Modern Chinese Warfare, 1795-1989

Bruce A. Elleman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781134610082
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Why did the Chinese empire collapse and why did it take so long for a new government to reunite China? Modern Chinese Warfare, 1795-1989 seeks to answer these questions by exploring the most important domestic and international conflicts over the past two hundred years, from the last half of the Qing empire through to modern day China. It reveals how most of China's wars during this period were fought to preserve unity in China, and examines their distinctly cyclical pattern of imperial decline, domestic chaos and finally the creation of a new unifying dynasty.
By 1989 this cycle appeared complete, but the author asks how long this government will be able to hold power. Exposing China as an imperialist country, and one which has often manipulated western powers in its favour, Bruce Elleman seeks to redress the views of China as a victimised nation.

Part 1
IMPERIAL DECLINE

Figure 1 Imperial decline: ethnic/civil unrest and foreign trade imperialism in the center and in China’s contiguous colonies.

1
THE SECRET SOCIETIES AND QING DYNASTIC DECLINE

On 15 September 1813, a Manchu prince named Mianning used his musket within the walls of the Forbidden City to fire at invading rebels from the Eight Trigram Uprising, thus breaking the age-old imperial dictate that guns should never be fired in the Forbidden City.¹ This action is an entirely appropriate place to begin a discussion of modern Chinese warfare, since the most essential element of modern warfare is the gun and, by extension, artillery. With guns and bayonets, foot soldiers could not only compete with cavalry, they could dominate them:

The customary explanation for this new importance of infantry is that it resulted from the improvement in firearms; and it is true that the invention of the musket, its evolution into the flintlock, and the invention of the bayonet, all led to a pronounced increase in infantry fire power, and hence to an extension of foot soldiery.²

Although gunpowder may have been invented by the Chinese, and its explosive force was often utilized in battle, it was not until the sixteenth century that European muskets found their way back to China through the auspices of Japanese pirates; according to one Ming Dynasty account from 1571, the new guns from Japan were lauded for being superior to bows and arrows. The Chinese quickly adopted western-style artillery as well, and by the seventeenth century had iron guns mounted on carriages. In 1607, a Chinese author, Lü Kun, stated that “firearms are the most important of all weapons.”³

During the seventeenth century, European and Asian weaponry continued to advance on a par, but this situation changed rapidly by the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century with rifled guns and the bayonet, which allowed for the more efficient use of each soldier and promoted new tactics.⁴ With rifles, the effective field of fire for infantry increased from 100–200 yards to 600–800 yards, which gave troops added protection from cavalry charges. With an attached bayonet, often called the “queen of arms,” there was also a “revolution in warfare” in infantry combat, since a foot soldier could be equipped to both shoot and fight hand-to-hand. The bayonet was soon the “sole weapon fit for desperate close combat.”⁵ Finally, in line with rapid advances in military technology, tactics and strategy were also forced to change dramatically. Geoffrey Parker has identified three elements that resulted from this change: “a new use of firepower, a new type of fortifications, and an increase in army size.”⁶ Napoleon Bonaparte was perhaps the most famous of the new strategists, and soon pioneered the principles of “concentration of forces,” “maneuver,” and “combined action.”⁷

It was in these quickly evolving areas of modern weapons, tactics, and strategy that China lagged behind. According to William McNeill, this was no accident but was government policy: “Only the Far East remained apart, owing to Chinese and Japanese governmental policy which deliberately restricted European trade.”⁸ These modernizing changes took place just as China’s Manchu-led Qing Dynasty was reaching its highest peak under the Qianglong Emperor (1736–95). During his sixty years on the throne, Qianglong oversaw the destruction of the Central Asian Ölöd Khan and the subjugation of the Zunghars.⁹ As a result of his military victories, the Chinese Empire permanently absorbed Xinjiang in 1768. Other military endeavors included the suppression of rebellions within China and on Taiwan, and large-scale campaigns to attempt to subjugate Burma and Vietnam. Although not always successful, during Qianglong’s reign the Chinese Empire increased to its largest extent.

Immediately after the Qianglong Emperor retired in 1795, however, the Empire faced a series of domestic rebellions by ethnic minorities, secret societies, and sects under the Jiaqing Emperor (1796–1820) and his successor Daoguang (1820–50). This was not atypical, and David Ralston stated that “the system of rule which the Manchus had instituted had begun to deteriorate by the early nineteenth century . . . a process experienced by every preceding dynasty.”¹⁰ The first of these was the Miao Revolt (1795–1806), the second was the White Lotus Rebellion (1796–1805), and the third was by the Eight Trigram Sect (1813). Although the Qing succeeded in putting down all three uprisings, in addition to quelling Muslim uprisings in Xinjiang during the 1820s,¹¹ this era of rebellion led to incredible destruction and to massive economic dislocation. They also called the dynasty’s “Mandate of Heaven” into question.

To reassure the primarily Han Chinese populace of the validity of the Manchu rule and to re-establish order within China, the Qing Court became even more traditional in its governing and thinking. Unfortunately for China, this era of Qing conservatism occurred just as military reform in Europe was speeding up; the Industrial Revolution in England, in particular, was to usher in dramatic changes. It was in the immediate aftermath of these rebellions that China was to experience its first military defeat in its encounters with the West, as the British traversed half the globe to subdue China in the Opium War.

The Qing military

Before the Opium War (1839–42) and the Arrow War (1856–60), the Qing based their military structure on the traditional Banner system. Although the Qing frequently used their armies for foreign conquest among China’s tributaries and to quell border uprisings, the day-to-day responsibility of the military was to oppose domestic and ethnic uprisings. This fact remained constant during the almost 200-year period from 1795 to 1989, from the Miao Revolt to the Tiananmen Incident.¹² Domestic and ethnic rebellions in China were so frequent that it is almost impossible to count them; for example, according to Robert Jenks, during the Ming Dynasty there were at least seventy-seven Miao rebellions in Guizhou Province alone, or as he estimates “about one every 3.5 years.”¹³ Under the Qing, and later under the Nationalists and Communists, keeping China unified arguably became the army’s almost full-time occupation.

During the Miao, White Lotus, and Eight Trigram rebellions the Qing Army used the Banner system, created by the founder of the Qing Dynasty, Nurhaci. Originally he divided his troops into four Banners—yellow, white, red, and blue—and then later into eight. With the conquest of China, however, Nurhaci created a total of twenty-four Banners, eight each for Manchu, Han, and Mongol troops. The Manchu and Mongol cavalry, in particular, were highly regarded and widely feared. Instead of being concentrated in one place, the Qing spread the various Banners throughout China, with especially large garrisons located in frontier regions in the north and in major cities along the Yangzi. The main function of the Banners “was not defense against external aggression but the preservation of the Qing Empire from internal revolt.”¹⁴

The Bannermen remained separate from the infantry, made up mainly of Han Chinese. The infantry was called the Army of the Green Standard. Its units were located primarily in the northwest, along the coast, and then in southern China. Overall, the command structure of the army was weak, since officers were rotated constantly from post to post to ensure against mutiny. In addition, many military officials obtained their posts because of their academic success in the Imperial Exams rather than for any firsthand knowledge of military affairs.

Estimates of the number of Manchu Bannermen total only 250,000 men. Meanwhile, by 1764 the Green Standard troops had grown to 630,000. Although this number dropped to 590,000 in 1785, it once again rose dramatically to approximately 660,000 in 1812. According to Ralph Powell, the main reason for this sharp increase was that it was the Green Standard that “had pacification duties among the border tribes and internal aborigines.” Accordingly, the “decline noted by 1785 came after the end of the major campaigns of the Qianglong Emperor and the increase by 1812 is attributable to the revolts of the Miao tribes and the White Lotus Society.”¹⁵

The most common weapons of a Qing soldier included swords, shields, and pikes. The Chinese infantry also used a large range of non-standardized weapons. Foreign observers commented on these “military anachronisms” during the Opium War:

bows and arrows; gunpowder so coarse and inferior that, when the English used it to blow up captured works, hundreds of pounds of the stuff sometimes did nothing but shake down bricks and dust; dart rockets with barbed tips . . . spears, halberds, and a curious thing like a hedge chopper fastened to the end of a pole; gongs for signaling, helmets of iron or brass, even chain mail.¹⁶

By the eighteenth century, Chinese-made muskets were commonplace, but they were clearly inferior to their European counterparts:

The Chinese musket, however, was a wretched thing, crudely made, of small caliber, with a touchhole large enough to admit a ten-penny nail. If the charge did not blow out the back, it escaped forward— for . . . the ball went in without wad or ramming. Worst of all, the thing was a matchlock, which is to say it was fired by holding a slow-burning cord over a hole instead of by pulling a trigger. English line regiments had not been issued such a weapon since the reign of Queen Anne.¹⁷

Chinese cannons were numerous, but Chinese infantry did not have field artillery, although the “gingal” resembled a large elephant gun and could fire a ball weighing up to a pound.

Since ancient times, Chinese rulers have proclaimed that “unity” of the Empire was the ultimate goal of the state, because unity meant “domestic peace, the prerequisite for prosperity and civilized life.” To a large degree, the army’s role was to sustain the unity of the Empire and, when necessary, to fight to reinstate it. However, in the Confucian world, the military was subservient to the Mandarin bureaucrat, which considered military means as just one element of state control. This was particularly the case whenever so-called barbarian dynasties ruled China—such as under the Manchus’ Qing Dynasty—when the “Confucian scholars” kept the “conquering barbarian military in their properly subordinate place . . . by helping the barbarian rulers hold power through all the civilian, more-than-military means that the task required.”¹⁸

Frank Kierman and John Fairbank’s Chinese Ways in Warfare was one of the first western books to study Chinese military philosophy. They identified three important characteristics of Chinese warfare: (1) the close interconnection between the military and bureaucracy; (2) a desire to avoid violence whenever possible, and (3) a tendency to rely on defensive, rather than offensive, warfare. Although extermination of an enemy is acceptable, and is on occasion preferable, it is usually “less costly” simply to exhaust and pacify the enemy. Therefore, in the tradition of Sunzi, author of Art of War, the best war is the one that never has to be fought.¹⁹

When war was unavoidable, however, the Chinese military generals would draw no quarter.²⁰ Unlike Europe, where warfare gradually became intertwined with questions of morality, ethics, and international law,²¹ in the Chinese way of thinking there was no universal law governing war, since the highest possible military and political goal was to achieve unity. As a result, the slaughter of innocent civilians and non-combatants was commonplace, and the estimates for the numbers of people killed while quelling China’s internal rebellions during the nineteenth century are in the tens of millions. One estimate of the number of Chinese killed during her twentieth-century wars and political mass movements has topped 115 million.²²

The Miao Revolt (1795–1806)

Throughout much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Qing had to cope with Miao rebellions. The Miao were aboriginal tribes scattered throughout central and western China. They were especially concentrated in Guizhou Province, where about 40–60 percent of the population was composed of minority groups. The main points of friction between the Miao and the Manchus were Qing attempts to bring the Miao leaders within the regular government bureaucracy. Not only did this process interfere with the autonomy of the Miao tribes, but Han settlers and merchants usually followed close behind, which merely created greater ethnic friction. As a result, in 1795 an enormous Miao revolt broke out along the Hunan–Guizhou border. After eleven years, the Qing military finally subdued this revolt in 1806.

Qing’s policy vis-à-vis its minority peoples has traditionally been aimed primarily at “control” rather than absorption. By allowing native chieftains to retain their rule, the minority peoples were “pacified with as little effort and expense as possible.”²³ According to June Dreyer:

Abstention from aggression and a vague commitment of loyalty to the emperor and the Confucian values that he embodied were sufficient to attain this level of integration. Traditional customs, languages, and governing systems were not interfered with so long as they did not pose a threat to the Chinese state. The imperial bureaucracy extended its influence no further down than the xian (county) level, if that far. Barring the rise of a major threat to the peace of the territory under their jurisdiction, most officials had little further interest in the events of these areas.²⁴

As Han settlers moved in ever greater numbers into the mountainous areas inhabited by the Miao, however, the Qing sought to extend bureaucratic control throughout the area. This policy gradually drew local Miao tribal chiefs into the Qing bureaucracy.²⁵

The revolt in 1795 in Hunan and Guizhou was in response to the huge Han immigration into traditionally Miao areas. There was also a great deal of simmering hatred from the previous rebellion in 1735–36. According to Robert Jenks:

The brutal and sanguinary government military operations left a vast reservoir of ill-will and resentment among the Miao. During most of the remainder of the eighteenth century, unrest in Guizhou was relatively small in scale. Incidents were annoyingly frequent from the government point of view, but none of them constituted a serious challenge to governmental authority. Notable features of the period were the growing role played by Han in the unrest and the increase in sectarian influence upon the revolts of both Chinese and ethnic minorities.²⁶

Under the leadership of Shi Sanbao and Shi Liudeng, the Miao rose up against the Han in 1795.

The Qing immediately sent troops into the Miao regions not only to put down the rebels, but to further increase state power: “Lands of rebellious Miao were confiscated by the state, and a chain of military garrisons was built to buttress government power in the Miao areas.” But, this policy of land confiscation exacerbated tensions, especially since rents charged to Miao tenants on government land were “ruinous.”²⁷

The Qing army used traditional military methods to defeat the Miao Revolt.²⁸ Most of the fighting took place in western Hunan, although Miao groups in eastern Guizhou also participated sporadically. Accordingly, the measures taken by the Qing troops were “Draconian,” and included “forced assimilation, larger garrisons of both regular troops and military-agricultural colonists, and the construction of a long wall with manned watchtowers to insure that Miao and Han remained segregated.”²⁹

Following the Banners’ victory, the Qing delegated an official named Fu Nai responsibility for quelling further unrest and stabilizing the Miao areas. He first ordered the establishment of agricultural colonies to keep the Miao under strict military control. In a strong program of sinification, he also ordered an end to all traditional Miao religious practice and the introduction of Chinese education into Miao schools. Finally, although Fu Nai tried to keep the Miao villages separate from Han areas, the pressures caused by new Han immigration increased tensions further. These policies ensured that further Miao uprisings would take place during the 1850s, when the Qing authorities were preoccupied with the Taipings.

The White Lotus Rebellion (1796–1805)

The members of the White Lotus Society (Bailian jiao) were not ethnically different from Han Chinese, but belonged to a popular religious organization that was based on a mixture of Taoism, Buddhism, and Manicheaism. One of its core beliefs was that the dual deities—Buddha and the Manichean “Prince of Light”—would come to earth to establish an earthly paradise. Although there had been White Lotus outbreaks before (for example, in 1622 in Shandong Province) the 1796 rebellion was centered in Hubei, Sichuan, and Shaanxi Provinces.³⁰ It was indirectly sparked by the Miao Revolt, since White Lotus congregations formed their own protective militias, which then rose in open revolt against the Qing Dynasty during February 1796.³¹

The area bordering on Hubei, Sichuan, and Shaanxi was mountainous and inhospitable. In addition to the economic hardship, most settlers were recent immigrants, and so there were social and cultural problems with the neighboring minorities as well. The White Lotus membership included not only poor farmers, but also lower-level officials and yamen clerks. Basing its revolutionary philosophy on a mixture of religion and anti-Manchu Han nationalism, the White Lotus leaders quickly increased their base of support.³²

The military wing of the White Lotus was composed largely of bandits who practiced martial arts, including various boxing techniques. These bandits often allied themse...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Figures
• Preface
• Part 1: Imperial Decline
• Part 2: Imperial Fall
• Part 3: Imperial Interregnum
• Part 4: Imperial Resurgence
• Part 5: The Dynastic Question
• Notes
• Bibliography