, 1894. 66 For a summary of the fighting on land and sea, consult Liu and Smith, "The Military Challenge." ** 67 See, for example, E. Bujac, Précis de quelques campagnes contemporaines (Paris, 1896), vol. 2; N.W.H. Du Boulay, An Epitome of the China-Japanese War, 1894-95 (London, 1896); Lieutenant Sauvage, La guerre Sino-Japonaise 1894-1895 (Paris, 1897); Richard Wallach, "The War in the East," Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute, 21, 4 (1895); T. A. Brassey, ed., The Naval Annual (Portsmouth, 1895); Vladimir (pseudonym for Zenone Volpicelli), The China-Japan War (London, 1896). 68 On the Japanese response to the war, see Donald Keene, "The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 and Its Cultural Effects in Japan," in Donald Shively, ed., Tradition and Modernization in Japanese Culture (Princeton, 1971); also Jeffery Dorwart, The Pigtail War: American Involvement in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 (Amherst, Mass., 1975), 94-96. 69 Professor Samuel Chu of Ohio State University is currently studying the Chinese response to the war, and has produced several illuminating but as yet unpublished papers on the subject. For the time being, the best available discussion of Chinese attitudes is Kuo Sung-p'ing, "The Chinese Reaction to Foreign Encroachment" (unpublished dissertation, Columbia University, 1953). 70 See Liang Ch'i-ch'ao's critique, cited in Joseph Levenson, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and the Mind of Modern China (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967), 111; consult also Kuo, 49-50, 81-83, etc. 71 Cited in Li Chien-nung, The Political History of China 1840-1928, translated and edited by S. Y. Teng and Jeremy Ingalls (Princeton, Toronto, London and New York, 1956). See also Japanese Imperial General Staff, eds., History of the War between Japan and China (Tokyo, 1904), 1; 30-32. 72 Rawlinson, 190. 73 Liu Feng-han, "Chia-wu chan-cheng shuang-fang ping-li ti fen-hsi," Chung-kuo i-chou, 829 (March 14, 1966) and 830 (March 21, 1966); CJCC, ================================================================================ RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1978 https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8g84t8593 38 RICHARD J. SMITH 1: 15-24; Japanese Imperial General Staff, History of the War between Japan and China, 1: 26-29; Vladimir, 255; Wallach, 718. 74 CJCC, 1: 63; Japanese Imperial General Staff, History of the War between Japan and China, 1: 30-32; Rawlinson, 174-177, 180. 75 See, for example, Presseisen, 140-141; Vladimir, 112, 118, 164, 242-243, 260; Wallach, 718-719. 76 Wang Chia-chien, "Ch'ing-chi ti Hai-chün ya-men (1885-1895)," Chung-kuo li-shih hsüen-hui shih-hsien chi-k'an, no. 5; Rawlinson, 186; Vladimir, 281. 77 See, for example, Chang Yin-lin, "Chia-wu Chung-kuo hai-chün chan-chi k'ao," Ch'ing-hua hsüeh-pao, 10.1 (January, 1935); also CJCC, 4: 72-82, 166-244, 245-271, etc. 78 See Dorwart, 112-113; Cavendish, 717. 79 NCH, January 14, 1898; Vladimir, 267-268, 80 NCH, January 14, 1898; Vladimir, 243. 81 For the participation of Tientsin Military Academy graduates in the early stages of the war, consult CJCC, 1: 18. 82 Vladimir, 126, 193, 248. 83 For criticisms of China's officer corps by foreign contemporaries, consult Du Boulay, 8, 11, 160; Bujac, 217; Brassey, 128-129, 139, 143; NCH, October 19, 1894; etc. 84 Cavendish, 722. 85 Vladimir, 124, 153-154, 192, 198-199, 208, 217, 277; also Wallach, 695, 719; CJCC, 1: 236, 256, 276, etc. 86 Wallach, 709, 712-713; Vladimir, 109, 150, 231, 256; Sauvage, 221. 87 Brassey, 139, 88 Cavendish, 721. 89 Brassey, 127. 90 Vladimir, 251-252; Du Boulay, 73. 91 See Rawlinson, 174-185; CJCC, 1: 34, 63-69, 239-245. 92 Rawlinson, 188-190. 93 See ibid., 175-187; Brassey, 90, 92, 99-101, 110, 115, 120, 124, 127; NCH, February 1, February 8, and March 22, 1895. 94 NCH, January 25 and February 1, 1895. 95 See Powell, 71-72; WCSL, 101: 6b-10; Liu Feng-han, Hsin-chien fu-chün (Taipei, 1967), 45-46. 96 Paul Cohen, Between Tradition and Modernity (Cambridge, Mass., 1974), 108, 232. 97 Roswell Britton, The Chinese Periodical Press 1800-1972 (Shanghai, 1933), esp. chapter, 8. 98 Cited in NCH, October 2, 1896. See also Wang Erh-min, Chung-kuo chin-tai ssu-hsiang shih (Taipei, 1977), 122-123, 124. 99 Ayers, 130-136. ================================================================================